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Early 2008 iMac thoughts, worth doing any upgrades ...

Chung123

Chung123

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 5, 2013
240
113
NYC
I've had this 24" Early 2008 iMac since 2009. It has served us a well, but over the years with each release of a new Mac OS and hungrier memory requirements— the thing feels so sluggish and inadequate now. I've done all the permission repairs etc. The hard drive is still ok. About a year ago, I've upgraded the memory to 4 gigs total (this iMac maxes out at 6 gigs ram). A 4 gig memory stick is about $100. (Memory prices suck for this iMac) Spending that much just to add 2 more gigs of memory seems so wasteful.

I'm considering a SSD upgrade as it should improve start up, log in and launch of applications, but ambivalent about putting too much money into it.

I guess the debate is whether it's worth spending $150 SSD plus bracket to improve this 7 year old Mac. The iMac is for light-regular use and not our main machine.
 
An ssd would add life and make it better, but it also depends on what you do to see if a new computer makes more sense. Opening the iMac is not that easy, I will at some point upgrade my 2011, but the tear down looks complicated online.

I would also find out if you need a heat sensor upgrade, if you don't put one in (or use software to manually control the fans) you may get a out of control full speed exhaust fan situation. Owc sells a kit if you need one. (I am not sure on a 2008 model if it is needed, you will need to research it.)

----------

Also, you may want to wait until the next OS X is announced (probably in June at wwdc conference.). It may be that Yosemite is the last upgrade for that model, it may sway your decision.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It looks like an SSD is the way to go, but will wait and see if next OS orphans this iMac.
 
Chung123 said:
I've had this 24" Early 2008 iMac since 2009. It has served us a well, but over the years with each release of a new Mac OS and hungrier memory requirements— the thing feels so sluggish and inadequate now. I've done all the permission repairs etc. The hard drive is still ok. About a year ago, I've upgraded the memory to 4 gigs total (this iMac maxes out at 6 gigs ram). A 4 gig memory stick is about $100. (Memory prices suck for this iMac) Spending that much just to add 2 more gigs of memory seems so wasteful.

I'm considering a SSD upgrade as it should improve start up, log in and launch of applications, but ambivalent about putting too much money into it.

I guess the debate is whether it's worth spending $150 SSD plus bracket to improve this 7 year old Mac. The iMac is for light-regular use and not our main machine.
Click to expand...

I have a mid 2007 24" iMac and have been contemplating upgrading it with an SSD as well. (Has 4GB RAM which I'm also considering taking up to 6GB).

I've owned the machine since new, and frankly, it still runs very well. I use it primarily as the main home computer, and my Lightroom machine. Hard to believe it still handles a 500GB\80K image catalog\database quite well. I can only assume that the SSD upgrade will help tremendously, and help me to avoid spending that $2500 on a Retina iMac for at least another year or so, LOL. The only thing I see going wrong with it is the display, which is frustrating. I'm starting to see very, very light, but noticeable, purple streaking on certain sections of the monitor.
 
Update: I installed the El Capitan GM Candidate yesterday and it has made the early 2008 iMac useable again. Very nice. I still plan to do the SSD/SSHD upgrade in the future(I have the suction cups already) but a lot of the performance degradation was due to Yosemite IMHO.
 
I own a Mid 2007 iMac (base model 2.0 GHz C2D with the 128MB ATI 2400XT) that I've upgraded to 4GB RAM and an SSD a few years ago when Mountain Lion came out. It runs great on Mavericks and El Capitan. In fact it's primary uses are the Adobe Creative Suite (PS/LR/ID mostly), Logic Pro X/MainStage, iTunes, Office, and for browsing. I've been pleasantly surprised how well it can handle Photoshop and Logic Pro considering it's 8 years old. The SSD made all the difference.

My brother has a 2008 model that was just barely moving along and he was about to throw it out the window (HDD was super slow). I put an SSD in it (512GB Crucial BX100) plus bracket (Newer Technology AdaptaDrive) and he absolutely loves it again. He's got kids so he likes being able to use photos and iMovie to create and edit videos like he used to back when it was on Snow Leopard.

I'm glad El Capitan is supported on these guys and that it runs so well on them despite their age. Good to hear it put some life back in yours. I can see mine easily lasting a few more years barring hardware failure. I did have the PSU and GPU replaced some number of years ago when it was under Apple Care. So hopefully that won't be an issue.
 
I'm still currently using a 2008 24" iMac with Mavericks. I upgraded the RAM to 4GB years back. I notice that web pages with a lot of Flash, the computer can't seem to handle it and everything becomes laggy. At times it really brings the computer to its knees. I was thinking about getting a SSD for it, hoping to make it faster, but I'm not sure how much a boost in performance I would get when running Flash based websites.

I'm definitely looking to upgrade to a 27" riMac with Skylake when that's available. Not sure how many more months it will let me squeeze out of this machine.
 
So after sitting on doing this upgrade for almost half a year. I finally purchased and installed a Sandisk SSD Plus 240 gig for $65 plus another 15 dollars for the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. Everything went really smoothly and despite having only 4 gigs of system RAM and El Capitan, the computer is now useable again. I do kick myself for not getting a 2.5" to Optical Drive Tray Caddy adapter so that the SSD could be installed in the optical drive bay and still retain a regular rotational hard drive. Still, that's about as much money as I wanted to spend on that 2008 iMac.
 
You can still purchase the caddy, and just move the SSD to where the optical drive is now and reinstall the spinning hard drive. That will be a very inexpensive way of getting more storage, since you already have the hard drive.
 
I'm pretty happy I was able to pull it apart without too much issues. It will be a while before I pull it apart again. I don't want to press my luck. But I assume this caddy would work: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056EW4A4
Heck, that's cheaper than the 2.5-3.5 adapter for the SSD.:rolleyes:
 
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You have an Early 2008 iMac. The optical drive in that machine uses an Ultra ATA/100 interface, so installing an SSD in that slot is not exactly the best move to make. I don't know that that iMac has an extra SATA port that can have a cable routed to the optical drive.

By now, I would probably not recommend people spend time or money upgrading Core 2 Duo systems, but one of your better 2.8GHz C2D machines with 6GB of RAM and an SSD boot drive can still get things done.
 
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