Is it time to replace my iMac? (Page 4): I restored from my backups which did not involved restoring the virus! Come on! I may be old but I am not stupid!

PaulBrit Loc: Merlin, Southern Oregon

JD750 wrote:

A virus on a Mac? And you restored from the last backup but then didn’t restore the virus? I call BS.

I restored from my backups which did not involved restoring the virus! Come on! I may be old but I am not stupid!

Tote1940 Loc: Dallas

Totally agree with above
Make sure no programs running in background using resources
Love Clean my Mac

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

TriX wrote:

The processor is NOT 32 bits. lntel Core I-7s (introduced in 2008) are 64 bit CPUs (and it’s 64 bit, not 64 byte). So much incorrect computer information being propogated.

Macs have had 64-bit processors since the early 2000s, anyway. Apple waited to turn off 32-bit compatibility for over a decade. MacOS 11 in 2020 was the first MacOS to *require* 64-bit apps. It was also the first to run on both Intel and Apple Silicon hardware. It and the Apple Silicon hardware run most Intel software faster than most Intel Macs.

shirleycwalker

burkphoto wrote:

Run Clean My Mac. br br If only 28% of your driv... (show quote)

I agree with Bill. I had a 2013 27" mac (1TB) with a cracked screen that Apple didn't have the part available to repair it so Apple bought it from me. I purchased another 27" from Costco on sale and it only had a quarter (256mb) compared to my former model with 1TB. I have 4 external hard drives now so I don't bog things down on the new computer. I regret getting rid of my older model.

Arizona Art Loc: SE Florida

I also recommend using Clean My Mac. You will be surprised at the junk your Mac tries to manage that you really didn’t know about. Clean My Mac gets rid of that unnecessary bloat.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Pat F 4119 wrote:

My iMac is 8 years old, manufactured in 2014, purc... (show quote)

I think you'll be amazed by the news Macs. However it seems that it will be fall before any new 27" iMacs will be available with the M1 Max or M1 Pro chips. In the mean time watch this web site for the latest information. They are pretty close to being spot on.

jsfphotos Loc: New York, NY

My MacBook Pro is from 2015, bought refurbished in 2018. It has half the RAM and half the storage space of yours and I'm not seeing those kind of problems. Before buying a new one, I'd try to dig a little deeper on what might be going on.

bweber Loc: Newton, MA

CarolS wrote:

Don't replace it. I recently bought a new iMac and have nothing but trouble with it. It took 3 months to get it to work. Cannot use the current operating system. Never buy it from the Apple online store because if you take it to the Apple store for help, they will not help you. If you need another computer, buy from some other company, not apple.

well I purchased my MacBook Pro from apple on line, migrated all of files from a time machine hard drive and the only thing that took time was the migration process. The MacBook worked perfectly after the migration. The only thing I had to do was reenter my access code for C1 and my password for other apps.

GEngel-usmc Loc: Spencerport NY - I miss Lakeland, FL

CarolS wrote:

Don't replace it. I recently bought a new iMac and have nothing but trouble with it. It took 3 months to get it to work. Cannot use the current operating system. Never buy it from the Apple online store because if you take it to the Apple store for help, they will not help you. If you need another computer, buy from some other company, not apple.

Re: CarolS - I worked AppleCare and find CarolS reply strange. 1800myapple always works with Screen-Sharing and in very rare cases, an AppleCare Rep can and will call the nearest Apple Store and set up your appt for you, if requested. If you have purchased AppleCare on your iMac, AppleCare can have an Apple Rep onsite at your home for repair. Three months? Sounds like software issues, not firmware. - 35 years Apple and PC experience here.

jrm21

burkphoto wrote:

If you want a NEW iMac, WAIT for the Apple Silicon models to be released. Intel Macs will be obsolete soon, as Apple is transitioning to their own systems on chips. They are worth the wait!

Agreed with everything you wrote - just one comment on this point.

If you need a new computer now, you don't have to wait for Apple silicon to be released. The M1 (apple silicon) iMac was introduced last April. The 24" is only available with the M1 chip. Only the 27" model has the intel chip.

All current laptop models are also M1 - no Intel available.

That said, I would still agree one should wait. An updated iMac is expected to be announced soon. One announcement is expected at the March 8 event (although that is rumored to be a new Mac Mini). iMac updates are expected in May or June. The May/June iMacs are expected to have a newer "M2" chip.

xt2 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

Pat F 4119 wrote:

My iMac is 8 years old, manufactured in 2014, purc... (show quote)

If short of $$$, perhaps a iMac late 2015 with 48-64 Mb of RAM will be in your price range? I currently have a couple of fast and RAM-loaded late 2015 iMacs and they slay any photo software, even when many programs are running with never a beachball. Cheers!

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Pat F 4119 wrote:

My iMac is 8 years old, manufactured in 2014, purc... (show quote)

Just received (aka OWC) this from Mac Sales (aka OWC) So if you cannot wait.....

billmck Loc: Central KY

Pat F 4119 wrote:

My iMac is 8 years old, manufactured in 2014, purc... (show quote)

Go to Apple.com and click on support, select iMac and provide your serial number. Ask for Apple to call you. Normally takes just a couple of minutes to have their rep call you and you can discuss your issues with the rep. I had a similar experience, and it took three calls before they set me up with a Genius Bar appointment with more in-depth diagnostics. It fixed my issues.

Bill

neillaubenthal

An external SSD would speed up the old iMac a bit…but an 8 year old machine won't have USB C and IIRC it only has Thunderbolt 2 so you won't really get nearly as much extra performance as the SSD is capable of providing.

Frankly…I would not even consider any of the recommended upgrades in this thread…I'm a long time Mac user and consultant (since 1986 or so) and a machine that old simply isn't worth upgrading. The fusion drive is slow, slow, slow as is bus speed, CPU, GPU, and ports and it's simply not up to the task compared to current M1 hardware.

My laptop is a 14 inch M1 Pro MBP that was upgraded from a high end 2015 Retina MBP…and before I did the upgrade my wife's original M1 MacBook Air was at least twice as fast as the 8 year old high end Intel MBP…and the M1 Pro MBP is even faster than that.

I'm evaluating this same process…my iMac is a 2019 Intel model with an SSD and my laptop is a 14 inch M1 Pro MBP. I ran some tests today to see how much faster the M1 Pro is…and after doing so I'm going to retire my iMac and sell it. I'll move the LR catalog to the MBP and all the file server services the iMac is also providing to an M1 mini that's in our entertainment center. I'll keep the current year photos on the MBP and the older year ones on an OWC RAID attached to the mini so those originals will be via network drive but I'll build Smart Previews so that there's no real loss of performance and once a year move the old year ones to the RAID and start a new current year folder on the laptop. I'll use a large monitor (probably an LG 5K one) and external mouse/keyboard/tablet for photo management at home and the MBP display while we're on travel. Both have 32GB RAM and the M1 pro is the 10 core/16 graphics core version.

I saw a video yesterday comparing the M1 Pro to M1 Max and for most LR tasks there was no appreciable speed increase with the Max except for the slight increase in performance if you set it to High Power mode…the guy in the video said that for LR performance there was no real difference but the Max was better for video stuff.

Here are a couple of speed comparisons I did as part of my testing. I created a folder of 445 RAW Z50, Z7II, and D7500 images totaling 13.4 GB and put it on the CFE Type 2 card from the Z7II.

Import to LR with copy to the SSD and standard preview creation was 16m35s on the iMac (copy to SSD) and 1:25 for the MBP. Actual import time was about the same at 25ish seconds but creating the Standard Previews was about 16x faster on the MBP.

Created smart previews for all 445 images: 6:18 vs 1:47.

Export 1024 (long side) jpegs for all 445 images: 4:52 vs 2:26.

Based on those numbers…I'm simplifying my home network by one Mac and will retire the iMac in favor of an external monitor and TB dock that I can attach the MBP to when needed. It seems like a no brainer to me. If I was going to keep a regular desktop…I would wait until we see the M1 Pro mini either this month or soon and use it and an external monitor over another iMac as the monitor will outlast several computers.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

neillaubenthal wrote:

An external SSD would speed up the old iMac a bit…but an 8 year old machine won't have USB C and IIRC it only has Thunderbolt 2 so you won't really get nearly as much extra performance as the SSD is capable of providing.

Frankly…I would not even consider any of the recommended upgrades in this thread…I'm a long time Mac user and consultant (since 1986 or so) and a machine that old simply isn't worth upgrading. The fusion drive is slow, slow, slow as is bus speed, CPU, GPU, and ports and it's simply not up to the task compared to current M1 hardware.

My laptop is a 14 inch M1 Pro MBP that was upgraded from a high end 2015 Retina MBP…and before I did the upgrade my wife's original M1 MacBook Air was at least twice as fast as the 8 year old high end Intel MBP…and the M1 Pro MBP is even faster than that.

I'm evaluating this same process…my iMac is a 2019 Intel model with an SSD and my laptop is a 14 inch M1 Pro MBP. I ran some tests today to see how much faster the M1 Pro is…and after doing so I'm going to retire my iMac and sell it. I'll move the LR catalog to the MBP and all the file server services the iMac is also providing to an M1 mini that's in our entertainment center. I'll keep the current year photos on the MBP and the older year ones on an OWC RAID attached to the mini so those originals will be via network drive but I'll build Smart Previews so that there's no real loss of performance and once a year move the old year ones to the RAID and start a new current year folder on the laptop. I'll use a large monitor (probably an LG 5K one) and external mouse/keyboard/tablet for photo management at home and the MBP display while we're on travel. Both have 32GB RAM and the M1 pro is the 10 core/16 graphics core version.

I saw a video yesterday comparing the M1 Pro to M1 Max and for most LR tasks there was no appreciable speed increase with the Max except for the slight increase in performance if you set it to High Power mode…the guy in the video said that for LR performance there was no real difference but the Max was better for video stuff.

Here are a couple of speed comparisons I did as part of my testing. I created a folder of 445 RAW Z50, Z7II, and D7500 images totaling 13.4 GB and put it on the CFE Type 2 card from the Z7II.

Import to LR with copy to the SSD and standard preview creation was 16m35s on the iMac (copy to SSD) and 1:25 for the MBP. Actual import time was about the same at 25ish seconds but creating the Standard Previews was about 16x faster on the MBP.

Created smart previews for all 445 images: 6:18 vs 1:47.

Export 1024 (long side) jpegs for all 445 images: 4:52 vs 2:26.

Based on those numbers…I'm simplifying my home network by one Mac and will retire the iMac in favor of an external monitor and TB dock that I can attach the MBP to when needed. It seems like a no brainer to me. If I was going to keep a regular desktop…I would wait until we see the M1 Pro mini either this month or soon and use it and an external monitor over another iMac as the monitor will outlast several computers.

An external SSD would speed up the old iMac a bit…... (show quote)

The OP isn’t adding a thunderbolt connected SSD, he’s replacing the fusion drive with an SSD - big difference