External SSD as start-up to increase speed

I have an iMac (early 2009, 20") with 8GB RAM and 320 GB of storage.

I experience "beachballing" and crashes.

At first I thought I should either swap out my HD with a big SSD; then I thought I could swap out my optical drive for an SSD; now I'm thinking why not get a big SSD as an external drive and put my OS (I'm using El Capitan 10.11.6) there.

Is this a good solution to improve my iMac's functionality?

Thanks,

iMac (20-inch Early 2009), Using OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Feb 28, 2017 6:54 AM

16 replies

Feb 28, 2017 11:07 AM in response to dwb

Thank you to all.
I will give these suggestions a try.

Again, thanks much.

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External SSD as start-up to increase speed

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