New iMac vs Mac Mini

[Prashanth RT]

Hi there,

I recently purchased a New
iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019)
3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i3
8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 555X 2 GB

But to my surprise it is very slow when i compare to my existing Mac Mini (late 2014)

Can anyone help me here.
thank you

 

[nicho]

Did your mac mini perhaps have a fusion drive or SSD installed?

Your new iMac has a 1TB hard drive. It's ancient technology which holds back everything else. Think pulling a Ferrari with an actual horse.

I'd advise you to return it, and consider getting a BTO one with a SSD instead. Or get yourself a thunderbolt 3 SSD like the Samsung X5 and use that as your boot drive.

 

[zedsdead]

Agree with above, if there is not an SSD in there that is why it's slow. Return.

 

[CheesePuff]

You need to get either a built in SSD, or use an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD (or even USB 3 will be much faster then the internal HDD).

 

[Prashanth RT]

Did your mac mini perhaps have a fusion drive or SSD installed?

Your new iMac has a 1TB hard drive. It's ancient technology which holds back everything else. Think pulling a Ferrari with an actual horse.

I'd advise you to return it, and consider getting a BTO one with a SSD instead. Or get yourself a thunderbolt 3 SSD like the Samsung X5 and use that as your boot drive.

Thank you @nicho , @zedsdead & @CheesePuff for your suggestions.

I think I will go for a thunderbolt 3 SSD and use it as my boot drive. Once SSD is ready what's the procedure to make it as my Boot drive ?

regards
prash

 

[Prashanth RT]

Or get yourself a thunderbolt 3 SSD like the Samsung X5 and use that as your boot drive.

Create a fusion drive - right ?

 

[nicho]

Create a fusion drive - right ?

No, god no. Run everything off the SSD. Use the internal HD for large but not-often-edited files like a movie collection or your Music library.

 

[Prashanth RT]

ok.
now, how can I make new thunderbolt 3 SSD as my main drive? any step by step guide?

 

[nicho]

ok.
now, how can I make new thunderbolt 3 SSD as my main drive? any step by step guide?

1st reply here should be all you need:

? on using external SSD as boot dr. on iMac

Fusion Drive (1 TB hard drive/128 GB SSD) Evening all, The fusion drive in my iMac is ok but I have a Samsung evo500 SSD just sitting around. I’ve now velcroed it to the backside of the puter and intend for it to be my boot drive. In testing it, it’s plenty faster than the fusion. No surprise...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Fishrrman]

"Create a fusion drive - right ?"

NO !

Get the external SSD set up with
- the OS
- applications
- at least "basic accounts"

By "basic accounts" I mean that you leave "large libraries" of movies, music and pictures on the internal drive.
They will run just fine from there.

How much space is currently used on your internal drive?
If it will fit onto the SSD, just use CarbonCopyCloner (FREE to download and use for 30 days) to "clone it over" to the SSD.

Then, go to the startup disk preference pane and set the SSD to be the new boot drive.

 

[nicho]

"Create a fusion drive - right ?"

NO !

Get the external SSD set up with
- the OS
- applications
- at least "basic accounts"

By "basic accounts" I mean that you leave "large libraries" of movies, music and pictures on the internal drive.
They will run just fine from there.

How much space is currently used on your internal drive?
If it will fit onto the SSD, just use CarbonCopyCloner (FREE to download and use for 30 days) to "clone it over" to the SSD.

Then, go to the startup disk preference pane and set the SSD to be the new boot drive.

You forgot the last step...

Reboot.

 

[Prashanth RT]

Thank you for these suggestions and tips. Let me grab my SSD first and will update this thread. thanks again.

 

[Prashanth RT]

Hi, Amazon delivered samsung x5 today. Now going to set that up as my boot drive.

 

[Prashanth RT]

Samsung X5 SSD
Installed macOS Catalina through internet recovery
Reboot
the imac is super-fast ! thank you.

Now, how can i use the original hard disk came with the system for storage?

 

[Fishrrman]

"Now, how can i use the original hard disk came with the system for storage?"

You could use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a cloned "backup" of the x5 boot drive on the internal drive.

This way, the internal (slower) drive now becomes "your backup".

It's VERY important to keep an IMMEDIATELY-accessible "second boot drive" around. Might as well keep it on the internal drive!
What if the x5 fails to boot?
(But that will never happen, right....? Right....?)

 

[Prashanth RT]

done. Now my internal drive is my storage disk.
I have another internal hard disk for backup ( time machine )

 

[Azrael9]

Hi there,

I recently purchased a New
iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019)
3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i3
8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 555X 2 GB

But to my surprise it is very slow when i compare to my existing Mac Mini (late 2014)

Can anyone help me here.
thank you

Add an external SSD to it. Will be lightning fast. You can run Mac OS from that. As long as you gpu doesn't fry.

Azrael.

 

[nicho]

Add an external SSD to it. Will be lightning fast. You can run Mac OS from that. As long as you gpu doesn't fry.

Azrael.

Telling the OP that he could solve his problem by doing exactly what he already did 3 months ago is impressive.

 

[Azrael9]

Telling the OP that he could solve his problem by doing exactly what he already did 3 months ago is impressive.

It would help if Apple didn't sell out of date, overpriced junk (take away that 4k retina screen and what have you got? Tat.) which you can't upgrade because of cellotape and sealed units with 'ream you at the service till' for an extra 8 gigs of ram which should ship as standard. Take away that screen and what have you got? Basically, £1k for 8 gigs of ram, a modest motherboard, a HD and integrated graphics.

Maybe Apple should help unwitting customers by shipping 'ANY' SSD as standard, because even a slower one would be better than the 'so last decade' HDs.

Shipping with HDs. For a $1 trillion company that preaches innovation and moving it's customers on aggressively with ports but not to when it comes to SDDs or RAM.

Now, that IS 'impressive.' In terms of bare faced cheek/greed.

Azrael.

 

[Aika]

It would help if Apple didn't sell out of date, overpriced junk (take away that 4k retina screen and what have you got? Tat.) which you can't upgrade because of cellotape and sealed units with 'ream you at the service till' for an extra 8 gigs of ram which should ship as standard. Take away that screen and what have you got? Basically, £1k for 8 gigs of ram, a modest motherboard, a HD and integrated graphics.

Maybe Apple should help unwitting customers by shipping 'ANY' SSD as standard, because even a slower one would be better than the 'so last decade' HDs.

Shipping with HDs. For a $1 trillion company that preaches innovation and moving it's customers on aggressively with ports but not to when it comes to SDDs or RAM.

Now, that IS 'impressive.' In terms of bare faced cheek/greed.

Azrael.

Third party sellers don't even have the option to sell it with an SSD so anyone buying from a retailer other than Apple is going to have an awful impression of Macs when they receive their compromised, sluggish machine.

It's shameful. If they want a cheaper entry level model then they could use a 1TB SATA SSD instead of an NVMe drive, there's really no excuse for this.