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Can I install Yosemite on "iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009)" ?
- Thread starter hack3rcon
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Sure can. Running it on my wife's Mid 2007 iMac and should be able to run El Capitan when it is released. Runs pretty decent with the SSD and RAM upgrade I did to iMac.
Yes. http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
You'll get support from OS X 10.11 "El Capitan" when that is released as well.
It would help if you would ask about memory, and RAM upgrades in your first post, instead of just "Is it possible to install Yosemite ... ? ) Yes, upgrade your OS X, that will work.
Two suggestions to Greatly Improve™ your OS X experience if you want to upgrade your OS X version.
4GB RAM will continue to work fairly well, but upgrading is easy. 8GB seems to be the tradeoff point now, giving you the greatest enhancement for the normal user.
You have 4 RAM slots, each can take as much as 4GB SODIMM, for a maximum of 16GB.
And, replacing your spinning hard drive with an SSD is much less expensive now. The OS X system, since Mavericks, seems better optimized for use on an SSD. Everything about how you work will feel (and be) faster than what you do now.
Do you need to do either of those upgrades?
No, but doing both RAM and SSD, plus the OS X upgrade, will make you remember what your brand-new iMac was like when you first used it 5 years ago - only better
Two suggestions to Greatly Improve™ your OS X experience if you want to upgrade your OS X version.
4GB RAM will continue to work fairly well, but upgrading is easy. 8GB seems to be the tradeoff point now, giving you the greatest enhancement for the normal user.
You have 4 RAM slots, each can take as much as 4GB SODIMM, for a maximum of 16GB.
And, replacing your spinning hard drive with an SSD is much less expensive now. The OS X system, since Mavericks, seems better optimized for use on an SSD. Everything about how you work will feel (and be) faster than what you do now.
Do you need to do either of those upgrades?
No, but doing both RAM and SSD, plus the OS X upgrade, will make you remember what your brand-new iMac was like when you first used it 5 years ago - only better
Are you joking?
Of course, upgrading to Yosemite (without upgrading your RAM, SSD, etc) will work - it has a minimum requirement of 2GB, which you certainly have. Very do-able.
Will you end up with a smooth working system? Maybe, for some uses, it will be fine. Depends mostly on how you use your Mac.
Is Yosemite worth doing without the other upgrades? Maybe/probably.
My sense, after reading some of the posts of those who are running El Capitan beta on pretty minimal systems, tells me that El Cap may be a better choice, looking forward to release this fall.
It can upgrade. I upgraded my ram to max on my 2007 21" and expect 4GB to work well...2 would probably run a bit slow.
trebuin says in his sig that he has 6GB installed (the maximum for that iMac), not 4GB. And he also says that he has an SSD. What more do you need to know?
No, in fact my late 2008 MacBook Air runs Yosemite fine on 2 GB. Upgrading to 4 GB would be a good idea, but isn't completely necessary for light usage.