Should you format your Mac?

Solution 1:

I'd say a full format is almost never necessary, though the only thing you'll lose is time.

I've got an OS X install that I've migrated from computer A to computer B to computer C and back to B and upgraded from Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard (all upgrade-installs, no reformatting or anything) over the past 6 years and it works great.

Solution 2:

Best way to keep it running smoothly is avoiding installing shady software and most of all be very careful if you want to install some cracked stuff.

Keep your hard drive checked and from time to time verify it for errors (Disk utility -> verify) and fix them if needed.

That's what I do to keep my computers (no matter what OS safe).

Just for the statistics for the above method the last 3 OS's I had in chronological order:

• Windows - 1.5 years on Vista (nothing wrong here and I actually still keep it on my old laptop)
• Linux - 1.5 yeras on Gentoo linux (came after Vista on the same machine with dual-boot)
• Mac - January - present (after Linux I migrated to Mac and still don't see any probs at all with the OS).