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Need some advice on 27" iMac memory upgrade

peterdevries

peterdevries

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 22, 2008
3,146
1,135
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Hi,

I just bought a base model iMAC 27", which is frankly very slow with the 8Gb it comes with. It comes with 2x 4Gb DDR4 installed and has 4 slots overall. This means that there are 2 slots still free. Can I just add e.g. 2 8Gb memory modules to the existing ones, or do they all need to be the same size? (or even type?).

I´m interested in adding 2x 8 or 2x 16 Gb.

Does any of the dutch people here have advice on a good dutch memory shop?

Thanks for your help,
Peter
 
If you bought the "base model" -- with a platter-based hard drive inside -- it's NOT the 8gb of RAM that is making the iMac "very slow".

It's the hard drive inside, which isn't fast enough to handle the demands of the Mac OS.
(I know this doesn't sound right, but it is what it is)

If you want the iMac to run faster, get an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, plug it in, and set it up to be an "external boot drive".

THEN you will see speeds that are much better.

But "adding RAM" isn't going to help you.
 
Fishrrman said:
If you bought the "base model" -- with a platter-based hard drive inside -- it's NOT the 8gb of RAM that is making the iMac "very slow".

It's the hard drive inside, which isn't fast enough to handle the demands of the Mac OS.
(I know this doesn't sound right, but it is what it is)

If you want the iMac to run faster, get an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, plug it in, and set it up to be an "external boot drive".

THEN you will see speeds that are much better.

But "adding RAM" isn't going to help you.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that sucks... Question for clarification: wouldn´t a larger memory cause more stuff to be stored in RAM rather than on the disk, and therefore speed up the system?
 
peterdevries said:
Thanks, that sucks... Question for clarification: wouldn´t a larger memory cause more stuff to be stored in RAM rather than on the disk, and therefore speed up the system?
Click to expand...

Basically, adding more RAM helps when you're running a lot of things at the same time because it prevents going to the disk more than needed. But no matter how much RAM you have, you still need to load data on it from your storage.

I agree with Fishrrman, you should switch to a SSD. However you mentioned that you just bought it, has it been less than 14 days? If so, I suggest you return it and buy a BTO one with an internal SSD. Even a small one if that's what you can afford. Then if you need more space you can buy an external drive.

I say this because the Apple's internal SSDs are super fast, it's very expensive to get something similar on an external ssd. Also, if you don't need the additional space it makes for one less peripheral cluttering your computer.
 
I received the new machine today. I went for a 1TB SSD and 4.2 Ghz i7 processor. This one is screaming fast compared to the first one.

What irks me though is that the base version should work well with the current minimum software setup, and it doesn´t. As this is likely the machine a new Apple user would target, it is not a very good introduction to the system.

When I talked to Apple they conceded that they have lots of people complaining about the performance of the base setup. I think this is not acceptable for a 2200 USD machine.
 
peterdevries said:
I received the new machine today. I went for a 1TB SSD and 4.2 Ghz i7 processor. This one is screaming fast compared to the first one.

What irks me though is that the base version should work well with the current minimum software setup, and it doesn´t. As this is likely the machine a new Apple user would target, it is not a very good introduction to the system.

When I talked to Apple they conceded that they have lots of people complaining about the performance of the base setup. I think this is not acceptable for a 2200 USD machine.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, at that price a small SSD should be included in the base specs. It's ridiculous that you can't get a pure SSD in a iMac directly from an Apple store, you have to order a custom one.
 
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Fusion Drive has been nearly as fast as pure SSD for me, but I also have a larger-than-the-current-base Fusion Drive's 32 GB SSD. If they can put an SSD on their cheapest laptop, they should be able to put one on the desktops. But I understand their reluctance to go for such "low capacity" storage on the desktops.

Maybe 128 GB SSD as the base model, with "highly recommended" to do a 128 SSD+4 TB Fusion Drive?

Especially as the newer macOSes certainly seem to be not-even-remotely optimized for spinning-drive-only systems. When I upgraded my older iMac from spinning-drive-only to manually-enabled Fusion Drive, it was night-and-day difference. Nearly as fast as my PCIe-SSD MacBook Pro for things that are disk-bound like starting up applications.
 
peterdevries said:
Can I just add e.g. 2 8Gb memory modules to the existing ones, or do they all need to be the same size? (or even type?).
Click to expand...

Glad you've escaped from the entry-level fusion-drive trap - why Apple do that is anybody's guess - I suspect that the Fusion with 128GB SSD worked fine, but some marketing genius thought they could cut it down to 32GB and nobody would notice...

As for your original question, should you want to expand the RAM anyway:

Yes, you can buy 2x8GB modules and add them to the empty slots in an 8GB iMac 27" to get a total of 24GB. To get the right sort, you can go to Crucial and look up the correct type for your model (I think their recommendation is different for the base i5 3.4 model: http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compat...-27-inch-3*4ghz-intel-core-i5,-2017)-imac18,3)

I assume Crucial do business in the Netherlands (they're basically the retail arm of RAM manufacturer Micron).
 
Some Apple products are not for “real” users, I believe. It’s the same about those iPhones or iPads with a ridiculous small storage.
But there are other kind of buyers; corporations, mostly. In my country, banks & others give away these unpowered products in promotions, competitions or raffles. Also, I find quite probable that entry level iMac is a good product for academies & schools, providing them with a good image (so good for photos in leaflets!) and being capable for less demanding tasks.
You all seem to forget that Apple has a lot to do with “fashion” nowadays...
 
I bought the base model, but upgraded the storage to a 512GB SSD and added 16GB RAM myself.

The machine is now very fast for everything I do, but the cost of the SSD makes it a much more expensive proposition than a base model should be.
 
This thread should be stickied. Hell I think even the Fusion Drive is a trap these days.

And I remember OS X Tiger ran pretty good on a 7200 rpm MBP when they switched to Intel... almost as good as 10.13 on a SSD... Not sure why OS X is so demanding these days (I think apps are more demanding rather than OS X itself).
 
imac275 said:
I bought the base model, but upgraded the storage to a 512GB SSD and added 16GB RAM myself.

The machine is now very fast for everything I do, but the cost of the SSD makes it a much more expensive proposition than a base model should be.
Click to expand...
How did you install yourself?
 
peterdevries said:
I received the new machine today. I went for a 1TB SSD and 4.2 Ghz i7 processor. This one is screaming fast compared to the first one.

What irks me though is that the base version should work well with the current minimum software setup, and it doesn´t. As this is likely the machine a new Apple user would target, it is not a very good introduction to the system.

When I talked to Apple they conceded that they have lots of people complaining about the performance of the base setup. I think this is not acceptable for a 2200 USD machine.
Click to expand...
"
When I talked to Apple they conceded that they have lots of people complaining about the performance of the base setup. I think this is not acceptable for a 2200 USD machine."

They shouldn't sell these. If they can ditch optical drives, then they can ditch platters.
 
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