Upgrading HDD to SSD

Jayjayli2 wrote:

Would it be better to just buy an external ssd, and not an enclosure + internal ssd?

Purchasing them separate allows you to choose

the level of quality you want. Generally the packaged

approach from vendors tend to cut corners to reduce

cost and therefore a reduced reliability as evidenced by

warrantees which will be much better on a SSD SATA

drive vs. the "packaged" solutions.

Even a USB3 enclosure will be way, way faster than your

glacially slow 5400 RPM internal HDD (up to 8 times faster) and

will not be that expensive.

A good starting point would be to check out OWC and

their options as the have some very good quality enclosures.

You can opt to get one with one of their drives (which are

quite good) or just get an enclosure and buy an SSD from

another vendor.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage

They have pricy Thunderbolt as well as more affordable

USB3 based enclosures.

My guess is that the hdd is the issue. Learn how to use Activity Monitor to see what may be going on, pay particular attention to the Memory and Disk tabs, I'll bet you find that your memory pressure is high and the disk is constantly being accessed while you're working. 8Gb of ram isn't enough to load the entire program and run the OS without hitting that slow hard disk frequently. How to use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support

Opening and upgrading a late model isn't for the casual user, there is absolutely a chance you could brick your iMac.

You bought a base model iMac with the minimum amount of ram and a slow hard drive. Those items can be upgraded but it's best to let a certified Apple technician do the work. A better option would be to sell the current iMac and buy one specd to do the work you're doing.

If you insist on trying it yourself https://eshop.macsales.com/ and https://www.ifixit.com/ are both good resources for step by step guides. Macsales is also your best source for parts.

An alternative to "cracking open" your iMac to install an SSD,

purchase an enclosure for an external drive and install an SSD

in it and clone your internal system to that and use it as a boot drive.

I had done this for several years with my iMac and the speed improvements

where quite noticeable. Depending on how large you Xcode projects are,

it will typically generate a lot of files in the build process and therefore

require lots of disk access. While most of the coding work I have done

has been for embedded devices, the code/build/debug cycle was sped up

significantly.

There are a couple apps you can use to clone your system, Carbon Copy Cloner and

Super Duper. There are some others but these seem to be the most reliable and

widely used. You would simply use one of the apps to clone your internal drive

to the external and boot to it initially by holding down the option key at reset

or power and test to make sure all is well. Once satisfied, in System Preferences->Startup DisK,

select the external as the start up and you are good to go.

BTW, with the cloning software, you can use it to "backup" the external to the internal

so if something happens, file corruption, bad update, etc., you can reboot to the

internal and either revet back or troubleshoot the issue.

I see nothing other than the 5400 RPM drive and that can truly be a bottleneck. I have personal experience with 2 different machines: an iMac and a mini. The IT department ordered both with rotational drives and 16GB RAM. They were appallingly slow to use. The 2014 mini gave me little option but to attach a USB 3 external drive with an SSD and it was amazing. I thought about cracking open the iMac but I've done them before and really didn't relish doing another. Since the mini external was so successful I did it again.