Mid 2011 iMac upgrades....or don't bother?

Soldato
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I have inherited a mid 2011 iMac 21.5inch, 500gb HD, 2.5ghz intel core i5 with 4gb memory.

Ive been using MacBooks and iPads for a few years and have essentially only taken this because Im having to work from home for the foreseeable as Im sure many of us are. Thing is i REALLY like it! Ok, its pretty dated but it actually still does most of what I would ever want a desktop to do albeit its a little slow.

Running along side this I am just finishing a house renovation where I will have a dedicated office space that at some point I would maybe consider putting a new iMac into, but spending that sort of cash isn't a top priority right now.

So here is my question. What could I do to the iMac that would make any significant performance differences and how much would it cost? Obvious thing is the memory, how much would that cost me? (link if possible). I don't want to spend money thats just dead but if I can make it a bit better then I will because as I say its doing 99% of what I want it to already just a bit slow. Maybe its not viable to do anything, if so, fair enough.

These machines really do have a remarkable shelf life.
 
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Commissario
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My 2011 iMac had a firewire port. I would say that the upgrade which will give you the biggest performance difference is to grab a firewire caddy and an SSD and use that instead of the internal mechanical HDD. It'll be like night and day.
 
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Doing both will help but you'll notice much more of a difference with the SSD. Memory is easy to do on those, it's just behind a door. If you do the memory by itself, depending on how heavily you use the machine, you'll benefit from it not swapping out to the technical HDD.

Personally, I'd go for the SSD first and see what a difference it makes. I don't think you'll notice much difference with the memory.
 
Soldato
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Ok thats great, thank you for that. I don't want to spend money for no return given the age of the machine, but Im a light user and its a lot better than I was expecting it to be.
 
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I've just double checked and that model does have a firewire port (I did wonder if the 21.5" might not) and it does so you're good to go. Of course, the challenge now is finding a firewire 800 hard drive caddy.
 
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Agree with Feek.

Changing from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD would make a big difference, did this upgrade for my wifes MBP 2012 and it's greatly improved its responsiveness.
 
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Thank you all for your advice. Do you think anyone could link he to exactly what I would need to do the SSD upgrade and also what memory I would need to do the memory as well so I can price it up? Sorry for being a bit thick but despite being a member here I don't tend to do stuff like this very often! :D
 
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Soldato
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Be careful changing the HDD on this model. It's easy to change the drive, but the rubbish part about it is dust behind the Display Panel when you remove/put it back. Dust gets stuck between this panel and the display itself and can be quite annoying, especially if you want the machine for photo's or graphical work. They are a pita to keep dust free with the right tools, let alone doing it at home yourself.
 
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That's why we're suggesting a Firewire 800 caddy with an external SSD.

@placeholder They're quite difficult to find now but this looks like a suitable enclosure to me. It's an OWC unit with both Firewire 800 and USB3 ports.


Thats great feek, really appreciating your help with this. So what we are saying is to buy something like that, put an SSD in it and make that the HD for the machine and it just sits next to it like an external HD would? Is there any particular type of SSD or does it not matter? Also is there particular memory that would be good or suitable? Last question...how much memory would make a difference? Are the gains incidental or past a point will it not make any difference. `its only got 4gb as it stands.

Sorry for the basic questions like I say its pretty new to me.
 
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Sorry for the basic questions like I say its pretty new to me.
OK, so it has 4Gb RAM which I'm quite sure will be 2x2Gb strips as it has four slots. If that were mine and I wanted to upgrade the memory, I think I'd go with an extra 8Gb taking you up to 12. OcUK don't have any suitable memory kits in stock and I can't mention competitors so I'd recommend googling CT2K4G3S1339M (8GB Kit (2 x 4GB) DDR3L-1333 SODIMM memory) to try and find what you want. There's a video showing how to fit it here where he takes out the original memory and fits 2 x 8Gb strips. Someone in the comments asks why he didn't just add the extra ones and he comments that he did so afterwards and has 12Gb RAM total.

Regarding the SSD, yes, exactly that. Find one you like the look of and away you go. You can connect it all up and then use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone from the internal drive to the external drive then go into System Preference/Startup Disk and select the external drive. Once that's all up and running, I'd probably use the internal drive for a backup of the external one.

Good luck!
 
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FYI I replaced the internal HDD in my 2008 iMac with an SSHD (similar to an SSD) and didn't suffer with dust behind the glass etc. Took my time but it made a massive improvement in performance.
 
Soldato
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Ok just wanted to update this and say a wee thank you.

I decided to take the advice offered here particularly by Feek, so Im going to upgrade to SSD but that will have to wait until next month but I did the RAM upgrade this morning to 12GB and I can't believe the difference its made. As I am working from home I have to remote into my work PC but also have other things working in the background on the Mac. It had been an effective but clunky process (understandably give the age and spec of the Mac) until now but suddenly everything is zipping along at a hell of a rate. Its like a new computer.

Anyway absolutely delighted and thanks Feek and others for taking the time to reply, you have made a genuine difference to my working day in these strange and trying times!
 
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