Unresolved iMac performance issue after multiple attempts with Apple support

Failing hard drive - This computer has a hard drive that appears to be failing.

That's really all you need to know.

You cannot escalate it via this forums, this is a user to user forums, You might want to get into contact with apple support and have them escalate it to senior support.

I am sorry you’re encountering this issue

Please tell us the exact model iMac you have and the version of macOS that is on it.

You can find the information by clicking the Apple logo in the upper left of your display, then click About this Mac. Here's an example of what it looks like:

If I can just ask a question to anyone. When I was researching into buying an M4 iMac some people suggested that because Apple SSD is so expensive to upgrade it was better to get the least amount of internal SSD and then buy an external SSD which was much cheaper. But then I watched this video where the person explained that you have to consider not just how much storage an external SSD can hold but also how fast it can communicate with your computer. For example a 2TB Sandisk external SSD was only $146 but the maximum speed it ran at was 1050 MB per second and in real life it would often be slower. He said Mac's internal SSD ran at 3000 - 6000 MB per second. So if romano548 ran his entire computer from an external SSD won't that make his computer very slow, which is the problem he is trying to fix? Also don't you have to consider the speed of the cable and ports that are being used?

Right. When I was buying my iMac I started looking at the price of external SSDs and any that were anywhere near the speed of the iMacs internal SSD were basically the same price as the Apple internal upgrade. Is I just went with the Apple upgrade.

So what you are saying is romano548s iMac is old enough and slow enough that if he used a modern inexpensive external SSD as the main SSD for his computer it would be fast enough?

I don't actually have this issue. I am just trying to learn how my computer works.

So how would a person do this in real life? Do you somehow install the OS on the external SSD and then make sure you just save everything and install any apps also on the external SSD?

I heard about virtual RAM where if your computer's RAM is over burdened and you have extra room on your SSD/hard drive your computer will use the extra space as sort of "extra" RAM. Would romano548s computer not do this because it is from 2019?

Emmett_1944 wrote:

Right. When I was buying my iMac I started looking at the price of external SSDs and any that were anywhere near the speed of the iMacs internal SSD were basically the same price as the Apple internal upgrade. Is I just went with the Apple upgrade.

That's the idea!

People love to complain about how much they charge, but Apple actually thinks about these things.

Not all potential customers perform due diligence upon making a purchase, but when they do, they will arrive at that same conclusion. Otherwise, they wind up paying more... eventually.

My question would be whether he can run off an external SSD without interference from the failing internal HDD – or if he is going to be forced to have a repair shop replace that internal HDD no matter what.

Even with my limited knowledge I wondered that too. I know the computer is doing a lot of things in the background that the user doesn't see. So even if he got an external SSD and installed the OS on it and saved all things and installed all apps on the external SSD, when the computer was doing all these background things would it try to access the internal hard drive or the external SSD because that is where the OS is installed?

When you say "each process runs in a separate address space" do you mean literally a different geographical location on the main microprocessor chip? So if they didn't do this and the applications sort of ran all mixed together on the chip then if one had a problem then everything has a problem?

Not geographically distinct, per se. But logically separate, and isolated from each other, like apartments in an apartment building.

The original System 1.0 did not support running multiple applications at the same time. Later, when Apple added that feature, it was like all of the applications were living in an apartment building where there were no locks on the doors, and any application could barge into another’s living space, or the superintendent”s office, to do anything, at any time. So a misbehaving application could trash others - like a drunk entering the wrong apartment and trashing it in an alcoholic stupor.

Mac OS X (now macOS) put locks on each apartment and office door.

Emmett_1944 wrote:

If I can just ask a question to anyone. When I was researching into buying an M4 iMac some people suggested that because Apple SSD is so expensive to upgrade it was better to get the least amount of internal SSD and then buy an external SSD which was much cheaper.

Because there are files that can't be moved to the external SSD, like audiobooks (which must be in the user library), docs on iCloud Drive, emails and texts. They can fill up your small SSD rather fast.

And one should maintain a minimum of 100 GB of free space on the boot drive to facilitate optimal system and application performance. I would never purchase a Mac with less that 16 GB of RAM and less that 1 TB of SSD storage.

Audiobooks, emails and texts are stored in the User/Library folder. They can't be moved or replaced with alias or hard links. I've tried.

The 1 TB SSD from Apple was only $200 more and that's the same what you can get a quality 1 TB external SSD from a reputable source like OWC (MacSales.com).

Emmett_1944 wrote:

But if you installed the entire OS on the external SSD wouldn't that "trick" the computer into putting the user/library folders on the SSD?

If you installed the entire OS on an external SSD, and started up from that SSD, the user-level Library folder(s) would be on the external SSD. No "trick" involved or necessary.

He's talking about something else: moving some data to an external SSD while continuing to start up from the very fast internal SSD of an Apple Silicon Mac. In that scenario, just having an OS installed on the external SSD would not "trick" the Mac into using the user-level Library folders on the external SSD. The Mac would use the ones on the internal SSD.