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Can I upgrade anything else on my Imac, mid-2010, 27"?

J

John0326

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
9
0
North East USA
I'm completely clueless when it comes to taking computers apart and i'm trying my best not to damage my iMac. I want to make my Imac a little faster so, i bought 4 pieces of 4GB memory sticks.

When i removed the plate underneath the screen, i pulled out the 2 factory memory sticks and replaced them with the 16Gig. In the process, it took me 10 minutes to figure out why the 16gigs would not slide in. I realized, i was putting them in the wrong way!

When i finished the install, I checked the iMac to see if it made a difference. I can tell it's a little faster but i feel it isn't fast enough. Is there anything else that i can do to boast the speed of the iMac even more?
 
Adding a SSD drive will make a noticeable improvement in an otherwise great iMac machine. Well worth the cost and effort.

But ... please don't take offense to this comment ... :)

From your brief description of your expertise in working on computers, I think adding an internal SSD is probably beyond your capabilities and may result in disaster to the machine. I would look for an experienced installer or technically inclined friend to do the installation for you. It is not a trivial task.

You may wish to review the video on this OWC link to see what it entails:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DIYIM27SSD10/


Good luck....


-howard
 
John0326 said:
I'm completely clueless when it comes to taking computers apart and i'm trying my best not to damage my iMac. I want to make my Imac a little faster so, i bought 4 pieces of 4GB memory sticks.

When i removed the plate underneath the screen, i pulled out the 2 factory memory sticks and replaced them with the 16Gig. In the process, it took me 10 minutes to figure out why the 16gigs would not slide in. I realized, i was putting them in the wrong way!

When i finished the install, I checked the iMac to see if it made a difference. I can tell it's a little faster but i feel it isn't fast enough. Is there anything else that i can do to boast the speed of the iMac even more?
Click to expand...

The primary difference most people see with upgrading memory like you've done is when they have lots of applications open, or lots of large memory-intensive documents (massive photo editing, or video editing, etc). What happens is that under that kind of load, your iMac will not slow down the same way it used to.
 
an SSD will give you the most speed, if you want to go ballz out then get 2 120GB SSD and RAID0 them. 800-900MB/s read /writes.... oh yeah.

RAM won't speed you up unless you don't have enough of it currently.
When you are doing your most work open Activity Monitor > System Memory and see if you have any Free RAM, if you still have 2-3GB free even during your most intensive work then adding 10 more GB of free RAM won't change anything.
 
Thanks everyone, for the insight!

Installing the SSD looks too difficult. I would take on the task, if I had 2Gs to waste. Looking for an installer is my best bet.

Does the brand matter or can i just chose any SSD for my iMac?

----------
hfg said:
Adding a SSD drive will make a noticeable improvement in an otherwise great iMac machine. Well worth the cost and effort.

But ... please don't take offense to this comment ... :)

From your brief description of your expertise in working on computers, I think adding an internal SSD is probably beyond your capabilities and may result in disaster to the machine. I would look for an experienced installer or technically inclined friend to do the installation for you. It is not a trivial task.

You may wish to review the video on this OWC link to see what it entails:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DIYIM27SSD10/


Good luck....


-howard
Click to expand...

None taken. Installing the SSD seems challenging. I'm not ready for to take on that installation yet. Thanks for the video!
 
mmomega said:
an SSD will give you the most speed, if you want to go ballz out then get 2 120GB SSD and RAID0 them. 800-900MB/s read /writes.... oh yeah.

RAM won't speed you up unless you don't have enough of it currently.
When you are doing your most work open Activity Monitor > System Memory and see if you have any Free RAM, if you still have 2-3GB free even during your most intensive work then adding 10 more GB of free RAM won't change anything.
Click to expand...

I would prefer a RAID 0 x2 samsung 6gb/s drives

ps, does the optical drive link to sata 3?
 
samh said:
The primary difference most people see with upgrading memory like you've done is when they have lots of applications open, or lots of large memory-intensive documents (massive photo editing, or video editing, etc). What happens is that under that kind of load, your iMac will not slow down the same way it used to.
Click to expand...

I do a lot of editing with photos and videos. Before i installed the upgraded rams, it took at least a 2 to 3 hours to finalize a 10 minute clip (which consisted of numerous themes, transitions , etc.).

Now, my short clips finalize at just a little under 2 hours. Will the SSD give me the speed to finalize faster?
 
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