Asking about which iMac to buy 10/5/23

I see that you are currently using an iMac 27" 2019 model, configured with a 1TB Fusion drive and 40GB RAM running macOS Sonoma 14.0. To my eye, this machine is more than capable of doing the everyday tasks that you might reasonable throw at it. My own iMac 27" 2013 is a workhorse though it has peaked with macOS 10.15 Catalina.

This iMac should carry you forward for the foreseeable future... easily the next five or so years.

In my opinion there is no computer available that can withstand bungling. 😉

I believe you may have a corrupted OS, maybe due to something that you brought over from your older 2013 machine, or perhaps caused by some problem with the internal drive(s).

Having said this, I would suggest that you create a fresh Time Machine backup of the current setup. Then, using another external drive, create a second backup of only your User files and data and set that aside.

I would also find a good drive utility to examine the health of the drives and see what that report might show. DriveDX is well respected here. If problems are reported with the drive(s), then you might consider putting in service an external ssd and using that as a boot drive.

If the drives appear healthy, then move on to the next point which is to boot into Recovery mode, wipe the computer and reinstall a fresh copy of the OS.

The current model iMacs are vastly superior to your 2013 in every respect. My opinion is you can't go wrong with any model.

However, you make no mention of your needs: ethernet, RAM, disk space, software and etc.

Without knowing exactly how you plan on using your new Mac, making an appropriate specific model recommendation with specific enhancements is foolish if not impossible.

To possibly help with answering your questions I use Pages version 13.2 (7038.0.87) for writing documents on subject which interest me, Mail Version 16.0 (3774.100.2.1.4) to mail friends and sources of info, Safari Version 17.0 (19616.1.27.211.1) to search for info on my latest curiosities, Music (not subscription) 1.4.0.118 to listen to and download music, Photos Version 9.0 (608.2.113) to view tours I travelled with and for family photos, Messages Version 14.0 (6000) to communicate with family and friends, Podcasts Version 1.1.0 (4023.140.8) to listen to podcasts of what interests me, Maps Version 3.0 (2811.20.7.31.2) which I use to get around and view places in the world, Books Version 6.0 (5919) for Apple device guides and some books but I prefer to read old fashioned books, Calendar Version 14.0 (2964) for reminding me of appointments mostly medical and birthdays of friends and family, Preview Version 11.0 (1056) for downloading PDFs, TV.app 1.4 I use once or twice every few months, Time Machine 1.3 I use of course to backup my system, QuickTime Player.app I use to play movies but do not use often. The remainder of the apps I seldom use.

None of these applications sound like they are terribly demanding, with the possible exception of Photos (if you have a very large photo / video database). I find it interesting that you don't use any third-party applications – those can add quite a lot of functionality – but I take it that you don't, or you would have mentioned them.

If Photos is your only photo editor, that suggests that you are not doing things like

• Stitching many high-megapixel photos into panoramas
• Creating photo files with many high-megapixel layers (Photos doesn't support layers)
• Stacking many high-megapixel photos to create a single high-dynamic-range composite photo
• Doing extensive AI-based noise reduction (which can be very demanding on GPU power, although on Apple Silicon Macs, some of this software knows how to lean on the Neural Engine)
• Doing a lot of heavy video editing

Those are the sorts of things that can really ratchet up requirements for RAM, disk space, and processing power. Munging together many, many high-megapixel photos into one (whether for panorama, editing, HDR, or all three) can increase the need for RAM. But you're not doing that.

In terms of computing power, the 2019 iMac that you are using now should be more than enough for what you are doing. If you were running compute-intensive AI noise reduction tasks all day, you might notice a huge difference between an Apple Silicon Mac and your current Mac. But you're not.

Your Intel CPU should be spending most of its time idling – waiting for you. You have 40 GB of RAM (overkill), and you are running the latest operating system: Sonoma. Life should be good.

The one area that looks a little bit dodgy (if the machine does not have a hardware malfunction) is the reliance on a 1 TB Fusion Drive that has a very small SSD component. An external SSD might help there, and the ports on the 2019 iMac are modern enough to give you a very wide range of choices in external SSDs.

I have a HP ENVY Photos 7164 printer which I am replacing with a Brother bare bones printer.

Make sure that any new printer that you buy supports AirPrint.

What are you planning to do with your next Mac desktop?

Are you tied to an iMac? I see that you used the phrase "next iMac desktop" and the you have a 27" iMac now. Unfortunately, Apple discontinued the 27" 5K Retina iMacs, and the 24" M1 iMac that is out now is bit on the low-end in most respects other than its 24" 4.5K Retina screen.

Unless you're doing something MUCH more demanding than you've told us about, you have plenty of RAM. The report says

  40 GB RAM - Upgradeable

        BANK 0/ChannelA-DIMM0 - 16 GB DDR4 2667

        BANK 1/ChannelA-DIMM1 - 4 GB DDR4 2667

        BANK 2/ChannelB-DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR4 2667

        BANK 3/ChannelB-DIMM1 - 16 GB DDR4 2667

The arrangement looks a little odd.

You might benefit from a getting an external SSD and making it your startup drive. The 1 TB Fusion Drive on that 2019 iMac has only 32 GB of flash storage, which isn't a lot of "prime real estate" for the files / parts of files that might benefit from being in flash. (1 TB Fusion Drives originally came with 128 GB of flash storage, a much more reasonable amount.)

That machine has

• Four USB-A (USB 3.0) ports that you could use to attach USB 3 / SATA SSDs.
• Two USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) ports that you could use to attach even faster USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2) / NVMe or Thunderbolt 3 / NVMe SSDs.

Don_What wrote:

Thank you again. When you write that arrangement looks a little odd what do you mean? I installed the two 16 GB.

I would have expected the arrangement to be more symmetrical, i.e., something like (16,16,4,4) or (16,4,16,4) or (4,16,4,16). When memory is arranged in the ideal way, there is sometimes a small speed increase over when it isn't. But it's a very small increase – down in the noise. Not worth worrying about.

As for an external startup drive, that is way over my head.

Regarding the 32 GB of flash storage, how do I increase that?

If adding an external startup drive is way over your head, increasing the 32 GB of flash storage in the Fusion Drive to a much larger amount (IF that is possible) would be WAY, WAY, WAY over your head.

You're talking about destroying the Fusion Drive (and everything on it), doing intricate hardware surgery on your Mac to replace the flash module (if possible), doing software surgery to create a new Fusion Drive. Then finally installing / restoring your operating system / applications / data.

As part of that, you'd need to deal with external backups and external startup drives, anyway – because what are you going to use to boot the Mac when you've destroyed the old Fusion Drive (by taking out the 32 GB of flash), and the new one hasn't yet been set up?

MUCH, MUCH easier to add an external SSD startup drive than to do all that. Even for me.

Don_What wrote:

It's difficult to find USB-3/ SATA SSDs to attach USB-A port. The

Apple Store does not seem to have any. From what I've seen there are only USB-C in the market.

Thank you again.

Whether an adapter is in the Apple Store is a poor indication of whether it is available elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be a single USB-C to (Mini) DisplayPort adapter in the online Apple Store – even though this is a type of adapter that many owners of recent Macs need, and even though such adapters are a dime a dozen on Amazon.

There are adapters for connecting most USB-C (USB) SSDs to USB-A ports. USB 1 – USB 3.1 Gen 2 can run over either USB-A or USB-C connectors; it's not a big deal to convert in either direction.

If you look on Amazon, I think you'll also find that there are many inexpensive tool-free USB 3 / SATA enclosures, with UASP support, into which you can install your own separately-purchased internal SATA notebook SSD.

Don_What wrote:

It's difficult to find USB-3/ SATA SSDs to attach USB-A port. The

Apple Store does not seem to have any. From what I've seen there are only USB-C in the market.

Thank you again.

I have two Samsung T7 SSDs. they each came with an USB-C to USB-C cable as well as an USB-C to USB-A cable already inside the package. but, of course, speed will be limited if connecting to the Mac with the USB-A connection.

Don_What wrote:

Thank you D.I. Johnson. I am not doubting your answer but why is my iMac so slow. Takes 10 minutes or more to start up and is general slow after that.

Your EtreCheck reports a potential hardware failure indicated by a high number of kernel panics. You stated yourself that issues arose after migrating from a 2013 iMac. And the failure of your TM backups also indicates a potential problem with the data on your startup drive, unless you are certain the problem is related to the LaCie drive hardware.

I believe you have either a corrupted macOS startup installation on your boot drive, or the boot drive is experiencing a hardware failure. Maybe both are going on and either of these things can result in the severe slowdown you are experiencing.

The easiest way to troubleshoot this will be to erase your startup drive and reinstall macOS. If the problem goes away, then you're golden. If not, then you can consider that the hardware is the problem and work around that by replacing the internal drive or setting up the iMac to boot from an external drive.

However, after taking a second look, I do also see that you appear to have the SeagateDiskService drive utility installed. That utility definitely needs to be uninstalled. The Mac does not need help communicating with its drives and then type of utilities often cause problems. It may have been part of the problem with the LaCie drive.

This doesn't change my belief that your best action will be to start with a fresh installation of macOS.

Make sure you have your user data backed up first because the process will erase everything from the startup drive.

Yes, Disk Utility is not sufficient to deeply examine the health of the drives. For that you will need something like DriveDX or others.

As per my previous post, I suspect OS corruption or hardware failure. It's fairly easy to rule to the OS simplify reinstalling a fresh copy.

The big issue will be the internal drive... the startup drive. This is where the OS lives and this is what need to be corrected.

I would also suggest for the sake of troubleshooting, that you disconnect all of the external drives and devices from this Mac and see if that affects the startup and daily operation. If not, then you can rule out those suspects. You don't necessarily have to wipe the external drives, simply disconnecting them will suffice.

Yes, since it appears that your Mac is still covered by AppleCare for about another year (per the report), I suggest you make an appointment with Apple and let them do the macOS reinstall.