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User profile for user: codger47
codger47 Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Failing hard drive on Imac?

Running OS Catalina.




My Imac  runs very lean .IE of the1TB HDD, 993 GB is free . Anything I want saved is on external HDD.  




I ran: 




Mac startup diagnostic


         Etrecheck 


         Onyx




No problems were found , apart from a few orphan files and daemons. 




The system is now taking  around 3 minutes to boot.




Recently, a couple of apps have frozen and I needed to reboot to fix. 




Significant beach balling with some apps, but not with most .




Now I can manage if these minor problems are   simply due to the age of the device .(late 2015 build)  But If the HDD seems seems to be failing, I need to start looking for solutions. 




IE Can the HDD be replaced with say a  500 GB SSD and how much would that cost approximately?   Is it worth  while to install a new HDD? Approximate cost?




Could the system be installed from the Time Machine onto an SSD? 

Posted on Jan 2, 2020 2:32 PM

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User profile for user: rkaufmann87
rkaufmann87
User level: Level 10
143,386 points

Posted on Jan 2, 2020 3:52 PM

Well l hate to put it like this but your computer is a mess due to what has been installed on it. The hardware appears to be okay. Lets start with a little education though. Mac OS is EXTREMELY secure and does not benefit from nor does it require any third party antivirus, cleaning or any other "maintenance" apps. If simply kept up-to-date and otherwise left alone it tends to run well for many years. Your system shows evidence of having several antivirus apps installed including AVG, Avast, etc.. You also have a torrent installed, if you used this for installing software you did not pay for then this is opening the door to introducing malware, not viruses but other types of malware. In short the stuff that has been installed on the computer has made it a mess!


My suggestion is that you should start over and do an erase and install and then restore your data files only. You should manually installed the apps you want to use.


Also, please note you have a base model 21.5" iMac with only 8GB of un-upgradeable RAM and a glacially slow 5400 RPM HD. There is nothing you can do about the RAM however you can get an external SSD and connect it and then use that as your boot drive and only use the internal drive as additional storage. This will dramatically improve performance.

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User profile for user: rkaufmann87
rkaufmann87
User level: Level 10
143,386 points

Jan 2, 2020 3:52 PM in response to codger47

Well l hate to put it like this but your computer is a mess due to what has been installed on it. The hardware appears to be okay. Lets start with a little education though. Mac OS is EXTREMELY secure and does not benefit from nor does it require any third party antivirus, cleaning or any other "maintenance" apps. If simply kept up-to-date and otherwise left alone it tends to run well for many years. Your system shows evidence of having several antivirus apps installed including AVG, Avast, etc.. You also have a torrent installed, if you used this for installing software you did not pay for then this is opening the door to introducing malware, not viruses but other types of malware. In short the stuff that has been installed on the computer has made it a mess!


My suggestion is that you should start over and do an erase and install and then restore your data files only. You should manually installed the apps you want to use.


Also, please note you have a base model 21.5" iMac with only 8GB of un-upgradeable RAM and a glacially slow 5400 RPM HD. There is nothing you can do about the RAM however you can get an external SSD and connect it and then use that as your boot drive and only use the internal drive as additional storage. This will dramatically improve performance.

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User profile for user: rkaufmann87
rkaufmann87
User level: Level 10
143,386 points

Jan 2, 2020 2:53 PM in response to codger47

While the drive is still alive you should create a bootable clone of it using SuperDuper! Then once the new SSD is installed it only needs to be formatted (strongly recommend an OWC SSD kit!!!!!) you just need to restore from the clone and you are back in business!


however your HD may be okay, please post an EtreCheck report of your system for us to review to see what is installed and to look for obvious issues.

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User profile for user: macjack
macjack
User level: Level 10
111,204 points

Jan 2, 2020 3:53 PM in response to codger47

It looks OK. Your biggest bottle necks to speed are a very slow 4500 RPM rational hard drive, 8 GB RAM and Catalina, which uses more system resources. Looks like you had Avast, AVG and AppCLeaner installed and the uninstall left behind some detritus which you can cleanup within Etrecheck or manually. I don't think there's any hard drive problem other than it is very slow drive doing a lot of work.

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User profile for user: codger47
codger47 Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jan 2, 2020 10:24 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for the information. I have removed all third party antivirus and the systems cleaner "ccleaner" What about Onyx?


I will probably do as you say , as soon as I find out how.


As you may have gathered, I am barely computer literate with Imac. I used windows from 1999 until early 2016.


Bought my Imac because I've always wanted one. They are beautiful, and I have always loved my Mac.


I'm truly disappointed about what you've said about my Mac's inferior hardware. I'm left feeling I was taken advantage of because of my ignorance .


The simplest solution seems to be to use an exterior SSD . I think I'll do that, as soon as I learn how. Could you possibly point me at instructions or a source?








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User profile for user: rkaufmann87
rkaufmann87
User level: Level 10
143,386 points

Jan 3, 2020 5:57 AM in response to codger47

Onyx should be uninstalled as well, it was valuable 10 years ago however Mac OS has made it obsolete and 100% unnecessary.


I would speak to www.macsales.com and get one of their SSD's and install it in one of their Mercury Elite Pro enclosures. Once the SSD is put in the enclosure use SuperDuper! to clone your internal HD to the SSD, then set the SSD as your startup drive in System Preferences and then boot from it. Once you have successfully booted from the SSD, you can erase the internal HD (ensure it has a Time Machine backup first) and then you should be set.

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User profile for user: codger47
codger47 Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jan 3, 2020 4:03 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thank you for you responses.


I will think about an external SSD., although I am loathe to use what is a patch up solution. I would be happier to replace the HDD with an internal SSD, but I gather that's not possible .


I would buy a 512GB SSD, as anything I want to keep is kept on external HDD


What is a "Mercury Elite Pro enclosure"? Why do I need it , why should I buy an Apple external SSD. and how much will the ssd and enclosure cost?


Buying anything from Apple tends to be expensive compared with the rest of the market.


What will be the approximate increase in speed with an external ssd with usb connection?


I need to do some thinking.

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Failing hard drive on Imac?

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