Do I need software to make my iMac run faster?

[mrsmith1]

So do I need software to help clean up my iMac and make it run faster?
Ive had it for about three years. It seems okay, but a littler slow occasionally.
If I need software, what do I need? whats the best?
Please be aware I live in the UK.

 

[r6mile]

What are the specs of your Mac? Which OS are you running? Without that info nobody will be able to help you...

 

[James_C]

So do I need software to help clean up my iMac and make it run faster?
Ive had it for about three years. It seems okay, but a littler slow occasionally.
If I need software, what do I need? whats the best?
Please be aware I live in the UK.

You don't need software to make your Mac run faster. You can do most of this yourself.

1. Firstly check your much free hard disk space you have.

Click on the  icon in the top left part of the screen. Select 'About this Mac' and the select the Storage Tab. As a rough guide you should allow 10% as free space. When you are running multiple programs you Mac will use some of this space when you run out of Ram. As the amount of free disk space reduces below what it needs it can significantly effect performance.

2. It is possible you have some issues with your system disk.

Your Mac has an in-built tool called Disk Utility. Open this program ( Just Click the spotlight icon and enter Disk Utility - the App should be highlighted and press return to run) and select the hard drive in the panel on the left. In the main panel, click Run First Aid. The program will begin checking your hard drive.

3. You can speed up the start up of your Mac by limiting apps that you do longer need to run at startup.

This may be due to having too many applications set to open by default on start-up. Log-in items can be handy, or a hindrance. If they’re the latter, get rid of them.

To check the apps that are set to load automatically, open System Preferences, click on Users & Groups and then on Login Items. Uncheck any app that you don’t need to launch on start-up, then click on the ‘minus’ button.

Hardware wise the two things that you may be able to change, depending on your Mac can have a significant impact on speed.

A. Memory if you have a Mac that has upgradable ram - 27" iMacs you can. Then how much memory do you have ? Assuming you are not doing a lot of video editing or Photo manipulation then 16GB should be fine, any less than that and think about buying more RAM from either Crucial or OWC.

B. Your Hard Disk - If you Mac has a conventional hard disk or one of the Fusion Drives you could consider getting an external SSD drive - these can significantly boost performance. It is possible to turn an external SSD drive into a Boot drive and install Mac OS on it.

 

[Fishrrman]

Do you have a 27" or a 21" iMac?
What year was it made?
What kind of drive is inside?

ALL of these are important factors, particularly THE KIND of drive inside.

If it's a 21" iMac with a platter-based hard drive inside, if you want to make it faster, you need to buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, then set it up to become the boot drive.
THAT will speed it up.
Faster drive = faster computer.

 

[Juicy Box]

I have seen a lot of post of people complaining that their performance decreased after installing Catalina on a HDD or Fusion Drive.

What are the specs of your Mac? Which OS are you running?

Do you have a 27" or a 21" iMac?
What year was it made?
What kind of drive is inside?

Yeah, we really need the specs and OS to help.

Also, list what you do with your Mac, such as software used and the type of tasks.

 

[mrsmith1]

What are the specs of your Mac? Which OS are you running? Without that info nobody will be able to help you...

its a 21.5" Mac, Late 2015 and I have 708.38gb of 1 Tb space free

 

[mrsmith1]

and I'm running Catalinia 10.15.6 software

 

[mrsmith1]

You don't need software to make your Mac run faster. You can do most of this yourself.

1. Firstly check your much free hard disk space you have.

Click on the  icon in the top left part of the screen. Select 'About this Mac' and the select the Storage Tab. As a rough guide you should allow 10% as free space. When you are running multiple programs you Mac will use some of this space when you run out of Ram. As the amount of free disk space reduces below what it needs it can significantly effect performance.

View attachment 947315

2. It is possible you have some issues with your system disk.

Your Mac has an in-built tool called Disk Utility. Open this program ( Just Click the spotlight icon and enter Disk Utility - the App should be highlighted and press return to run) and select the hard drive in the panel on the left. In the main panel, click Run First Aid. The program will begin checking your hard drive.

View attachment 947319

3. You can speed up the start up of your Mac by limiting apps that you do longer need to run at startup.

This may be due to having too many applications set to open by default on start-up. Log-in items can be handy, or a hindrance. If they’re the latter, get rid of them.

To check the apps that are set to load automatically, open System Preferences, click on Users & Groups and then on Login Items. Uncheck any app that you don’t need to launch on start-up, then click on the ‘minus’ button.

Hardware wise the two things that you may be able to change, depending on your Mac can have a significant impact on speed.

A. Memory if you have a Mac that has upgradable ram - 27" iMacs you can. Then how much memory do you have ? Assuming you are not doing a lot of video editing or Photo manipulation then 16GB should be fine, any less than that and think about buying more RAM from either Crucial or OWC.

B. Your Hard Disk - If you Mac has a conventional hard disk or one of the Fusion Drives you could consider getting an external SSD drive - these can significantly boost performance. It is possible to turn an external SSD drive into a Boot drive and install Mac OS on it.

Thanks

 

[Juicy Box]

I have 708.38gb of 1 Tb space free

Is this a Fusion Drive or a HDD?

I'm running Catalinia

there has been many posts about how bad Catalina has been performing on Fusion Drives and HDDs.

I suggest if you have a Fusion Drive or HDD, and do not need Catalina, go back to an older OS.

If you want or need to keep Catalina, then consider getting an SSD.

You can get an external SSD for really cheap now. Ideally, replacing the internal HDD with a SSD would be best, but if you didn't feel comfortable to do it yourself and if you didn't want to pay someone to do it, doing an external solution is really easy.

You can get a SATA3 SSD and USB enclosure or adapter for less than $100. TB ones would be better, but more expensive.

 

[mrsmith1]

Is this a Fusion Drive or a HDD?


there has been many posts about how bad Catalina has been performing on Fusion Drives and HDDs.

I suggest if you have a Fusion Drive or HDD, and do not need Catalina, go back to an older OS.

If you want or need to keep Catalina, then consider getting an SSD.

You can get an external SSD for really cheap now. Ideally, replacing the internal HDD with a SSD would be best, but if you didn't feel comfortable to do it yourself and if you didn't want to pay someone to do it, doing an external solution is really easy.

You can get a SATA3 SSD and USB enclosure or adapter for less than $100. TB ones would be better, but more expensive.

Thanks

 

[Juicy Box]

One more thing about using a SSD for your boot drive, no matter what OS you choose to use, the SSD would feel like a very significant upgrade overall if you are currently using a HDD.

I highly suggest using one no matter what you decide to do.

Also:

You can get a SATA3 SSD and USB enclosure or adapter for less than $100.

I was referring to 1TB SSDs, you can get a smaller sized one for a lot cheaper.

 

[mrsmith1]

Thanks

HDD

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I have seen a lot of post of people complaining that their performance decreased after installing Catalina on a HDD or Fusion Drive.

Saying "I have seen a lot of post of people complaining" is like saying, "I saw the sun rise in the east and set in the west." There is nothing people won't complain about, and nothing people will not blame for their complaints. Whether they are accurately assessing the cause of their problems is another question altogether. Whether those who do complain are a representative sample of all users of Fusion-drive equipped Macs running Catalina... very hard to know. Does each published complaint represent 1,000 with the same issue who haven't complained? Or is it 100? 100,000? One person can post 10 times or more with the same complaint, amplifying the impression that many people have the same problem... Or maybe it's real. Altogether, Internet posts are not the same as a proper, statistical analysis.

I'm running Catalina on a late 2013 iMac with a Fusion drive. Runs perfectly fine. Does that mean it will work perfectly fine for everyone? No, because there are too many other variables. Which is why we check things like available HDD space, unnecessary startup items, out-of-date software, insufficient RAM, etc. And sometimes computers seem old and slow when compared to newer and or more powerful computers. What seemed really fast and snappy five years ago just doesn't seem fast and snappy today. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Altogether, macOS does provide a lot of good tools for analyzing performance. But there is other software out there that can also help, and may be easier to use. EtreCheck is very good at finding a good number of performance issues, but you have to be able to read and understand a report - it's not like one of those "clean your Mac" apps with bold graphics and questionable solutions. There is a tendency to market that kind of software like a miracle cure. The more they promise, the more suspicious you should be. The worst of them promise the world, charge ridiculously high prices, and don't do anything more than you could do with the tools built into the operating system. The difference between them may only be whether you need to learn a bit before using them.

 

[Juicy Box]

Saying "I have seen a lot of post of people complaining" is like saying, "I saw the sun rise in the east and set in the west." There is nothing people won't complain about, and nothing people will not blame for their complaints. Whether they are accurately assessing the cause of their problems is another question altogether. Whether those who do complain are a representative sample of all users of Fusion-drive equipped Macs running Catalina... very hard to know. Does each published complaint represent 1,000 with the same issue who haven't complained? Or is it 100? 100,000? One person can post 10 times or more with the same complaint, amplifying the impression that many people have the same problem... Or maybe it's real. Altogether, Internet posts are not the same as a proper, statistical analysis.

While that all could be true, sometimes it is a case of where there is smoke, there is fire.

The issues of Catalina and APFS on HDDs isn't just on the MR forum, but everywhere. Just do a something search and look at all the results of actual tests. Here are the first few that popped up for me:

An analysis of APFS enumeration performance on rotational hard drives - Bombich Software

bombich.com

Using APFS On HDDs ... And Why You Might Not Want To

After 16 months of using and testing APFS—Apple's new file system—I’ve come to the conclusion that you probably don’t want to use it on HDDs (disks with rotating platters).

blog.macsales.com

APFS Is Not Yet Ready for Traditional Hard Drives | Larry Jordan

larryjordan.com

True, there could be all sorts of other factors, but it would be hard to deny that an addition to a SSD would make the overall performance seem better.

 

[Juicy Box]

This is from a test from the first link I posted showing enumeration performance of HDDs comparing HFS and APFS, the blue line is from HFS, and the rest is from APFS:



If you read the newer articles, it appears that the HDD performance has only decreased since Catalina, not improved.

 

[Juicy Box]

To the OP: While there could be all sorts of factors at play to explain your recent performance troubles, there has been many reports of performance decreases on HDD when using Catalina and APFS.

Regardless of whether this is the case for you, a SSD is a solid upgrade for performance improvements, can be very easy to due, and is relatively cheap.

If you decide to give it a try, there is plenty of resources out there for you to DIY, and you can always post on here. There are plenty of MR members that have already went from a HDD to a SSD that would help walk you through it if you have problems.

 

[James_C]

its a 21.5" Mac, Late 2015 and I have 708.38gb of 1 Tb space free

As @vertical smile has suggested the principle bottleneck is the hard disk in the iMac. You can get a Samsung T5 USB SSD from Amazon uk for about£142. It will plug into the back. You can then set it up as your boot disk, install Mac OS and copy all of your data over from your internal HDD. You will notice a significant improvement in performance.

The other option is to sell your iMac on eBay it’s probably worth £400 to £500 less eBay fees, and get a new iMac with at least 16GB of ram and an SSD.

 

[profcutter]

So you have thunderbolt 2 connections. Pick up a NVME ssd, and grab an enclosure that has a thunderbolt 2 cable. Make that your boot drive. Your machine will all of a sudden seem like a modern device. Hard drives have their place in 2020, but not as boot drives.