Mid-2010 iMac - best OS?

[Macinthelou]

I have a mid-2010 iMac with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor and 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM and ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM in my research lab.

The person who is using this computer tells me that the computer has gotten very sluggish. At some point the OS was upgraded (from 10.8?) to 10.9.5.

There could of course be a lot of reasons for the computer to be running slowly. I am thinking about re-formatting the computer to see if it runs faster. If so, would you recommend keeping 10.9, upgrading to something newer (don't know if that would be even be possible on this older computer), or going back to 10.8?

Thanks!

 

[widescreenparis]

Put more ram if you can and clean install the latest version of os x.

 

[imanidiot]

I have a mid-2010 iMac with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor and 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM and ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM in my research lab.

The person who is using this computer tells me that the computer has gotten very sluggish. At some point the OS was upgraded (from 10.8?) to 10.9.5.

There could of course be a lot of reasons for the computer to be running slowly. I am thinking about re-formatting the computer to see if it runs faster. If so, would you recommend keeping 10.9, upgrading to something newer (don't know if that would be even be possible on this older computer), or going back to 10.8?

Thanks!

My mid-2010 iMac was my first mac (it was replaced last November with a retina iMac). I replaced it not because it was acting up, but simply because it was over 4 years old, and I simply wanted a new Mac. Anyway, it came with Snow Leopard, which, to me, was perfect. I had never experienced an OS like it (I was coming from Windows machines, mind), and I sat out Lion and Mountain Lion because I saw no reason to change. I finally upgraded to Mavericks with no real complaints, then to Yosemite. I feel that, for my purposes, Snow Leopard (10.8? I can't recall the build #), was the best, most stable OS on that particular machine. I still think that Snow Leopard was the most stable, completely realized Mac OS ever.

 

[ZVH]

I agree with the comment about Snow Leopard, and roughly 30-35% are sticking to the older OS X versions - a number that hasn't changed much in over a year.

My advice would be to either split the partition in two, with one retaining the old OS and files and another to use to try out Yosemite or El Capitan, or put the newer OSes on another drive so you don't have to commit to them. It took Apple a year to get Yosemite to the point where most of the bugs are out but some still persist. El Capitan still seems to be quite buggy for a lot of people. Many people don't care for the appearance of the newer OS X versions, others like them. It's totally subjective, but bugs and performance delays may haunt you with the newer versions.

 

[Macinthelou]

Thanks for the feedback. To clarify, Snow Leopard is 10.6, not 10.8. You are referring to 10.6, then? I am pretty sure my iMac came with 10.8.