New iMac 21.5 is very slow can I add external SSD and use it for boot drive?

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Level 1

9 points

New iMac 21.5 is very slow can I add external SSD and use it for boot drive?

I've had this new iMac about a month and continue to be disappointed in it's speed, my old 2011 iMac would open applications almost instantly and startup quickly, this new one takes minutes to open various applications and starting can take 3 or 4 minutes! Now I've heard that I should have ordered it with the SSD internal drive, it would have been nice to know that before I bought it.

My question is: can I fix the speed problem by using an external SSD as the boot drive, and keep all my applications on that drive too?

Here are my iMac specs:

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac19,2

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i3

Processor Speed: 3.6 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 16 GB

Boot ROM Version: 1037.140.50.0.0

SMC Version (system): 2.47f3

Hardware UUID: 0C1CD33A-26F9-5092-99C6-2B88109DE89D

Macintosh HD:

Free: 669.77 GB (669,770,186,752 bytes)

Capacity: 1 TB (999,995,129,856 bytes)

Mount Point: /

File System: APFS

Writable: No

BSD Name: disk1s1

Volume UUID: CE111853-89AE-4913-B5E3-E43947D18E14

Physical Drive:

Device Name: APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E632

Media Name: AppleAPFSMedia

Medium Type: Rotational

Protocol: SATA

Internal: Yes

Partition Map Type: Unknown

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 29, 2020 8:46 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,682 points

Sep 29, 2020 9:10 AM in response to sbeklund

Absolutely, one we would recommend is: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-envoy-pro-ex-thunderbolt-3

When you clone the internal drive to the SSD use either of these apps:

SuperDuper!
Carbon Copy Cloner

Either will do the job.

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Answer 2

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,156 points

Sep 29, 2020 8:57 AM in response to sbeklund

Sure ! Absolutely! You would also have to know the model number and year of manufacture, you can find that info under about this Mac, Which is under the large Apple icon at the top left of your screen. I would also check at ifixit.com to See if your iMac is user – upgradable. I don’t know what exact model and/or Its year of manufacture so can’t say if it’s user upgradeable or not; the recent models are not really that user upgradable, as many parts I saw that in such as the ram. If that’s the case, then you could buy an external SSD of whatever size you want it and an external enclosure with a USB-C socket/port/Output, not the SSD in that and connect it to your iMac. Using disk utility, you could reformat it to be useable with your iMac. You may also have to enable trim on your SSD but that depends on the brand of SSD you bought.

good luck

John B

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Answer 3

den.thed

Level 9

77,248 points

Sep 29, 2020 8:55 AM in response to sbeklund

Yes, see > https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/55907-using-an-external-drive-as-your-startup-drive-part-1/

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New iMac 21.5 is very slow can I add external SSD and use it for boot drive?

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