Speed up 2019 iMac 21.5

[ILowry82]

I just got a great deal on a 21.5 6-core 2019 iMac that I couldn't pass up. The problem I'm having is that this iMac does not have any user replaceable parts. The iMac comes with 8gb ram and 1tb fusion drive. I know there's nothing I can do about the ram, however would people here recommend adding an external SSD to replace the fusion drive? Can I get an MVNE and hook that up to the thunderbolt port to get better performance? Since it's brand new it obviously runs great, but I'm thinking long term here.

 

[ruslan120]

Absolutely. Should run fine!

 

[ILowry82]

Absolutely. Should run fine!

And that will run just as well as if it was internally installed?

 

[Airsculpture]

I recently purchased a 2017 iMac with a non fusion 5400 1TB internal drive. It was awful. I spent $100 on an external SSD 500GB and it runs like a dream.

The internal still has Catalina installed on it but I boot up using the external SSD into Big Sur.

Once you have Option booted you can go to System Prefs and designate it your default drive. After that you wouldnt know you were booting from an external, apart from the speed increase

I don't think you would notice the microseconds difference between internal and external

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

You can anticipate the SSD to run at around 85% of the capacity of an internal SSD.

Maybe better depending on how you connect it.,

 

[Airsculpture]

Thanks for that, that's pretty good imho on a $95 purchase.