Etrecheck report, 2019 imac, failing hard drive?

Welcome!

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

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

I see EtreCheck has flagged your SSD as failing, as confirmed by:

Performance:

Write speed: 21 MB/s - ⚠️

Read speed: 130 MB/s - ⚠️

Those values should be around 1500 MB/s - 2000 MB/s.

To begin, Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac - Apple Support. Let us know the results of the diagnostics.

Next, run DriveDx. DriveDx can check the physical health of your internal SSD and flag any errors it finds. If DriveDx finds errors, make sure you have a Time Machine backup, and schedule a Genius Bar appointment with Apple Support.

If DriveDx finds no errors, see if disconnecting all external storage devices improves performance. Occasionally, an external storage device may have a conflict with your Mac and cause poor performance.

Next, try operating your Mac in Safe mode. Safe mode can help you to determine whether an issue is caused by software that loads as your Mac starts up: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support. Let your Mac sit in Safe mode for approximately half an hour. Then, restart back into normal mode and test.

After Safe mode, try using a different user account on your Mac. For testing purposes, create a new, test user account: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac - Apple Support. Observe performance in this new user account.

If the performance issue persists, run First Aid on your startup disk. First Aid in Disk Utility can find and repair errors related to the formatting and directory structure of a Mac disk: How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility - Apple Support.

Jack

David,

It appears you bought your iMac as a refurbished unit. Your AppleCare warranty is in-effect until 2024 so simply call AppleCare, explain the problem, what troubleshooting you have done and they will replace the SSD while it is still covered.

This can really slow the computer:

2023-01-27 15:55:44 photoanalysisd High CPU Use

Executable: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PhotoAnalysis.framework/Versions/A/Support/photoanalysisd

See this article on what that is and how to deal with it:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/310594/what-is-photoanalysisd-and-why-is-it-using-77-of-my-cpu

It was a hunch that you bought it refurbished because of the AppleCare's expiration date which expires in 2024, which means you would have had to have bought the computer in 2021 which would be VERY odd for a new 2019. Where exactly did you buy it?