An update. The iMac's been in for service, and apparently ready for pickup. They installed the recent update, run diagnostics, figuratively took it out for a spin, et cetera, and...
...and there's nothing wrong with it.
Was on the phone/chatting with Apple for an hour and a half yesterday afternoon/evening. A very thorough conversation with a helpful and convivial Apple rep. After going through my circumstances and experiences with a fine-tooth comb, we both agreed/conjectured that the problem isn't the HD. It is almost certainly something I'm constantly bringing back from Time Machine. A corrupted file, whatever. (Which, against the suggestions within this thread that it was pretty obvious that it was the slow HD, is what I'd suspected.)
So it's now up to me to determine what the culprit is. Obviously, this is detective work. But the particulars of this process weren't something that the Apple Advisor could really help with.
Is it an app? And if it is, does it need to be used for its effects to manifest themselves? Is it a document, a photo, a movie file? Again, do I have to open it to be shown proof that it's the saboteur?
I have purchased a Crucial external 1Tb SSD, and so at some point, will be using this as a boot-drive.
Perhaps someone has some suggestions as to how to proceed. Should I continue to use the internal HD and perform the experiment on that? (And I'm assuming that I can bring items back from my Time Machine backup piecemeal.)
In any case, thanks for your input so far. Much appreciated.
...and there's nothing wrong with it.
Was on the phone/chatting with Apple for an hour and a half yesterday afternoon/evening. A very thorough conversation with a helpful and convivial Apple rep. After going through my circumstances and experiences with a fine-tooth comb, we both agreed/conjectured that the problem isn't the HD. It is almost certainly something I'm constantly bringing back from Time Machine. A corrupted file, whatever. (Which, against the suggestions within this thread that it was pretty obvious that it was the slow HD, is what I'd suspected.)
So it's now up to me to determine what the culprit is. Obviously, this is detective work. But the particulars of this process weren't something that the Apple Advisor could really help with.
Is it an app? And if it is, does it need to be used for its effects to manifest themselves? Is it a document, a photo, a movie file? Again, do I have to open it to be shown proof that it's the saboteur?
I have purchased a Crucial external 1Tb SSD, and so at some point, will be using this as a boot-drive.
Perhaps someone has some suggestions as to how to proceed. Should I continue to use the internal HD and perform the experiment on that? (And I'm assuming that I can bring items back from my Time Machine backup piecemeal.)
In any case, thanks for your input so far. Much appreciated.