Old iMac Scrub/Maintenance

[galaxy7]

So I have an iMac that's about 10 years old. She's still chugging along just fine and meets my computing needs for 95% of everything I need a computer for. A little slow sometimes and gets bogged down trying to run or open too much stuff at once. To be expected, and it's not so bad yet that it's not tolerable. Long story short, I really don't have a reason to buy a new one. Currently running Sierra 10.12.6. I think most of my slow down, bogging issues started when I first went to Sierra, but meh, whatever.

My main question is this...is there any simple maintenance or scrubbing I can, or should be doing to keep it running good? I currently have no specific complaints, just meaning in general. Asking in the context of how you would take a phone or iPad and restore as new every once in a while to scrub the junk off of it, if that's a smart idea. Didn't know if I could do something similar to this. Thanks for any info.

 

[Zdigital2015]

You can always download Cocktail and run the basic maintenance tasks - www.maintain.se - you may have some large cache files that could be emptied, which might help.

In general, slimming down what is stored on an HDD and freeing up space can help to speed it up a bit.

Download DriveRx - www.binaryfruit.com and see if that hard drive is near death. I suspect it may be approaching terminal sadness. Lots of beachballing can be a good first indicator that the HDD is on the brink. The SMART status indicators in Drive DX should help with telling you.

Replacing the HDD with an SSD may help prolong the computer’s usefulness for another couple of years. That said, if it is Core i5 or higher, it is probably worth a bit of TLC. If it is a Core 2 Duo, you may want to consider a replacement or just keep going until it dies.

Also, DiskWarrior has been helpful in cleaning up things with regard to the disk catalog, fixing errors and making things faster. Just make sure to use the right version that’s works with your version of macOS.

Just my 2¢

 

[mj_]

Currently running Sierra 10.12.6. I think most of my slow down, bogging issues started when I first went to Sierra, but meh, whatever.

Yes, that's what happened with Sierra on Macs with spinning disk drives. You really want an SSD with that and every subsequent version of macOS. If you want your old level of performance back I'm afraid you'll have to downgrade back to 10.11 again. There's nothing you can really do to improve Sierra's performance when it's running off of a mechanical drive.

 

[galaxy7]

It has a new hard drive, but I'm quite positive it was a stock type replacement. This thing has had a new hard drive, new mother board, and new screen (but in fairness, the new motherboard was the result of a broken pin while installing the new screen). I may just let her truck along until death, but will give some of these recommendations a try. Thank you folks!

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Alas a new platter drive was a mistake. It will still be bogged down and slow. An SSD is the answer. It will give your iMac a new lease of life.