iMac Late 2015 macOs Monterey is painfully slow

[turbineseaplane]

Can confirm that 2015 hardware can work wonderfully, but an SSD is a requirement

My 2015 15" MBP with an NVMe stick on Monterey works sensationally

(typing this post on it)

 

[DeltaMac]

...
Then I was super disappointed to find out that the RAM is soldered to the logic board and not upgradeable and the only drive port is SATA! I decided to upgrade it anyway, removed the screen and put in a cheap 512gb SATA SSD.
...
It's shocking that Apple released that thing with a 5400rpm HDD. Honestly, I can understand trying to maintain a profit margin but where is the pride? Increase the price but don't release that garbage into the wild! (In fairness, maybe it wasn't so obviously terrible with the OS it had at the time but Monterey is brutal!)

I'm curious about the comments that external TB3 would actually be faster than an internal SATA drive - from what I can see, this device just has USB3 and TB2? Apologies, I've never explored using an external drive for the OS before.

There is one other, much faster, internal port on your 2015 iMac. It's on the backside of the logic board, and is a slot for flash storage. Takes a PCIe/NVMe card. Much more challenging to get to that port, as the logic board must be removed to get at that slot. It has an Apple-specific connector, but you only need a $10 Sintech adapter to use most any m.2/NVMe card that you like.

 

[macguru9999]

There is one other, much faster, internal port on your 2015 iMac. It's on the backside of the logic board, and is a slot for flash storage. Takes a PCIe/NVMe card. Much more challenging to get to that port, as the logic board must be removed to get at that slot. It has an Apple-specific connector, but you only need a $10 Sintech adapter to use most any m.2/NVMe card that you like.

The Ram is not soldered, but you need to remove the motherboard to reach it in the 21.5 in. The TB ports are tb2 so do not give the speeds of a 2017. also , in most cases there is no pci ssd port on the back of the mobo. some have it, if they had a fusion drive. i generally dont bother with it or the ram and just do what you did.

 

[bzgnyc2]

As a coincidence, last week I bought a used late 2015 retina 21.5" iMac second hand very very cheaply. I could not believe how slow it was when I got it home (I have a couple macbooks and a mac mini from that period that run circles around it). Just checking system preferences was a spinning beach ball!

Then I was super disappointed to find out that the RAM is soldered to the logic board and not upgradeable and the only drive port is SATA! I decided to upgrade it anyway, removed the screen and put in a cheap 512gb SATA SSD.

It is a totally different computer! Not a powerhouse by any means but you can actually use it without feeling like it is a chore.

It's shocking that Apple released that thing with a 5400rpm HDD. Honestly, I can understand trying to maintain a profit margin but where is the pride? Increase the price but don't release that garbage into the wild! (In fairness, maybe it wasn't so obviously terrible with the OS it had at the time but Monterey is brutal!)

I'm curious about the comments that external TB3 would actually be faster than an internal SATA drive - from what I can see, this device just has USB3 and TB2? Apologies, I've never explored using an external drive for the OS before.

To give some balance to Apple here, HDD werne't so crazy in 2015 and the MacOS X of the times (e.g. El Capitan) were better optimized for them (since that's all there was/was practical for many use cases). The problem I'm realizing is that developers tend to develop for their own computers and it's painful if your hardware's performance characteristics vary too much from their's.

But enough balance -- I do feel like some of Apple's more recent offerings went a little too far with 'The most beautiful things in the world are those from which all the excess weight [value?] has been eliminated" maxim. Like where we're spending thousands, maybe an extra $20 in parts in a few places would be nice...

 

[bluewooster]

There is one other, much faster, internal port on your 2015 iMac. It's on the backside of the logic board, and is a slot for flash storage. Takes a PCIe/NVMe card. Much more challenging to get to that port, as the logic board must be removed to get at that slot. It has an Apple-specific connector, but you only need a $10 Sintech adapter to use most any m.2/NVMe card that you like.

From what I read, this might only be true of those 21.5" iMacs that were purchased with either a SSD or Fusion drive? (I'm assuming mine wasn't as it just had the 1 TB HDD when I opened it up). If I'm wrong, please let me know as I'd definitely be interested to take it apart further!

 

[bluewooster]

The Ram is not soldered, but you need to remove the motherboard to reach it in the 21.5 in. The TB ports are tb2 so do not give the speeds of a 2017. also , in most cases there is no pci ssd port on the back of the mobo. some have it, if they had a fusion drive. i generally dont bother with it or the ram and just do what you did.

Are you sure? I was watching a Youtube video of a guy breaking the resin, putting the logic board in the oven, soldering the ram, etc and thinking yikes! (

)

 

[DeltaMac]

2015 21.5-inch iMacs (such as the OP has) all have soldered ram.

 

[macguru9999]

Are you sure? I was watching a Youtube video of a guy breaking the resin, putting the logic board in the oven, soldering the ram, etc and thinking yikes! (

)

every 21.5 i have opened has had clip in ram but i could be wrong. there was a 2014 21.5 with soldered ram but i think all the others have clip in, i have opened 2012, 2013, 2017 and 2019 but not a 2014.... i dont think i have done a 2015 either .....

 

[tuesdaytues]

I am having the same slowness with my mom's computer, a iMac 21.5 inch Late 2015, Processor 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5. 8GB it shows 1TB SATA Disk, and 943.25 GB available of 1 TB. I am not even sure what all of that means however I am not intimidated to try to get this iMac to work better for her. Almost nothing is stored on the Mac, my mom is 90 and uses it to check Facebook, buy stuff on Amazon, send/receive emails, play a few card games and thats about it. I do not really want to buy her a brand new Mac so hoping someone can share the "add an external hard drive" for dummies directions here as it seems that is what we need to do. OR roll back to El Captain if that is something you all think will work and something that is easier to do than an external Hard Drive. Thank you all, I have fixed a few things by using these forums and offered any help I can when I could.

 

[Fishrrman]

tuesday:

I have the answer for you (and your mom).

Go back in this thread and copy and print out my reply 3.
Save it as a bookmark, you will need the links, too.
Reply 3:
#3
(click above link)

IGNORE the following paragraph:
Get one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Portable-Photographers-MU-PE1T0R-AM/dp/B09VLJB2DC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=samsung+t7+shield+1tb&qid=1706284299&sr=8-3

(how much space is consumed on your current internal drive?)

Pay attention to all the rest.

Your mom has used almost NO space at all on that slow 1tb drive.
We need a faster USB3 EXTERNAL drive -- an "SSD".
But it doesn't need to be too large.

I suggest one of these (2.5" sata SSD, 512gb):

Crucial BX500 480GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-Inch Internal SSD, up to 540MB/s - CT480BX500SSD1

Ever wonder why your phone responds faster than your computer? It's because your phone runs on flash memory. Add flash to your laptop or desktop computer with the Crucial BX500 SSD, the easiest way to get all the speed of a new computer without the price. Accelerate everything.

www.amazon.com

Actually, you could probably get away with a 256gb drive... easily.

You need a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure in which to put it:

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

www.amazon.com

The drive just snaps into the enclosure, ANYONE can do this (this means YOU).

Now -- again -- follow the instructions in post 3 of this thread.
You need to first erase the drive in disk utility, and then
Download SuperDuper and use it to "clone" the contents of the internal drive to the SSD.
And then, set it to be the "new boot drive".

You and your mom will be AMAZED at the speed difference you get from this.

ONE THING:
You didn't tell us WHICH VERSION OF THE OS is currently running on the mom's iMac.

If it's High Sierra or earlier, you need to format the SSD to HFS+ (Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format)
If it's Mojave or later, format the drive to APFS, GUID partition format.

Good luck.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I am having the same slowness with my mom's computer, a iMac 21.5 inch Late 2015, Processor 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5. 8GB it shows 1TB SATA Disk, and 943.25 GB available of 1 TB. I am not even sure what all of that means however I am not intimidated to try to get this iMac to work better for her. Almost nothing is stored on the Mac, my mom is 90 and uses it to check Facebook, buy stuff on Amazon, send/receive emails, play a few card games and thats about it. I do not really want to buy her a brand new Mac so hoping someone can share the "add an external hard drive" for dummies directions here as it seems that is what we need to do. OR roll back to El Captain if that is something you all think will work and something that is easier to do than an external Hard Drive. Thank you all, I have fixed a few things by using these forums and offered any help I can when I could.

Note if you had to choose you'd be better off with Mojave/HFS+ on that system than El Capitan. Not that I didn't like El Capitan but it's quite a bit older and very few recent programs support it. At least with Mojave there is still ESR support in Firefox for another 6-12? months and the Orion browser among a few others still supports it. I'm guessing more than a few websites won't work at all in the last version of Safari released with El Capitan.

Making Mojave boot from an HFS+ filesystem is a little tricky and will leave it to others to explain how to do it:

Is it possible to install Mojave and keep HFS+ ?

Catalina boots and runs on HFS+, but there have been reports of some incompatible apps. I’ve not had any trouble myself but I haven’t used it as my daily driver

forums.macrumors.com

If you do switch to an SSD (which I do recommend) then both Mojave and Monterey should install fine. Mojave likely being a little more responsive on that hardware while Monterey being more secure/lasting a little longer (though note still not likely to get security updates after August).

Your other alternative (other than buying her a new computer) is Linux. Not that I normally recommend Linux for someone's 90 year mom but the right installation of the right distribution should work fine for what you mentioned. That hardware is really more than enough for what she is doing. It is unfortunate Apple dropped support for that hardware. I get that it's almost 10 years old but it is still really more than enough to browse the web. Seems a shame to push people throw something like that away to get them to spend $1300+ on a new iMac that will be equivalent for their purposes...

 

[rin67630]

You need a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure

Yes, take care not to buy a –more common– USB 3.2 enclosure.
Apple never supported USB 3.2 and it will default to the USB 3.0, which has only half the speed.

 

[rin67630]

Seems a shame to push people throw something like that away to get them to spend $1300+ on a new iMac that will be equivalent for their purposes...

It IS a shame. But Apple is shameless , $$$ rules.

 

[AL2TEACH]

What should I do?

Almost 7 months later and curious what did you do?

 

[KRedwine]

tuesday:

I have the answer for you (and your mom).

Go back in this thread and copy and print out my reply 3.
Save it as a bookmark, you will need the links, too.
Reply 3:
#3
(click above link)

IGNORE the following paragraph:
Get one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Portable-Photographers-MU-PE1T0R-AM/dp/B09VLJB2DC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=samsung+t7+shield+1tb&qid=1706284299&sr=8-3

(how much space is consumed on your current internal drive?)

Pay attention to all the rest.

Your mom has used almost NO space at all on that slow 1tb drive.
We need a faster USB3 EXTERNAL drive -- an "SSD".
But it doesn't need to be too large.

I suggest one of these (2.5" sata SSD, 512gb):

Crucial BX500 480GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5-Inch Internal SSD, up to 540MB/s - CT480BX500SSD1

Ever wonder why your phone responds faster than your computer? It's because your phone runs on flash memory. Add flash to your laptop or desktop computer with the Crucial BX500 SSD, the easiest way to get all the speed of a new computer without the price. Accelerate everything.

www.amazon.com

Actually, you could probably get away with a 256gb drive... easily.

You need a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure in which to put it:

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

ORICO 2.5'' USB C External Hard Drive Enclosure, SATA 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen2 6Gbps Case for 2.5 Inch HDD/SSD Support Max 6TB with UASP Tool Free(2189C3)

www.amazon.com

The drive just snaps into the enclosure, ANYONE can do this (this means YOU).

Now -- again -- follow the instructions in post 3 of this thread.
You need to first erase the drive in disk utility, and then
Download SuperDuper and use it to "clone" the contents of the internal drive to the SSD.
And then, set it to be the "new boot drive".

You and your mom will be AMAZED at the speed difference you get from this.

ONE THING:
You didn't tell us WHICH VERSION OF THE OS is currently running on the mom's iMac.

If it's High Sierra or earlier, you need to format the SSD to HFS+ (Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format)
If it's Mojave or later, format the drive to APFS, GUID partition format.

Good luck.

I made an account on here for the sole purpose of expressing my shock, excitement and gratitude for how incredibly well this solution ^ worked.

I traded an XBox for a late 2015 21.5” Mac (3.3GHz i7, 8gb DDR3, Monterrey 12.7.5) without taking it for a test drive first. Got it home, fired it up and it was glacially slow. My 2013 base model MacBook Air w 4gb RAM ran circles around this thing.

Suspecting I had been scammed and feeling like I had nothing to lose, I blindly followed these ^ instructions. Even purchased the exact SSD and adapter linked in the text without researching any other options. I basically just wanted to confirm that the computer was in fact beyond repair so I could move on with my life.

To my shock and amazement, it booted right up and ran like a brand new machine. Been almost two weeks of me throwing everything at it I can think of and not a single hiccup so far.

Cannot thank you guys enough for the help. Never expected to enjoy a 10 year old computer this much.

TL;DR: +1 to this fix. And a huge ‘thank you’ to Fishrrman and everyone contributing to this thread. Nailed it! 10/10

 

[AL2TEACH]

What should I do?

Maybe, I missed it but what did you do?

 

[flamb]

You've got a Mac that is almost ten years old.
That is going to figure with anything you do.

Having said that...

I can fix you up.
Just do what follows.

Get one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Portable-Photographers-MU-PE1T0R-AM/dp/B09VLJB2DC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=samsung+t7+shield+1tb&qid=1706284299&sr=8-3

(how much space is consumed on your current internal drive?)

Download SuperDuper by clicking this link:

https://shirt-pocket.com/mint/pepper/orderedlist/downloads/download.php?file=https%3A//shirt-pocket.com/downloads/SuperDuper%21.dmg

SuperDuper is backup/cloning software.
It's FREE to use what we're going to use it for.

Connect the SSD, use Disk Utility to erase it to:
APFS, GUID partition format.

Open SuperDuper.
It's incredibly easy to understand and use.

Use SD to "clone" the contents of your internal drive to the SSD.
It will take a while, depending on how much stuff you have.
(again, how much space is used on the internal drive, the total space used must be less than the capacity of the SSD)

When done, open the startup disk settings pane.
Select the external SSD to be the boot drive.

Now, REBOOT.
You should get a boot from the SSD, and it should be faster.
Perhaps a LOT faster.

Follow my instructions above, and I predict that you'll come back and say, "I didn't realize it could run this well"...

Just like new! Thanks……