January 10, 2004 - posted by Gilberto J. Saldivar

This is the Feb2005 Macworld magazine. Great article concerning maintenance tips for OS X. Page 62 - Prevent Mac Disasters.

Go get these applications:
SMART-Reporter – Shows you at a glance in the menu bar if your drive is healthy. SMART is built into most new Hard drives - from article “(Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) lets you perform a routine checkup that identifies potential drive failures before they happen, so you have time to update back ups and look for replacement drives.”
http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/

Carbon Copy Cloner – creates an exact “clone” of your hard drive. Hook up an external drive or free up an internal drive - erase it with Apple’s Disk Utility – launch Carbon Copy Cloner – enter your password and clone. Make sure you’ve set the cloned drive to be “bootable” in the preferences. You won’t have to re-install any of your applications.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html


OnyX - from article “program let’s you erase caches, logs, browser cookies, and even Safari’s cached bookmark icons with a few mouse clicks...” Plus it lets you turn on the Debug menu in Safari to allow you to export your bookmarks! BE WARNED – JUST BECAUSE THE OPTIONS ARE THERE – DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD USE ALL OF THEM. Read up on the program.
http://www.titanium.free.fr

Build your own external drive – it’s easy.
Go buy a 3.5” IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) drive. I've seen them on sale at Office Depot 120 gigs $50 with rebates. Look for something with an 8meg cache and 7200 RPM speed. Also you can purchase an external Hard Drive case from CompUSA for about $34.99 on sale. The one I bought was 3.5” IEEE 1394 (firewire) & USB 2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure – it has an on and off switch. All you really need is a Philips screwdriver to put it together. Jumpers - only time you really have to mess with them is if you are putting it inside your Mac. Most all drives come “unformatted.” Once you turn in on – launch Apple’s Disk Utilities – click on the drive and reformat. Most of the time your Mac will tell you it doesn’t recognize the drive and ask you to reformat. If you are using with a Mac – the Mac Extended option is fine. Rename the Drive and erase! I spent $75 for an 80gig external firewire drive.