My imac is running very slow. When visiting a website, it is slow to open, and when it does open, trying to navigate within the site is very slow, the color wheel just keeps turning. When opening photos, it takes forever to show the photos.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Hi,
First, it appears that you do not have a Time Machine backup. If this is the case, you should create one. To start, you need an external hard drive. Here’s an excellent one sold by Apple: LaCie 2TB Rugged USB-C Portable Hard Drive - Apple. You will also need this cable for the external disk to work with your older iMac. You can then follow the steps in this Apple Support article to setup your Time Machine backup: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support.
Also, moving forward, I recommend that you use iCloud in addition to Time Machine to sync all your files and photos to all your Apple devices. Although iCloud is not a "true" backup service, iCloud can also act as an emergency off-site backup, but this is why iCloud should be used in addition to Time Machine. Here are some resources on setting up iCloud for Mac:
After you setup iCloud, turn off "Optimize Mac Storage" in System Preferences > Apple ID/iCloud. That way, all changes made to files in iCloud are also backed up to Time Machine. If you have this setting on due to a limited amount of storage on your Mac, that is fine. Just know changes won't be backed up to Time Machine, only iCloud.
However, reason your iMac is slow is due to the 5400-rpm hard drive. While this hard drive found in your Mac is perfectly suited to light tasks, such as email, web browsing, etc., for more advanced tasks, and for users who want the maximum performance from their Mac, this hard drive does have its limitations. Luckily, you can use an external SSD as your startup disk to run macOS and all your data from that. It will make your Mac 10 to 30 times faster for storage, and in turn, make your entire Mac system much faster. For more info, instructions, and what external SSD to buy, please see: How to Setup and Use an External SSD as your Startup Disk on a Desktop Mac - Apple Community.
Another option I would strongly consider is to replace this Mac with a new Apple Silicon Mac: Mac - Apple. You can also use Apple Trade-In to get credit towards a new Mac: Apple Trade In - Apple.
Hope this helps!
Jack
When I plug it in, it beeps several times, the light comes on, and I get this pop up message on the screen “The disk you attached was not readable by this computer. One of my options is to initialize, so I click that….it opens disk utility and it shows uninitialized.
Has it worked before, or has it always been in this state?
Sorry for the late response. We had company over the weekend. When I tried to erase the the Seagate external hard drive, it started and then gave the message "unable to write to the last block of the device-69760
I have ordered a external SSD drive. As I am looking over the instructions to erase the internal hard drive, when I highlight the APPLE HDD drive, the option to erase is grayed out. For my model iMac, is erasing the hard drive not an option?
I will be installing a new LaCie external SSD external start up disk today. On this site, in the instructions for installing a SSD external start up disk, it talks about erasing and reformatting the new external drive. Will this still be necessary with this LaCie product?
Old Toad posted to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the boot drive to the new SSD. Do I need to purchase that program or just use the 30 day free trial?? Will something in that program give the option to clone only the boot drive? Or is there another way to accomplish that task?
Please excuse all the questions, but you can see I am not very computer savvy!
You will need to format the new SSD as APFS prior first. Use the Disk Utility app (Applications - Utilities - Disk Utility) and erase the new SSD and format as APFS, it will then be ready to be used with your Mac. Most external drives come pre-formatted for MS Windows boxes.
Regarding Carbon Copy Cloner, yes you should be able to use the evaluation copy to do your initial clone. However it may be wise to purchase the app and get another external HD and use Carbon Copy Cloner to create a daily bootable clone of your computer as a backup. If you already use Time Machine then it's simply wise to have a second backup because backups can fail too. I (and many others) do just that use both Time Machine and a Cloning app to make redundant backups. NEVER EVER use the same External Hard Disk for 2 backups though!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Guys,
Thanks for all the input. Just to refresh, I am dealing with two issues
Good morning,
To update…. I have installed 2 LaCie external SSD drives. One to replace my non working external drive and one for my start up disk. Thanks for recommending the SSD start up drive..WOW it is like having a new computer, it is super fast.
The other SSD is my back up drive. I hooked it up first and ran a back up of Big Sur, my current OS. It backed up fine.
I then updated to Monterey.
I then hooked up my other SSD drive (start up drive) and cloned my internal hard drive to it. Everything seems to be working fine EXCEPT, I decided to run another back up since I updated to Monterey.
When I go into Time Machine to “Update Now” a message pops up that it couldn’t complete back up. It says “Two of the disks to back up have the same name. Rename one of the disks named Macintosh HD - Data”. Is that referring to the internal hard drive. I couldn’t find a option to rename it. Please advise. Thanks.
+1 to what Jack 19 has shared.
Yes, it has been working for several years and started acting up a couple of months ago.
thanks, I'll try and repost.
I ran First Aid several times and I get the same error message as before.
Thanks, good to know!
Hey Allen,
Thanks for your response concurring with the others about adding the external SSD Drive. As for the recurring quirk with the Photos App. That link you sent is a WAY above my pay grade! Ha!
I have a imac Retina 4K, 21.5 inch, Late 2015 running Big Sur 11.6.5
