Rotating Color Ball, And On "Typical Lifetime" ?

[Robert4]

Hello,

Have an imac desktop of several years age.

Have still been getting, apparently at random, that rotating
colorful ball that locks everything up. Seems more often now.

I posted re this a while back, and received some very good help and advice.
Thought I'd do it again to see if any additional thoughts from anyone.

So, may I please ask:

What causes, and anything I can check out or correct to minimize its appearing ?
Have an imac desktop, with, I believe, the typical mechanical platter HD.
Not too thrilled about adding a external SSD, but maybe.

Is it usually something very specific, or a "general" type of error, e.g., the HD slowing, or going bad, or... ?


**What's a "typical" life span for these desktops ?

What usually goes first: the HD, or...?

Any thoughts or suggestions most appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[BrianBaughn]

What version of macOS and which specific model of iMac? How much RAM is installed? What's the size of the HD and how much free space is available?

 

[Cameront9]

The mechanical HDD is likely the first thing that will fail, but it could last a long time. As for the beach balls, if the system is hanging press cmd+option+escape to bring up the force quit dialogue and force quit when an application doesn't respond.

If your iMac has a spinning rust drive, then it's likely a decade old or more and is reaching the end of its useable life. That doesn't mean that you can't still use it, just that it's not supported, can only run an old OS, and will have trouble with the internet.

 

[Fishrrman]

Robert, we can't help unless you can tell us
WHAT YEAR the iMac was made.
WHAT KIND of drive is inside -- is it a platter-based hard drive, or a fusion drive?