mac 2017 upgrade help

[ashhamari]

Hi I have 27inch 2017 imac (i5 3.4ghz, 8gb ram and 1gb fusion drive). in india no option for SSD. now i want to know how can i improve the performance? my lightroom is bit slow sometime. should i increase the RAM?? will this enough to make whole mac faster?

thanks in advance

 

[Fishrrman]

Can't you buy a USB3 SSD?
If you can, you can plug it in and set it up to be the boot drive.

But you should benchmark the speed of the internal fusion drive first.
Use "BlackMagic Speed Test" (free).

 

[ashhamari]

Can't you buy a USB3 SSD?
If you can, you can plug it in and set it up to be the boot drive.

But you should benchmark the speed of the internal fusion drive first.
Use "BlackMagic Speed Test" (free).

thanks Fishrrman for the reply and suggestion. yes i can get a USB 3 SSD and use it for bootup. i am thinking of buyig samsung t5 500gb for that. what should be the ideal benchmark speed for fusion drive?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

thanks Fishrrman for the reply and suggestion. yes i can get a USB 3 SSD and use it for bootup. i am thinking of buyig samsung t5 500gb for that. what should be the ideal benchmark speed for fusion drive?

Benchmarking fusion drives is very difficult as it will usually just measure the SSD which will be very fast but when the fusion needs to use the HDD it will be slow, this will not show up on most drive speed tests. Remember a fusion drive is actually 2 drives joined using software.

You have 2 options here really,

1) use an external usb 3 ssd as discussed.

https://www.macworld.com/article/29...ld-mac-feel-new-without-cracking-it-open.html

2) or open it up and replace the HDD with a sata connected SSD and creatye an all ssd fusion drive.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+I...K+Display+(2017)+Hard+Drive+Replacement/92700

 

[Fishrrman]

RE Samuelsan's post above:
If the 2017 is under warranty, opening it will (for all practical purposes) void the warranty.
If you break something inside, I don't think Apple will cover the damage.

The fastest, easiest, safest way is to use an external USB3 SSD (if that's what you really want).

I'd try it with the fusion drive first.
IF and WHEN the fusion drive starts slowing down on you, THEN is the time to think about an external boot drive...

 

[AlexJoda]

You might also think about using an external Thunderbolt SSD, which is more natively integrated with PCIe bus of the iMac (as the internal SSD) and therefore reacts to the TRIM command and can be used with Bootcamp...

 

[ashhamari]

You might also think about using an external Thunderbolt SSD, which is more natively integrated with PCIe bus of the iMac (as the internal SSD) and therefore reacts to the TRIM command and can be used with Bootcamp...

I think 2017 imac has usb c port no thunderbolt port?
so you mean to say i should use usb-c port for boot up with external ssd like samsung t5??

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I think 2017 imac has usb c port no thunderbolt port?
so you mean to say i should use usb-c port for boot up with external ssd like samsung t5??

Usb c is a connector type and the iMac has all of its USB-C ports with thunderbolt 3 tech built into them it can act as usb c, power cable (mobile devices), thunderbolt 3 with the correct cable giving 40gb/s bandwidth allowing hugely fast data transfer, 5k screens over one cable (display port cable) and eGPU support and multi function docks running numerous peripherals at full speed over TB3.

RE Samuelsan's post above:
If the 2017 is under warranty, opening it will (for all practical purposes) void the warranty.
If you break something inside, I don't think Apple will cover the damage.

The fastest, easiest, safest way is to use an external USB3 SSD (if that's what you really want).

I'd try it with the fusion drive first.
IF and WHEN the fusion drive starts slowing down on you, THEN is the time to think about an external boot drive...

I agree about the warranty, but it is an option and in India i’d Imagine the warranty may not mean too much as they have no real Apple presence.

 

[Appler007]

I think 2017 imac has usb c port no thunderbolt port?
so you mean to say i should use usb-c port for boot up with external ssd like samsung t5??

The usb c port of the imac has Thunderbolt functionality !

 

[AlexJoda]

The usb c port of the imac has Thunderbolt functionality !

Yes but you need an external drive that is able to act as an Thunderbolt 3 drive and not only as an USB drive (like the ones from LaCie, but they are still somewhat rare compared to the many TB2 drives...)

 

[Appler007]

Yes but you need an external drive that is able to act as an Thunderbolt 3 drive and not only as an USB drive (like the ones from LaCie, but they are still somewhat rare compared to the many TB2 drives...)

Yes, and you can use an apple tb3 to tb2 adapter in order to use an external thunderbolt 2 drive!