How to make Snow Leopard fast again?

When I upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard about a year ago, I was amazed at how much faster Snow Leopard was. Everything was so fast and responsive.
A year later and my iMac is running slow. What I'd like to know is, why? What is it that makes Snow Leopard run slower over time? How do you get that responsiveness back?

See:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X, and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X .

Similar Messages

How to make slow reports fast?

Hi all,
How to make slow reports fast? What could be the various reasons and optimizations/solutions?
Thanks,
Charles.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Its an on going process. Couple of steps you will have to follow: Did you perform any SQL trace ..?
Did you perform any ABAP trace...?
How much business data these reports are processing.Is there a possibility you can do some changes.
SQL Trace ( SAP in built tool) will give you a fair idea about each and every SQL statements in your report. And you can anlyze bad ones. And also propse optimized SQL or
index if needed.
ABAP Trace(SAP in bulit tool), you can find out amount of ABAP run time thats being elapsed by each and individual abap module.
Also the amount of business data is every important. While designing the report alogorithm this is very important factor.

How to install Snow Leopard on Macbook Pro? keep getting msg- cannot install Internal HD is used for Time Machine- this was reset to external HD and still get msg?

How to install Snow Leopard on Macbook Pro? keep getting msg- cannot install Internal HD is used for Time Machine- this was reset to external HD and still get msg?

At some point, your internal HD was selected for use as Time Machine backups, and a Backups.backupdb folder was created at the top level. So OSX thinks you're trying to install it on the same drive as your backups.
Open your internal HD with the Finder (you won't find it via a Spotlight or Finder search) and delete that folder.

How to get Snow Leopard for Mac 10.5.8 not Intel Based

how to get snow leopard to not intel based Mac 10.5.8

Is it a Mac Pro, or a Powermac?
At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac.
Then click on More Info>Hardware and report this upto *but not including the Serial#*...
Hardware Overview:
Machine Name: Power Mac G5 Quad
Machine Model: PowerMac11,2
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 4
CPU Speed: 2.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 10 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.2.7f1

How Can I Make My iMac Fast Again?

Using Lion my iMac has become slow. I decided to double my memory and it helped...a little. But overall my iMac is much slower than when it was running Snow Leopard. How do I fix this?

you have too many processes running at once according to the picture above of your activity manager. you have only 140.4 MB of ram that are free and 4.64 GB that are inactive. the other 3+ GB of ram are either wired or active. what each of these means is that you are using 3 GB at one time you have 4+ GB that are doing nothing at all and only 1/10th of a GB that is left for new processes and random movements. my suggestion would be to get the iMemory Cleaner app from the mac app store and use it on your system it will clean out your ram cards and give you a fresh start. Another program i recomend is CleanMyMac.

Is Time Machine under Snow Leopard faster only for the initial backup?

A few days ago, I upgraded to Snow Leopard -- via clean install, manual reinstallation of apps, etc. So understandably, the first Time Machine backup to a preexisting store on an original 500 GB Time Capsule is going to be huge and take a long time. Apple claims that TM is 40% faster on the initial backup, but are there speed improvements as well? I was surprised by the slowness; I started it before going to bed, and it wasn't nearly done when I woke up:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1770
Jan 6 01:29:52 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 8.3 GB of 59.3 GB, 9299 of 250057 items
Jan 6 02:29:52 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 9.6 GB of 59.3 GB, 35209 of 250057 items
Jan 6 03:29:52 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 11.5 GB of 59.3 GB, 48441 of 250057 items
Jan 6 04:29:52 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 12.9 GB of 59.3 GB, 109846 of 250057 items
Jan 6 05:29:53 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 17.4 GB of 59.3 GB, 140388 of 250057 items
Jan 6 06:29:54 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 26.1 GB of 59.3 GB, 151723 of 250057 items
Jan 6 07:29:54 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 36.9 GB of 59.3 GB, 167431 of 250057 items
Jan 6 08:20:04 Musa com.apple.backupd[438]: Copied 219433 files (38.0 GB) from volume Gigas.
The throughput rate is quite variable, but at its best, it's only about 2.7 MB/sec. Is that to be expected, or would I have to start a new backup to see speed improvements?

Kappy wrote:
i'd say you are concerned over nothing.
Not sure I agree. Look at this system.log output:
Jan 6 19:54:22 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 19:54:22 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://odysseus@Time%20Capsule.afpovertcp.tcp.local/odysseus
Jan 6 19:54:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://odysseus@Time%20Capsule.afpovertcp.tcp.local/odysseus
Jan 6 19:54:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 19:54:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 19:54:42 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 20:00:50 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting storage: 72.07 GB requested (including padding), 58.36 GB available before compacting
Jan 6 20:00:50 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 20:00:50 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 20:00:53 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 20:00:53 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 20:01:12 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 20:01:12 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 20:01:12 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 20:01:14 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 20:01:14 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 20:01:20 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 20:07:26 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.07 GB requested (including padding), 58.36 GB available
Jan 6 20:10:46 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2010-01-03-131536: 58.42 GB now available
Jan 6 20:12:10 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2010-01-04-094152: 58.52 GB now available
Jan 6 20:13:02 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2010-01-04-073331: 58.57 GB now available
Jan 6 20:13:02 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 20:13:02 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 20:13:08 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 20:13:08 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 20:13:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 20:13:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 20:13:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 20:13:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 20:13:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 20:13:41 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 20:19:36 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.07 GB requested (including padding), 58.57 GB available
Jan 6 20:20:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2010-01-04-071252: 58.58 GB now available
Jan 6 20:20:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Removed all 1 expired backups, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 6 20:25:17 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2009-07-31-231155: 60.81 GB now available
Jan 6 20:25:17 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted 2 backups: oldest backup is now Aug 15, 2009
Jan 6 20:25:17 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 20:25:20 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 20:25:24 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 20:25:24 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 20:26:39 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 20:26:39 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 20:26:39 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 20:26:41 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 20:26:41 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 20:26:49 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 20:32:46 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.07 GB requested (including padding), 60.81 GB available
Jan 6 20:32:46 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 6 20:47:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2009-08-15-182619: 65.12 GB now available
Jan 6 20:47:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted 1 backups: oldest backup is now Aug 25, 2009
Jan 6 20:47:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 20:47:41 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 20:47:47 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 20:47:47 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 20:49:36 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 20:49:36 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 20:49:36 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 20:49:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 20:49:38 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 20:49:46 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 20:55:48 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.06 GB requested (including padding), 65.12 GB available
Jan 6 20:55:48 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 6 21:05:11 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2009-08-25-185228: 67.32 GB now available
Jan 6 21:05:11 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted 1 backups: oldest backup is now Sep 1, 2009
Jan 6 21:05:11 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 21:05:13 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 21:05:22 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 21:05:22 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 21:06:45 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 21:06:45 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 21:06:45 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 21:06:48 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 21:06:48 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 21:06:57 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 21:12:57 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.06 GB requested (including padding), 67.32 GB available
Jan 6 21:12:57 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 6 21:25:51 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2009-09-01-060212: 69.89 GB now available
Jan 6 21:25:51 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted 1 backups: oldest backup is now Sep 8, 2009
Jan 6 21:25:51 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Stopping backup.
Jan 6 21:25:53 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup canceled.
Jan 6 21:26:00 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jan 6 21:26:00 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Compacting backup disk image to recover free space
Jan 6 21:27:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Completed backup disk image compaction
Jan 6 21:27:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting standard backup
Jan 6 21:27:30 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/odysseus
Jan 6 21:27:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Disk image /Volumes/odysseus/Musa_002332d5c37e.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Musa
Jan 6 21:27:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
Jan 6 21:27:41 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
Jan 6 21:33:37 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 72.06 GB requested (including padding), 69.89 GB available
Jan 6 21:33:37 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 6 21:45:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb/Musa/2009-09-08-081225: 72.34 GB now available
Jan 6 21:45:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Pre-backup thinning completed successfully: 1 backups were deleted
Jan 6 21:45:33 Musa com.apple.backupd[7571]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Sep 15, 2009

How to install Snow Leopard on a Mac with busted dvd drive

My problem is that my Mac Mini doesn't read all CDs or DVDs - including the new Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard that I just bought. From the support articles, I figured that I could install remotely, as you do if you have a MacBook Air. I couldn't get it to work, until I read this article:
http://jasonevangelho.com/2008/11/02/how-to-really-enable-remote-disc-dvd-drive- sharing-non-air-macbook/
All it took was two commands in Terminal.
I hope this will be helpful for others too.

Snow Leopard (SL) upgrade in my mac mini failed part way through and when I tried to re-do the upgrade, it would give me a blue screen (via DVI to my HD TV).
So, following the advice I found elsewhere, I did the following:
Booted up my 24" iMac, inserted SL disk into iMac.
Turned off mini, connected mini to iMac w/firewire cable.
Started mini and pressed and held the T key on the mini keyboard until it mounted on my iMac (seen in Finder) as a hard drive.
Started SL installation icon (iMac) and indicated that I wanted to install on the mini hard drive.
It went through a number of steps, then asked AGAIN which drive I wanted to install SL.
Then took quite a long time (upwards of 1.5 hours) to install, and the estimated time left during the install would sometimes appear frozen at 40 minutes, but the blue bar kept extending indicating it was making progress.
I was able to then boot SL on my iMac off the mini hard drive and configure everything (making sure that back to my Mac/mobile me was up and running and the proper in home network was correct).
Then "shut down" the iMac (which was still running off the mini hard drive), then powered down the mini.
Moved the mini out to it's normal place and reconnected to the HD TV and started it up and everything was perfect.
BTW, as many people know, if you're having video out difficulties with your mac mini, it's nice to be able to go "back to my mac" via another iMac to adjust the configuration. It's saved me a couple of times.

HOW-TO: Integrating Snow Leopard w/LDAP & Automounter

I just finished a week-long personal project where I figured out how to get my three Snow Leopard Macs at home to authenticate against an Ubuntu 9.10 Linux LDAP server (running slapd 2.4.18). It also uses autofs/automounter to automatically mount each user's home directory to when the login to an LDAP account.
There's not a lot of documentation about how to do this out there, so I thought I'd post it here in order to give back to the community:
http://www.backupcentral.com/content/view/306/47/

Is there a way to do this for Macs connected to a PC network? How do I get the Mac to mount a Win shared folder automatically using the username and password of the person logging in tot he Mac. Also, is there a way to invisibly hide the volume (without disconnecting it)from prying eyes on the Mac? I know it can be done thru the Finder->Preferences->Connected Servers but this isn't a foolproof view of hiding it because the user can still always turn this feature on again and can also "see" the volume mounted on the sidebar.
On the PC side "hiding" shared volumes from public/user view was possible while being able to retain access if you knew the exact "path" the hidden server/folder/file.

How to install snow leopard

.How to install snow leopard

Upgrading to Snow Leopard
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store:Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mavericks if your computer meets the requirements.
     Snow Leopard General Requirements
       1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
       2. 1GB of memory
       3. 5GB of available disk space
       4. DVD drive for installation
       5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;
           fees may apply.
       6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and
           terms apply.
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which
         you will be running a fresh install of OS X. You can now begin the update process
         by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your
         installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

How to uninstall Snow Leopard? major font problems in iWork, iLife

All iWork and iLife apps have shocking font problems... so much so that I need to uninstall Snow Leopard and wait for Apple to sort it out. Does anyone know the best way? And how is it possible that these problems are occurring with Apple's inhouse software? Other stuff seems to be working OK so far for the most part. For a bit more detail on my problems, including sample images:
http://bit.ly/309G0o

Snow lizard cost me $27.000.00 in unusable fonts. We installed snow lizards (what I'm calling it now) and lost 934 fonts. Say 40 were bad fonts and 896 were type 1 postscript. When I explained to the tech person how big this was to the print community, he had no clue. - I'm still waiting to hear back. I have a case number but now I read from another post they knew Snow Lizard would do this. At 30.00 per font that is almost $27,000 to replace what they thought wasn't important. But in the print world of design this is huge. Every layout and ad that needs an update - which take a few minutes is a whole rework. They have no clue what business a mac computer is in or they don't see us as important.
I did find if I load those fonts or the font missing into the InDesign font folder I can get the old ad to make it to pdf. But photoshop and illustrator, I'm screwed. And if I didn't outline the type in illustrator - it's gone. I asked the tech guy if I can go back, and undo this slimy lizard and he said probably not if we do backups. We do backups every hour - this is the print business. I feel forsaken. I've been with apple for so many years.

How to get Snow leopard disk

I need to upgrade my iMac (OS X Version 10.5.8) to Snow Leopard. How do I get the disk to do it?

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store
Make sure your Mac meets Snow Leopard's v10.6 minimum requirements here before purchasing.

How to install snow leopard on tiger

I need to update my MacBook Pro form tiger to snow leopard. How should I do? Thanks.

You need to purchase Snow Leopard from Apple's online store's telesales agents.[1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753) or Customer Service and Sales Support at 1-800-676-2775.] Ask for a Sales Representative.
Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:
Snow Leopard from Amazon.com
Snow Leopard from eBay
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.
I suggest that before you install Snow Leopard you make a backup of your current installed system, then erase the drive and make a clean installation of Snow Leopard.

How to Upgrade Snow Leopard Server without erasing existing 10.5.8 settings

Hi,
Please Help,
How do I upgrade my MAC Leopard 10.5.8 Server to MAC Snow Leopard 10.6 Server without erasing (deleting) any server settings (running services) and without erasing my existing workgroup manager (workgroup accounts).
Please help.
Thanks,
Gulab Pasha
<Edited by Host>
XServe Mac OS X (10.5.8) Imac

The following is what we did on a server we are testing to move to 10.6:
-Back up your existing server.
-Make sure your back up will run if you need it.
-Insert the disk and install 10.6. (I did this on the backup since I was planning to have the server still running 10.5 for a while. I imagine you could upgrade either copy.)
It appears that if you already have a 10.5.x OS on the drive you install to, the files are, as you said, "upgraded" to 10.6. Settings, services and users are also "upgraded" during the install to 10.6 formatting as needed by the new OS.
We then turned the server on and accessed and used our services as we had in the past with the users we had set in the past.
-Erich

How to install Snow Leopard on a 2009 Mac Pro which has Mountain Lion?

The 2009 Mac Pro that I just bought has Mountain Lion. For many reasons, I do not want to have Mountain Lion on my machine. I have been using Snow Leopard for years and I like it fine. I have my Snow Leopard install DVDs. I cannot get this machine to accept Snow Leopard, which must be just another undesirable aspect of Mountain Lion, bacause this machine must have shipped with some variant of Leopard/ Snow Leopard to begin with. Here's what happens when I put the Snow Leopard Install DVD in the Superdrive:
1) First, I held down the "C" key at startup to start from a disc. It showed me a window which said "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer".
2) Then I started it with Mountain Lion and then put in the Snow Leopard DVD. Got a window which said "The disc you inserted was not readable by this computer". It also had 3 buttons to choose from: "Initialize", "Ignore" and "Eject". So I clicked on "Initialize" and Disc Utility opened on the First Aid page. I assume I'm supposed to erase the startup disc, but I thought maybe I should ask the experts here before I do that.
This machine has two 2TB HDDs that the previous owner has configured as a level 1 RAID. If I am to erase the startup disc do I erase both drives of the RAID set? If I'm not supposed to erase the startup drive, what do I need to do to get back to Snow Leopard? Thanks and thanks again!

The built-in checks will keep you from clobbering 10.8 Mountain Lion by Installing Snow Leopard over it (literally, 10.6 Snow Leopard Installer will see a later version in place, and knows it cannot install over a later version). So it says "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer..." and leaves off "... "in its current state."
You will need to Install on a 10.6 Snow Leopard-erased drive. Mac OS X Erase function proceeds to install a Partition scheme and a default Volume after erasing, because a truly blank drive is useless for most Users.
When you boot to the Installer DVD, you are running off the DVD, so all Hard Drives are available to be erased if that is your choice. All data on them will be discarded. If you erase one drive in a mirrored RAID set, normally the other drive would survive and the set would be degraded. But a new version of RAID was introduced right AFTER 10.6, and it is likely that 10.6 cannot read that RAID at all under any circumstances.

Does anybody know how to install Snow Leopard on an external HD with Lion?

My MacBook Pro came from apple with Lion OS X 10.7.1 installed and it doesn't operate with Pro Tools LE 8.0.5 (or any other version for that matter and PT 9.0.5 is only in beta) So, I'm looking to partition Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 to my external HD so I can bypass the issue without compromising and downgrading my MacBook Pro (which I've been told is not possible anyway but I'm sure there is a way) and having to A) Pay out more money to avid and get PT 9 ( BETA) or B) Run a different DAW (Also costing more $$$) Any help would be MUCH appreciated!!!

Yes it's possible, you need another Firewire capable Mac#2 that can hold c boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard Retail Disks and a Firewire cable and if necessary a FW 800 to 400 adapter.
First you boot into Lion on Mac#1 and use Disk Utility to Erase Free Space, this will take a few hours.
Then backup your data off the Mac#1 Lion partition to a external drive and disconnect. (for safety sake)
Then you create a second partition on the drive in Disk Utility, formatted OS X Extended (Journaled) under the Partition Tab.
While that is all going on, on the other Mac#2 that can boot off 10.6.3 disks, you do the same thing,
First you boot into Snow or Lion on Mac#2 and use Disk Utility to Erase Free Space, this will take a few hours.
Then backup the data off the Mac#2 main boot partition to a external drive and disconnect. (for safety sake)
Then you create a second partition on the drive in Disk Utility, formatted OS X Extended (Journaled) under the Partition Tab.
Hold c and boot Mac#2 off the 10.6.3 Retail Snow Leopard Disk (won't work with grey disks unless it matches the target machine model) and install onto the new partition on Mac#2, reboot holding option key and select the 10.6.3 partition, once in, use the Combo Update to get to 10.6.8. (must do)
Reboot holding T this Lion Mac#1 so it's in Target Disk Mode, connect the Firewire cable to the other Mac#2, then hold option key and reboot into the second partition on Mac#2. Download and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the new partition of Mac#2 to new partition of Mac#1
Reboot Mac#1 holding option key to boot into Snow partition on the factory Lion Mac#1.
If that doesn't work, you need to combine the 10.6.3 and the 10.6.8 Combo Update together in this process at the link below, and apply the 10.6.3 + 10.6.8 combined image in the same Target Disk mode fashion
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3264421?start=0&tstart=0
Another method is if you can convince Apple to send you the 10.6.6 install disks for your machine, then use the Target Disk Mode approach to circumvent the firmware which is preventing you from booting off install disks from any previous version of OS X.
For example, my new 2011 MBP came with 10.6.6 grey install disks, but can't boot off the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard Retail Disks.
Another method would be to find another same exact machine as yours, came with 10.6.6 from the factory (even if upgraded to Lion it should still boot 10.6.6), thus will boot off the 10.6.6 install disks and install it onto your parttion.
Needless to say, after going through all this, you really need to make a clone of the partition once it's successfully installed.
Set the startup disk in system preferences to Snow.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

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