Using a RAM Disk for processing will shorten the time considerably. In addition, use of a RAM Disk will save wear on your hard drive. Utilities are available to automate RAM Disk backup and restore at shutdown and startup or restart.

SETI Station is a web site devoted exclusively to Mac users running SETI@home. It provides a broad spectrum of tips and tools for SETI crunching, and is a "must see" site for all Mac/SETI users.

Peek-a-Boo is a utility that lets you assign priority to computer processes so that applications like SETI@home can utilize maximum system resources.

SETI UNiT Manager 3.3 permits downloading of multiple WUs, offline processing, and bulk uploads. It is fully compatible with RAM Disk processing and provides other valuable features.

Additional add-ons are also included, and may be added to this guide below.

Mac RAM Discs
SETI Station is a Mac site for SETI@home enthusiasts. How to set up and use a RAM disk for SETI crunching can be found here. (Be sure to click on the "Menu" to see the other features of the site as well as links to other valuable information!)

Specific instructions for RAM Disk Setup and Handling, including AppleScripts for SETI@home that will permit manual backup and restore or fully automatic operation can be found here.

What is Peek-a-Boo?
Peek-a-Boo is a utility to monitor and manipulate all running processes. You can watch how much CPU time each process uses, adjust the CPU time requested by each process, and look at any piece of information available through the Process Manager. Peek-a-Boo's "Special Technology" feature lets you customize how each process utilizes the CPU. It can be found here.

SETI UNiT Manager 3.3
SETI UNiT Manager (SUM) is an AppleScript which gets the maximum out of SETI@home. It offers fully automated down-/uploads, offline crunching, RAM Disk handling and detailed statistics about your productivity. You can get it here.

SETIlogger
SETIlogger is an application that traces the current state of your SETI-WUs and analyzes them. In addition to displaying progress, elapsed time, and time to go, it also logs statistics about all WUs processed, and displays them on a star map. Free download is available here.

SETI Checker
This application will check the current statistics of any SETI@Home-team without having to launch a web-browser. It sports some special features for making your alien search even more pleasant. It will display your individual stats as well as your team stats, and will compare stats for up to four different teams. It draws charts containing statistical information about different teams and allows export of team data. Free download is available here.

SETI@Support
SETI@Support is a graphical front end/logging program for the SETI@home client. Since it is written in Java (JDK1.1) it works on various platforms wherever Java is installed. It features display of location of work unit on a sky map, with automatic update of data. It records information on completed work units, displays data for multiple client programs, displays user info as well, and displays all the data in table format. Free download is available here.

SETI Status
This Applescript utility will let you get status information on WUs in progress. You can download it here. It should unstuff automatically, but if it doesn't, just drag it on Stuffit Expander. When you double-click the SETI_status icon you will get the following information -- WU name, Start (coordinates), Angle Range, Date Recorded, Biggest peak, Biggest Gaussian, Progress, CPU Time, and Estimate (completion).

Blank the screen - we already knew this one, now it's official.

Screen color: lower color-depth (8-bit/256 colors) is slightly faster than higher (16 or 32-bit) BUT switching color-depth while the software is running will slow things down immensely. Quit SETI@Home before adjusting your color-depth.

Screen resolution - size doesn't matter. SETI@Home should run nearly as fast at 1600x1200 as it does at 640x480.

Multiple monitors - straddling two monitors with the SETI@Home window will slow it down. Also, both monitors should be set to the same color-depth.

No Sleeping - putting your Mac in Sleep mode will slow things down a bit (we've heard many conflicting reports on the sleep issue, but it makes sense that if you put the whole system to bed, processor functions - like data-crunching - will slow down).