2008 iMac worth it?

[Giuanniello]

Long story short,

got a 2008 20" Core2 Duo iMac with 4GB RAM and an apparently soon to die HD, the owner reported not booting on some occasions, I dunno if this particular model had issues so I might think to tear it apart and stuff a 1TB HD inside it and use it to store data, remote backup for home network computers or whatever any other use not requiring up to date hardware/software.

Any hint about it?

Grazie

 

[retta283]

These seem to be fairly reliable machines overall. Not aware of major screen defects, nor GPU issues. The 24" model with the 8800GS is to be avoided at all costs these days, but the ATI models seem to be mostly problem-free. There could be an issue with something if it doesn't boot sometimes, but it's hard to say for certain. Will probably just have to use it and see what it does. Perhaps someone Else with a bit more knowledge can give insight on the shutdown issue.

 

[AL1630]

I have two family members who have these, both 20" 4GB machines. One was using theirs up until earlier this year when it just got slow and they wanted to run newer versions of macOS. The other is still going in daily use for zoom calls and web browsing. Neither one has had any major issues, other than the CD drive dying on one of them. One is significantly faster than the other, though that's probably down to one having way more crap on it.

 

[m1maverick]

These seem to be fairly reliable machines overall. Not aware of major screen defects, nor GPU issues. The 24" model with the 8800GS is to be avoided at all costs these days, but the ATI models seem to be mostly problem-free. There could be an issue with something if it doesn't boot sometimes, but it's hard to say for certain. Will probably just have to use it and see what it does. Perhaps someone Else with a bit more knowledge can give insight on the shutdown issue.

I am going to agree with the OP that a dying HD is likely the reason for the sporadic failure to boot issue.

 

[Giuanniello]

Ok, the plan is to buy new drives for and external RAID storage so I can swap the existing 1TB with new 2TB ones and use one of the old 1TB as a boot drive for the 20" iMac, not gonna get an SSD for it, not worth for the use it would have to face.

Grazie

p.s. unfortunately I also have a 2009 27" iMac, a maxed out from a friend, the graphic board died, it was a damn hell o a screen to stare at, especially for photo post processing it was great

 

[Amethyst1]

If only the 20" LCDs in the Al iMacs weren't TN (= crap)...

 

[MultiFinder17]

Congrats on the new-to-you iMac! I've been using a 20" early 2008 (2.4 C2D, 6GB, 120GB SSD) at school for the past four years, and it's a fantastic little machine. Admittedly I don't use it for much beyond office, iTunes, and some web apps in Chrome, but it handles those with aplomb.

If only the 20" LCDs in the Al iMacs weren't TN (= crap)...

Yeaaaaaaah, the screen on mine is kinda poop, especially compared to literally any later iMac I have. But hey, a poop screen is better than no screen, and the space savings in my cramped little office at school make it worth it