iMac 8,1 20" early 2008 slowing down

[wikiwiki]

I got a used iMac 8,1 20" early 2008 a couple of mott=nths ago. it was working fine and it has started to slow down a lot. and i mean a lot!! it came with the original leopard OS and i upgraded it online to its current state 10.5.8 it is running with 4GB of RAM. whenever i run multiple programs like transmission and movies or iTunes, it kinda slows down and the spinning wheel comes out a lot. should i change the ram and upgrade it? help!!

 

[jamin100]

Ssd

 

[wikiwiki]

Ssd

??

 

[jamin100]

Sorry, that was a really crap reply. Probably something to do with getting up at 4am with my kids.

Anyway. An ssd drive is faster than a normal hard drive. I've just taken out the SuperDrive in my iMac and replaced it with a ssd and the speed increase is amazing.

So I've now got 2 hard drives in my iMac. Lion and my applications are on the ssd and my files are on the 1tb hard drive.

Ssd's are generally more expensive although they are coming down in price now.

I brought a 120 gb ssd drive for £65.

Max your ram and change to an ssd and your iMac will be as fast as it can be

 

[wikiwiki]

Hey thanks Jamin100!1 i went around my local iMac repair shops and most of them mentioned my HD. i did a test on it as well and it's confirmed that my HD is faulty. Where, online, do you think i can get this HD anyway..

tks dude

 

[jamin100]

Hey thanks Jamin100!1 i went around my local iMac repair shops and most of them mentioned my HD. i did a test on it as well and it's confirmed that my HD is faulty. Where, online, do you think i can get this HD anyway..

tks dude

Any pc website sells them. If you are handy taking computers apart then replace it yourself. If not then i strongly suggest paying a company to do it for you as taking a imac apart isnt the easiest of things to do

 

[harcosparky]

Yes an SSD would be faster, just make sure you can live with one.
They are relatively small or very expensive for the decent sized ones.
Also - you will need a second drive attached to the system for your data. Data is not all that safe on an SSD, when they fail its not like a physical hard drive where data recovery can be done.


Now on to your problem ........

Sounds like your hard drive may be going bad.

I would do a full backup of anything you might have on there.

ALSO there could be something else amiss with your system.

Before you go throwing money away on an SSD, make sure your issue is with the HDD itself.

 

[Rlnplehshalo]

Yes an SSD would be faster, just make sure you can live with one.
They are relatively small or very expensive for the decent sized ones.
Also - you will need a second drive attached to the system for your data. Data is not all that safe on an SSD, when they fail its not like a physical hard drive where data recovery can be done.


Now on to your problem ........

Sounds like your hard drive may be going bad.

I would do a full backup of anything you might have on there.

ALSO there could be something else amiss with your system.

Before you go throwing money away on an SSD, make sure your issue is with the HDD itself.

So just out of curiosity, you can't recover data on an SSD? oh well I guess it wouldn't be that bad if its just OS and applications then the actual important files on a regular hard drive.
The reason I'm asking is because I plan to (hopefully) get a secondary SSD after I get one of the new iMacs

 

[wikiwiki]

Yes an SSD would be faster, just make sure you can live with one.
They are relatively small or very expensive for the decent sized ones.
Also - you will need a second drive attached to the system for your data. Data is not all that safe on an SSD, when they fail its not like a physical hard drive where data recovery can be done.


Now on to your problem ........

Sounds like your hard drive may be going bad.

I would do a full backup of anything you might have on there.

ALSO there could be something else amiss with your system.

Before you go throwing money away on an SSD, make sure your issue is with the HDD itself.

I went to the a few shops earlier today before eventually rushing home to diagnose it and later to work..anyways, i did a utility check on the HD and did a 'verify' on my HD. and it showed some faults and wasn't able to retrieve any information like 'HD is Fine' or something like that. So i guess it is the HD. Fortunately for me, i have an external 1TB Lacie HD that i use mostly instead of the iMac's HD. so i wont be losing much stuff. And to add to that, it took me 2 hours to transfer just over 4GB of JPEG stuff to my external today..

And my iMac is the early 2008 20 inch model. any specific SSD dedicated for my iMac.

Tks guys!!

 

[kdoug]

I went to the a few shops earlier today before eventually rushing home to diagnose it and later to work..anyways, i did a utility check on the HD and did a 'verify' on my HD. and it showed some faults and wasn't able to retrieve any information like 'HD is Fine' or something like that. So i guess it is the HD. Fortunately for me, i have an external 1TB Lacie HD that i use mostly instead of the iMac's HD. so i wont be losing much stuff. And to add to that, it took me 2 hours to transfer just over 4GB of JPEG stuff to my external today..

And my iMac is the early 2008 20 inch model. any specific SSD dedicated for my iMac.

Tks guys!!

Personally, putting a $400 SSD in a $3-$400 computer doesn't make much sense to me. How much life is left in the display and motherboard?
I just sold my 2009 21.5 for $600 and ordered a new 21.5 2.7ghz for $1,399 and a free copy of parallels. I maxed the RAM to 16gb for under $80.
The computer is literally twice as fast without an SSD and I have a computer that should last another 3-4 years.