iMac 2017 Monterey is too slow

Very first off, do you have a backup or two???

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

You can use Drive DX to possibly get a better view of Drive health…

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

Thanks to Jack-19…

It may be wise to run SMART Utility to check the drives' health.

Too many things running for only 8GB of RAM.

More information may be available with Full Disk Access granted for etrecheck, but the Hard Drive uis a seious thing.

Hi there!

Your USB 3-equipped Mac with a hard disk can have improved system performance by connecting to an external solid-state drive (also known as an SSD). An external SSD as a startup disk can give your Mac additional performance for system responsiveness, apps, startup, and more when compared to your internal disk, which might also be failing, and could be responsible for the kernel panics.

To learn more and view SSD recommendations, please see Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community.

Jack

You could get away with a512GB one...

500GB OWC Envoy Pro mini - Portable USB-C SSD Drive (macsales.com)

But I wouldn't.

You can't do much about the RAM other than run less apps at a time or possibly booting from a good sized SSD.

On the KPs we're hoping toleave them behind once we boot from an external drive.

While we haven't found the problem, I would not ecven use the computer until you get an external rive to backup to...

Here's a fast & relatively cheap external SSD...

1.0TB OWC Envoy Pro mini - Portable USB-C SSD Drive (macsales.com)

Best backup SW... Carbon Copy Cloner...

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Try the Smart Utility then.

It should be, what is on it now?

What format & size is it?