2007 iMac 2.5mbps write speeds on HDD

[catmonkey]

Hi,



I've had a search on the forums as well as Googling the issue but cant seem to find anyone with the same issue as my grandfathers iMac 7,1



As the title says after seeing his iMac taking an unusually long time to open simple things like system preferences, whereby it takes a good 5 seconds to appear in the dock, then a short while longer to open I decided to do a speed test on the hard drive and got a max of 2.5Mbps write using Blackmagic. I didn't even wait till the end of the test it was taking that long.



I was under the impression it should be around 60, or at least considerably more than the reading given.



The strange thing is he uses Final Cut Pro 7 and only complains of the occasional freeze.



I left it doing a disk check before I had to leave and don't know the results yet.



So what do you think? Is the drive on its way out or would an OS reinstall help out?



It is a work machine so I don't want to leave it too late! Luckily I set up Time Machine from the beginning.

 

[joe-h2o]

Is the drive nearly full? That could explain the huge slowdown.

 

[catmonkey]

Its only a third full, any video etc sits on a couple of external drives. I assume disk utility didn't throw up any issues otherwise he would have been on the phone!

 

[DeltaMac]

A 6-year old system, with very slow response of the hard drive.
Even if the drive tests OK (which it's not with that sort of results with Blackmagic), it's a work machine, and I would make the suggestion to proactively replace the hard drive.

 

[catmonkey]

Thanks for your input, I've relayed this information and decided regardless I will be replacing the drive, he's due to retire in 2-3 years so is pondering a new iMac even though the workload isn't that high anymore.