Mid 2009 iMac Rescued

[Jack Neill]

Got a Mid 2009 iMac 2.0 C2D 160GB and 8 GB ram for 50$ at a pawn shop. It’s in great condition physically. It’s my first Intel iMac. Might be a make a good iTunes machine in the spare desk. The platter in it sucks. Might go the USB SSD route. Don’t feel like taking the glass off for a Sata II SSD install.

 

[mdgm]

FW800 would be faster than USB2. I recently bought a couple of these for use with 2009 Minis: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/

Once I stop using them with the 2009 Minis if they're still working I can use the USB3 cable with a newer machine.

I had a few old SSDs lying around but one of them didn't work, so only using one of the enclosures so far.

 

[Jack Neill]

FW800 would be faster than USB2. I recently bought a couple of these for use with 2009 Minis: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/

Once I stop using them with the 2009 Minis if they're still working I can use the USB3 cable with a newer machine.

I had a few old SSDs lying around but one of them didn't work, so only using one of the enclosures so far.

Great idea, I ordered one off Amazon for 49. I have a 256GB EVO 860 laying around I might start with that.

 

[ChrisA]

FW800 would be faster than USB2. I recently bought a couple of these for use with 2009 Minis: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/

Once I stop using them with the 2009 Minis if they're still working I can use the USB3 cable with a newer machine.

I had a few old SSDs lying around but one of them didn't work, so only using one of the enclosures so far.

I also have an older iMac and can say for sure that USB is "way slow" no matter what you connect it to. A USB SSD would be a waste of an SSD. FW800 is however not horribly slow and is faster than an older internal hard drive.

That said FW800 is getting hard to find.

The other thing to do with your old iMac is max-out the RAM.

 

[Jack Neill]

I also have an older iMac and can say for sure that USB is "way slow" no matter what you connect it to. A USB SSD would be a waste of an SSD. FW800 is however not horribly slow and is faster than an older internal hard drive.

That said FW800 is getting hard to find.

The other thing to do with your old iMac is max-out the RAM.

I ordered a FW800 OWC enclosure and will put a EVO 860 in it for now its on el Cap, I might use the tool and try for low Sierra some time down the road. It came with 8GB ram. Its a Mid 2009 and was educational only so it has no bluetooth onboard, luckily I had a macOS bluetooth dongle left over from a retired hackintosh. I quite like it, I have never had a Intel iMac, the last iMac I had was a lampshade.

 

[mdgm]

You can use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the HDD to the SSD. Or you could do a fresh install to the SSD.

I would suggest that you download a copy of the El Capitan installer and store it in a safe place.

 

[Imixmuan]

Lots of good info here, this should be in the new early Intel forum.

 

[ChrisA]

I ordered a FW800 OWC enclosure and will put a EVO 860 in it for now its on el Cap, I might use the tool and try for low Sierra some time down the road. It came with 8GB ram. Its a Mid 2009 and was educational only so it has no bluetooth onboard, luckily I had a macOS bluetooth dongle left over from a retired hackintosh. I quite like it, I have never had a Intel iMac, the last iMac I had was a lampshade.

I just picked up an old Mac too. The same one as yours and it runs El Cap.

Do not judge modern Macs by this antique. The mid-2009 is way-slow by modern standards and can't run modern software. I found it for $25 and plan on using it as a backup server. I'd prefer a Mac Mini for this but I found this $25 deal.

What is a backup server? I mount shares from other computers and a NAS to this imac So all the important data is there on one Mac. Then this data is pushed to a could-based storage service

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I ordered a FW800 OWC enclosure and will put a EVO 860 in it for now its on el Cap, I might use the tool and try for low Sierra some time down the road. It came with 8GB ram. Its a Mid 2009 and was educational only so it has no bluetooth onboard, luckily I had a macOS bluetooth dongle left over from a retired hackintosh. I quite like it, I have never had a Intel iMac, the last iMac I had was a lampshade.

Since you have already got 8GB of RAM in the iMac, FW800 won't improve much on web surfing and Youtube video watching. Booting/waking up from sleep is quite slow, but apart from that, the machine response fast enough.
1080p@60Hz Youtube videos will be sluggish, hardware restrain.
AFAIK, the FW800 OWC enclosure is more expensive than a 128GB SSD, isn't it?
Especially you already have several SSD laying around.

 

[mdgm]

There is the peace of mind value of not risking breaking a machine. Sure opening up is cheaper provided you don’t make any mistakes and have the right tools.

I’ve found a FW800 SSD has helped with booting and also opening apps. I also used to have the system hang for several seconds deleting large video files which now delete instantly.

 

[Jack Neill]

You can use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the HDD to the SSD. Or you could do a fresh install to the SSD.

I would suggest that you download a copy of the El Capitan installer and store it in a safe place.

It’s always smart to keep installers. I have one for Puma to Big Sur. I prefer CCC to SuperDuper.

 

[Jack Neill]

Lots of good info here, this should be in the new early Intel forum.

I didn't know there was one. Maybe a mod can move it. I have some more early Intel's I can post tonight.

 

[velocityg4]

I just picked up an old Mac too. The same one as yours and it runs El Cap.

Do not judge modern Macs by this antique. The mid-2009 is way-slow by modern standards and can't run modern software. I found it for $25 and plan on using it as a backup server. I'd prefer a Mac Mini for this but I found this $25 deal.

What is a backup server? I mount shares from other computers and a NAS to this imac So all the important data is there on one Mac. Then this data is pushed to a could-based storage service

My mid 2009 21" runs modern software just fine. With the Dosdude1 patch for Catalina, Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM and SSD. I have no problem with web browsing using the latest Firefox, Office 365 works fine, iCloud sync, Onedrive, Zoho Assist and Team Viewer.

It's not fast. But for general use it's still acceptable. Programs open in a few seconds as do web pages.

 

[uller6]

I just picked up a similar-priced 2009 20" iMac. I put Mojave on it using the Dosdude1 patcher. I needed an older machine that could run Mojave for 32 bit apps and Leopard for legacy and PPC apps. With 8 GB RAM and SSD installed this machine is surprisingly fast, but I had forgotten how much of a pain the older iMacs were to disassemble. As previous posters mentioned, external SSDs are a lot slower than using an internal SSD, especially on USB 2.

 

[Jack Neill]

Got the OWC Mercury and a Samsung Evo 860. I had hoped for better speeds than this.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

That indicator doesn't seem right. Even worse than modern HDD.
SATA 1.5Gbps is the lowest SATA standard for that logicboard.
Check if your SSD is still operating in IDE mode. Should activate AHCI mode to speed up.

Better yet, try installing Catalina on it. It would be very easy.

 

[Jack Neill]

Thats more like it.. Crucial MX500 500GB