Using OnyX utility on a MBP w/ SSD installed

Good Day all,
I was curious to know if it is safe or necessary to using common Mac cleaning utilities like Onyx on a Macbook Pro that has been upgraded to an SSD. I recently upgraded my 13 Macbook Pro 8,1 to a Samsung 840 SSD 512Gb and have gone through various website that like ways to optimize using an SSD on a Mac.
This is what I have thus far:
Don’t run benchmarks on your new SSD
Use Trim Enabler (I went with Chameleon Optimizer for this)
Turn off local Time Machine snapshots
Turn off hibernation
Set noatime flag
Turn off sudden motion sensor
Turn off hard drive sleep
Delete old sleep image
So after doing all this, do I still need to use a utility such as Onyx from time to time on a MBP with an SSD. Or are these kind of utilities harmful to SSDs?
Thanks

How to maintain a Mac
1. Make redundant backups, keeping at least one off site at all times. One backup is not enough. Don’t back up your backups; make them independent of each other. Don’t rely completely on any single backup method, such as Time Machine. If you get an indication that a backup has failed, don't ignore it.
2. Keep your software up to date. In the Software Update preference pane, you can configure automatic notifications of updates to OS X and other Mac App Store products. Some third-party applications from other sources have a similar feature, if you don’t mind letting them phone home. Otherwise you have to check yourself on a regular basis. This is especially important for complex software that modifies the operating system, such as device drivers. Before installing any Apple update, you must check that all such modifications that you use are compatible.
3. Don't install crapware, such as “themes,” "haxies," “add-ons,” “toolbars,” “enhancers," “optimizers,” “accelerators,” "boosters," “extenders,” “cleaners,” "doctors," "tune-ups," “defragmenters,” “firewalls,” "barriers," “guardians,” “defenders,” “protectors,” most “plugins,” commercial "virus scanners,” "disk tools," or "utilities." With very few exceptions, this stuff is useless, or worse than useless.
The more actively promoted the product, the more likely it is to be garbage. The most extreme example is the “MacKeeper” scam.
As a rule, the only software you should install is that which directly enables you to do the things you use a computer for — such as creating, communicating, and playing — and does not modify the way other software works. Use your computer; don't fuss with it.
Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it. Otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.
The free anti-malware application ClamXav is not crap, and although it’s not routinely needed, it may be useful in some environments, such as a mixed Mac-Windows enterprise network.
4. Beware of trojans. A trojan is malicious software (“malware”) that the user is duped into installing voluntarily. Such attacks were rare on the Mac platform until sometime in 2011, but are now increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous.
There is some built-in protection against downloading malware, but you can’t rely on it — the attackers are always at least one day ahead of the defense. You can’t rely on third-party protection either. What you can rely on is common-sense awareness — not paranoia, which only makes you more vulnerable.
Never install software from an untrustworthy or unknown source. If in doubt, do some research. Any website that prompts you to install a “codec” or “plugin” that comes from the same site, or an unknown site, is untrustworthy. Software with a corporate brand, such as Adobe Flash Player, must be acquired directly from the developer. No intermediary is acceptable, and don’t trust links unless you know how to parse them. Any file that is automatically downloaded from a web page without your having requested it should go straight into the Trash. A website that claims you have a “virus,” or that anything else is wrong with your computer, is rogue.
In OS X 10.7.5 or later, downloaded applications and Installer packages that have not been digitally signed by a developer registered with Apple are blocked from loading by default. The block can be overridden, but think carefully before you do so.
Because of recurring security issues in Java, it’s best to disable it in your web browsers, if it’s installed. Few websites have Java content nowadays, so you won’t be missing much. This action is mandatory if you’re running any version of OS X older than 10.6.8 with the latest Java update. Note: Java has nothing to do with JavaScript, despite the similar names. Don't install Java unless you're sure you need it. Most people don't.
5. Don't fill up your boot volume. A common mistake is adding more and more large files to your home folder until you start to get warnings that you're out of space, which may be followed in short order by a boot failure. This is more prone to happen on the newer Macs that come with an internal SSD instead of the traditional hard drive. The drive can be very nearly full before you become aware of the problem. While it's not true that you should or must keep any particular percentage of space free, you should monitor your storage consumption and make sure you're not in immediate danger of using it up. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of free space on the startup volume for normal operation.
If storage space is running low, use a tool such as the free application OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the most space. Move rarely-used large files to secondary storage.
6. Relax, don’t do it. Besides the above, no routine maintenance is necessary or beneficial for the vast majority of users; specifically not “cleaning caches,” “zapping the PRAM,” "resetting the SMC," “rebuilding the directory,” "defragmenting the drive," “running periodic scripts,” “dumping logs,” "deleting temp files," “scanning for viruses,” "purging memory," "checking for bad blocks," "testing the hardware," or “repairing permissions.” Such measures are either completely pointless or are useful only for solving problems, not for prevention.
The very height of futility is running an expensive third-party application called “Disk Warrior” when nothing is wrong, or even when something is wrong and you have backups, which you must have. Disk Warrior is a data-salvage tool, not a maintenance tool, and you will never need it if your backups are adequate. Don’t waste money on it or anything like it.

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    What I have done is to bootup with the installation DVD, try to verify and repair the disk using disk utility, which tells me it can't repair and recommend to backup, erase and reinstall. Am fine with this recommendation but now the problem is on the backup part. There are two partitons on this 500GB hitachi SATA disk. One is 300G which is for OSX itself, and the other 200G was partitioned for Time Machine. The repair failure is on the OSX partition which contains most of the recent data that I want to backup/restore. And unfortunately the Time Machine backup was stopped about two month ago, for some stupid decision I have made , while I am hoping to recover some data for the past month.
    Currently the SMART status of the whole disk is verified, the OSX partition is unmounted with no details in the Available, Used, Number of Files, etc. From what I have researched (correct me if I am wrong), I highlight the OSX partition from the list on the left, click 'New Image' button on top, and select the destination to try to create an image of the current partition. But regardless of my desintation (Time Machine partition, or external USB drive), the imaging process always failed with Resource Busy error. Some online search suggest that the partition must be in unmount status but seems it does not apply to this case.
    Would be really appreciated if anyone can give me some advice on what's the 'resource busy' error mean, how to backup the OSX partition, or what are the other possible alternatives.

    Very poor idea to keep the Time Machine backup file on the internal hard drive. They should always be put on an external drive. As when the internal fails you lose everything. Which is what I suspect has happened.
    More then likely your internal drive is failing. the only options to get a new internal drive and a SATA to USB adapter. Install the new drive inside the system abd install OS X on it. Then once that is finished and you are booting from it connect the old drive to the system with the SATA to USB adapter and copy your files off the old drive. That is if you can.

  • The difference between a .dmg file & a .cdr file (using Disk Utility) ?

    Hi,
    In particular, I created both from a DVD using Disk Utility.
    When I chose "read only" a .dmg was created.
    When I chose "DVD/CD Master" a .cdr was created.
    They are exactly the same size.
    Is there any difference ?
    Thanks in advance.
    Pat De Marco

    HI Pat,
    From Wikipedia: A file with the extension .dmg (an abbreviation for disk image) uses a disk image format commonly found on Mac OS X. The format allows secure password protection as well as file compression and hence serves both security and file distribution functions. Its most common function is the distribution of software over the Internet. When opened, DMG files are "mounted" as a drive within the Finder.
    From: Wikipedia .cdr and ISO
    ISO image
    Filename extension .iso
    Uniform Type Identifier public.iso-image
    Type of format Disk image
    Standard(s) ISO 9660
    An ISO image is an archive file (a.k.a. disk image) of an optical disc using a conventional ISO (International Organization for Standardization) format that is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO but Mac OS X ISO images often have the extension .CDR. The name "ISO" is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media, but an ISO image can also contain UDF file system because UDF is backward-compatible to ISO 9660.
    Carolyn
    Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

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