How can I increase speed on iMac GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5.
Would a SSD drive help improve improve performance? It only holds 32GB 2667 MHz DDR4 memory. Is the memory upgradable to something that is faster or will help performance? Any suggestions on extending the like of the computer and improve performance?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 15.5
Your best bet, is to get a USB-C or ThunderBolt external SSD to use as you startup disk.
see > Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community
Recommended external SSD's besides the LaCie Rugged are the OWC Envoy and Express.
Your best bet, is to get a USB-C or ThunderBolt external SSD to use as you startup disk.
see > Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community
Recommended external SSD's besides the LaCie Rugged are the OWC Envoy and Express.
To some extent, you have us guessing in that, as other have mentioned, we do not have full desprictions of your iMac nor its storage types. The latter is very imporant because about 95+ percent of all "slow iMac" posts here turn out to be caused by slow or malfuctioning storage, not a paucity of RAM. Only by seeng details can we tell if an external SSD would help performance.
The is an excellent way to do details. If you want a data-driven evaluation in this setting where we can neither see nor touch your computer, please post an EtreCheck report. We can quickly and within the limitations of these forums help you determine what issues are at play without our playing a protracted game of "20 Questions" with you that could go on for days.
EtreCheck Pro is available here:
The free version will do nicely for this purpose, although the app is worthy of our financial support.
We can see hard data about storage performance, software issues and interferences, and RAM usage. Etrecheck is the development of a long-serving and trusted ASC contributor. It is a reporting app, not a "fix-it” app, expressly for displaying information in these forums to help us help you remotely. It will not reveal any personal or secure information.
Please see this excellent user tip on how to post long text reports like EtreCheck's into a forum response:
How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community
Please post the entire report. What seems insignificant to a new Etrecheck user can hold a wealth of answers for those of us who have reviewed thousands of those reports. Etrecheck scrubs any personal info if you follow the posting steps in the above article.
"Only" 32 GB?
It's very easy to determine if your Mac's performance is being limited by available memory. Please read
Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor - Apple Support. If the "Memory Pressure" graph is frequently "red" your Mac will benefit from additional memory. If not, it won't. It's that simple.
Post the EtreCheck report. It almost always reveals some actionable information.
ANolte wrote:
734.61 GB available of 1.03 TB
So, you have an iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019) with
and a slow 1 TB Fusion Drive.
I'm basing this on the 1.03 TB figure, which suggests that you have a slow 1 TB Fusion Drive that combines
and not a 1 TB hard drive, or a 1 TB SSD, either of which I think would have shown up as "… of 1 TB".
The original 1 TB Fusion Drives all had 128 GB of such storage, but in Late 2015, Apple got stingy and reduced the amount to 24 GB. That 32 GB of SSD space is prime real estate, but there is not nearly enough of it – and thus the performance of the slow 2.5" 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive is likely dragging the whole system down.
Knowing the exact model computer is more important to use & current version of macOS. You can get that information by clicking the Apple menu and selecting "About This Mac".
Memory is usually a waste of money as it rarely helps to improve system performance. There are ways to figure out if more memory would help without needing to spend a dime.
The two most common reasons for poor performance of any computer are:
With a 2019 or 2020 model, a performance issue can also be due to a bad Logic Board.
I recommend running the third party app EtreCheck and posting the complete report here so we can examine it for possible clues.
How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting an EtreCheck Report - Apple Community
Great skills of deduction from such limited information! Imagine what we might discover with an EtreCheck report.
The OP hasn't come back yet to tell us which iMac they have, but if it is a 21.5" model (as indicated in the tag line) and it has a 6-core Core i5, I think it must be an iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019). That seems to be the only 21.5" iMac that had a 6-CPU option, and the only one that is recent enough that it could be running macOS 15.5.
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How can I increase speed on iMac GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5
