How are mid 2011 and older machines holding up?

[aPple nErd]

so far my 2011, bone stock, no upgrades is running great for a used computer. i haunt had any issues with it, although its getting a bit slow. ill upgrade the ram for mavericks, when that comes out. so how are you guy's iMacs from mid 2011 and older holding up? my mom has a late 2012 base model, and we have had it at the apple store twice...

 

[rkaufmann87]

so far my 2011, bone stock, no upgrades is running great for a used computer. i haunt had any issues with it, although its getting a bit slow. ill upgrade the ram for mavericks, when that comes out. so how are you guy's iMacs from mid 2011 and older holding up? my mom has a late 2012 base model, and we have had it at the apple store twice...

Both my mid 2011 and late 2007 iMacs are both doing extremely well.

 

[fisha]

I bought a refurb 2011 iMac 27" a while back, and its been brilliant so far.

Runs all that I need it to without any fuss

 

[Dirtyharry50]

I am very pleased with my mid-2011 iMac which I bought last May, overall. It does need to go in for service though due to dirt and smudges inside the screen. Fortunately I bought Applecare so it is okay I haven't gotten around to taking care of this yet. I hate to be without it is why I've been putting it off.

Otherwise though for productivity and gaming purposes it has been insanely great.

 

[MichaelDT]

My 2011 is holding up great, 21.5 inch. Upgraded to 32G ram and a home spun fusion drive with 256 SSD and 3TB HDD, I'm upgrading the processor today to an i7-2600, the i5 has been a bit of a dog for video editing usage and virtualization. None of my upgrades were due to faulty hardware.

 

[Dduval]

My 2011 27" is also great, blazing with an external TB SSD boot drive.

 

[old-wiz]

2008 24" iMac, 4gb ram, running ML, never an issue since I purchased it.

 

[aPple nErd]

My 2011 is holding up great, 21.5 inch. Upgraded to 32G ram and a home spun fusion drive with 256 SSD and 3TB HDD, I'm upgrading the processor today to an i7-2600, the i5 has been a bit of a dog for video editing usage and virtualization. None of my upgrades were due to faulty hardware.

wow. thats a really nice machine!

 

[madeirabhoy]

the only thing my 09 mini doesnt do well is games, well football manager 12 is playing fine.


internet, email, indesign etc all go fine

 

[ConsiderPhlebas]

I have a mid 2011 BTO iMac and I have had no issues with it but I did take it to the Apple store shortly after purchase for the Seagate hard drive recall. I wasn’t having any problems with the drive but since Apple was doing it for free…

 

[aPple nErd]

off topic, but why were the drives relplaced? what was wrong with them?

 

[yep-sure]

I run a mid 2011 21.5" bought new, upgraded to 10GB of RAM soon after. Runs like a dream since the day I bought it. My first iMac, and love it.

 

[toddzrx]

I'm running a mid-2010 21.5" that I bought used last fall (it's the higher spec model with a 3.2GHz i3 processor). I replaced the HD with an SSD and put another 4GB of RAM in it, and it runs great; zero need to upgrade now or anytime in the near future (hoping to get another 3 years out of it).

To anyone with a 2 or 3 year old machine that is considering buying a new one: think about doing an SSD install; it'll save you a lot of cash and you'll be very happy with the performance.

 

[mmomega]

We have 3 27"s and they are all running great.

a 2009 i5 I bought new.

a 2010 i3 bought new for my wife at the office

Then a 2011 i5 bought for me because my wife wanted a computer at home so she inherited the 09.

Oh and the early 09 24" C2D that one of our employees have been using for almost 2 yrs at the office.

I 've switched out the HDD in the 27" 09 and 11 models only because I wanted too, never had to take any of them in for service.

They're great machines.

 

[ConsiderPhlebas]

off topic, but why were the drives relplaced? what was wrong with them?

I never found out the specific cause but Apple notified owners some Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems may fail. The affected systems were sold between October 2009 and July 2011.

 

[Flyin Ryan]

I think I just missed the recalled HD issue. Purchased my 21.5 1TB in Oct '11. Runs like a dream. Finally taking the time to delete all the garbage I've built up on the HD, backup and upgrade from SL to ML. I bought my machine like 10 days before Lion came out and was worried about app incompatibility so I stayed with SL. I have ML on my MBP and now I'm missing all the new features on my desktop.

 

[iDutchman]

2009" 2.66 i5 27" iMac. 2TB HD + 120 Samsung 840 SSD and 16GBs of RAM. Works very well and rather quick.

It will chuck along for some more years to come

I bought it for €500,- one month ago from a guy who was pissed that his iMac was not functioning like it should. All it needed was a new HD since this iMac was eligible for the recall but never went.

I installed a 2TB WD drive I had (replace the thermal sensor with the one from the ODD) and a 120GB SSD and added 16GBs of RAM. A total of €700,- was needed to have it like this

Very nice since I sold my 27" Thunderbolt Display for the same amount! Just wanted a separate 27" desktop next to my rMBP.

 

[applelover4]

so far my 2011, bone stock, no upgrades is running great for a used computer. i haunt had any issues with it, although its getting a bit slow. ill upgrade the ram for mavericks, when that comes out. so how are you guy's iMacs from mid 2011 and older holding up? my mom has a late 2012 base model, and we have had it at the apple store twice...

Have a 2011 21.5" iMac base model, with upgraded ram. It had to goto the apple store a few weeks ago, and had the harddrive and hardrive fan replaced. Machine was running very slow and the hdd fan had a high pitch squeal. It had a Seagate 500GB HDD in it, and they replaced it for a WD (Western Digital) 500GB HDD

Machine runs great now! Thank god for extended apple care, saved me allot of hassle.

 

[palantas]

Mine is the Early 2009 24" iMac Core 2 Duo 2,93 gHz, 4 gb RAM and 640 GB HDD.

It works perfectly. I have had no issues and no repairs at all. Sometimes it slows down for a few minutes, where the HDD spins, and then it wakes up. It doesn't happen much though and I can live with it.

I also have the latest 2012 Mac Mini maxed out with RAM. I use it as our mediaserver and it's connected to our TV with HDMI. A wonderous machine. It's also used to stream music around the house through Airport Express.

I am considering an upgrade when the next iMac upgrades are out - but I am also considering getting the Mac Pro because I would like to have a more easily upgradable machine with an external display. Still undecided.

 

[KaraH]

Considering I am typing this on a 2007 I would say 2011s hold up pretty well! Apple has always made quality stuff, as far back as the apple ][ I have yet to have one of their machines die on me. Usually I held onto it for a decade or so before getting rid of it and it even worked on the day I hauled it off to be recycled. My most common issue? That they worked TOO long and I needed to keep replacing the clock battery! I have only had an internal HD fail once.

I do recommend future-proofing as much as you can because macs are prone to lasting a long time. Obviously at some point the cost is not worth it since they will eventually be replaced by something you want to switch to more.

 

[Habberkuk]

My iMac 17" from 2006 with 3 GB RAM and 2 GHz Core 2 Duo is doing well. The only thing Im doing on it is playing minecraft, and watching youtube videos...

 

[aPple nErd]

My iMac 17" from 2006 with 3 GB RAM and 2 GHz Core 2 Duo is doing well. The only thing Im doing on it is playing minecraft, and watching youtube videos...

cool, i play a lot of mc on my 2011. 4 gb ram and a core i5. how much lag do you get?

 

[kazmac]

my mid 2010 21" iMac is running like a champ

I am pleasantly surprised at how much faster and more fluid my mid 2010 iMac is running since I installed ML last week (beyond the CPU freeze last night.)

Not just the Mac OS software but every application is launching so much faster and efficiently. It is as if the machine woke up and noticed it has 12gb of RAM now. While the iMac is on, it almost feels like an SSD is inside rather than the stock magnetic hard drive. >> It is slower at start up, but that's fine. It feels like a brand new machine.

Makes me think I may hold onto it until 2015 if it continues to perform this well under 10.9 and beyond. Yes, I will drool and hallucinate and post said types of posts here over the new Mac Pro and other potential Apple computer wonders, but if this iMac keeps performing this fast and efficiently, why upgrade before I have to?

Very happy!

 

[28Gauge]

My 2011 27" iMac has been running just fine. The only thing that I have done to it upgrade the RAM from 4 GB to 16 GB.

 

[james1758]

my mid 2009 umbp is running great still, well after a ram and ssd upgrade!