Today as I was perusing the Mac App Store I noticed that CCleaner, one of my favorite windows utilities, was the top free download. Since it worked so well in Windows I figured the Mac version would be worth a shot and I was not disappointed. It cleared about 10GB of cache files. I noticed an immediate performance boost on my system. However this may be because I use an SSD and as you have less space the performance tends to drop-off.

In OS X 10.6.8 Apple added in support for something called TRIM. Basically it’s a method for the computer to maintain the performance of your SSD. However they only enabled it for their hard drives. Yet the geeks among us know that third-party SSDs support TRIM as well. This blog post explains how to enable it after updating to the latest version.

If you do not have an SSD you are missing out! They come in various shapes and sizes but the vendor I hear recommended most is OWC. I personally use a 128GB model made by Kingston and it’s worked fine. A 128GB drive can be had for under $200. Above that the prices get a little more expensive. The downside of the SSD is that space is a bit limited compared to the 500GB and 1TB drives that standard laptops use. I use iCloud and an external 1TB drive to mitigate this issue.