I have an iMac late 2015 21.5” 2.8 GHz processor quad-core Intel Core i5 with 8 GB memory and still only half the storage used. The monitor is still beautiful. I’m running OS Big Sur 11.7. It is so unbelievably SLOW! I know I can’t add memory but what do I do with this? Throw it in the trash? Does it get recycled? And if so, can’t someone refurbish it for me?
Earlier Mac models
Apple will recycle it for free if you decide get rid of it, please click Apple Recycling Programs.
Remember a 2015 is almost 10 year old is obsolete in that it will not run current versions of Mac OS and the parts are difficult to obtain.
If you bought a HD based 21.5 iMac it likely has the glacially slow 5400 rpm HD. There is no way to make it faster without spending about $250 which does not make sense. I would strongly consider getter the new M3 24" iMac with a 1TB HD and 16GB of RAM. Another option is to buy a Mac Mini and add your own display. Another option is to consider an Apple refurbished Mac which has no downside! They are identical to new, have the same warranty as new, are eligible for AppleCare and can save hundreds of $$. You can find them at www.apple.com scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find the refurbished store.
In short, you have a lot of options available to you, however I would consider "refurbishing" your 10 year old iMac is the least attractive.
Apple will recycle it for free if you decide get rid of it, please click Apple Recycling Programs.
Remember a 2015 is almost 10 year old is obsolete in that it will not run current versions of Mac OS and the parts are difficult to obtain.
If you bought a HD based 21.5 iMac it likely has the glacially slow 5400 rpm HD. There is no way to make it faster without spending about $250 which does not make sense. I would strongly consider getter the new M3 24" iMac with a 1TB HD and 16GB of RAM. Another option is to buy a Mac Mini and add your own display. Another option is to consider an Apple refurbished Mac which has no downside! They are identical to new, have the same warranty as new, are eligible for AppleCare and can save hundreds of $$. You can find them at www.apple.com scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find the refurbished store.
In short, you have a lot of options available to you, however I would consider "refurbishing" your 10 year old iMac is the least attractive.
Hey there!
I have the same model iMac from 2015 and mine runs beautifully with the following:
Use an external SSD
If your Mac currently uses an Apple 5400-rpm hard disk at the startup disk, you can benefit from using an external solid state drive (SSD) as a new startup disk.
To check, open Disk Utility. In the Finder, choose Go > Utilities, then double-click the Disk Utility icon. (Disk Utility is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.) Alternatively, click Launchpad in the Dock, type Disk Utility in the search field, then click the Disk Utility icon. Once Disk Utility is open, select View > Show All Devices in Disk Utility and look at entry at the top of the hierarchy. If you see "APPLE HDD...", or "Fusion Drive", you can benefit from this external SSD upgrade!
A recommended external SSD, sold from the Apple Store, is the LaCie Mobile SSD Secure USB-C Drive - Gray - Apple. You'll also need a USB-C to USB-A adapter cable, such as the Belkin 3.1 USB-A to USB-C Cable, to connect the SSD to your Mac.
Here are some other options from Other World Computing (OWC) that do not require a separate adapter cable:
To setup the SSD, this user tip should help: Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community.
Upgrade to macOS Monterey
When you setup the external SSD, be sure to install macOS Monterey on it, the latest supported version of macOS for your Mac. The user tip Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community explains how to, but please let us know if you need help!
-Jack
Al alternate approach to booting from an external SSD (see Jack-19's post) is to replace the current internal drive with an internal SSD. I Have the late 2015 iMac which originally has a slow mechanical drive and I replaced it with this drive Samsung - 870 EVO 1TB Internal SSD SATA which I see presently available for about $75 from multiple vendors. I also paid an Apple Authorized Service Provider (third party service center that is certified by Apple; Apple store will not do work like this on such an old Mac) $50 to do the replacement as I was not comfortable myself working inside that model of iMac. So total cost to do this is about $125. This iMac can go to Monterey OS. I still use it every day; I have very new Macs but they are laptops (we do have an M1 iMac also relatively new but my wife uses that so I am not allowed to) and I like to use this one for its large screen display.
One limitation of this old iMac is that it has just 2 old Thunderbolt 2 ports plus 4 USB3 ports. To use newer external drives and devices that require USB-C connectors, I also got an inexpensive OWC Thunderbolt Dock that connects to one of the Thunderbolt 2 ports with an adapter. So that means the iMac has its 4 original USB3 ports, plus now (on the Dock) 3 Thunderbolt4 (USB-C connector) ports and one more USB3 port. So it can be used with numerous USB3 and USB-C connecting devices.
I decided to keep using this iMac because (a) it is so fast now with the internal SSD, (b) Monterey is old but not that old, (c) it has WiFi 802.11ac which is moderately recent so it is still fast, (d) the computer is in excellent physical condition, including the display.
That said, the newer Macs are extraordinarily capable computers and upgrading to a newer machine for you might make a lot of sense. For instance, Intuit's Turbotax for tax year 2023 requires Monterey or later, so in a year or two the newest TurboTax probably won't run on Monterey.
The only system newer than Big Sur you can run is Monterey, macOS 12.7.2.
In order to rule out 3rd party software as the cause of the slow performance do the following; download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.
Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
Copy the report
and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.
rkaufmann87 wrote:
If you bought a HD based 21.5 iMac it likely has the glacially slow 5400 rpm HD. There is no way to make it faster without spending about $250
These days, you can get 1 TB external SSDs for less than $100.
Thank all of you for the expert advice!
Your welcome and good luck.
Refurbishing my Mac
