To Update/ Upgrade or Not? 2007 iMac

[slackmachine]

I have a 2007 aluminum iMac with a 2 ghz intel core 2 duo processor, 1GB of RAM and a 250gb hard drive, as well as a late 2010 macbook air with a 1.86 ghz processor, a 256gb ssd, and 2gb of RAM.
My primary use of these computers is editing with Aperture 3, and the macbook air has held up decently with the 24 megapixel raws I'm throwing at it, but I was considering handing photo editing over to the iMac.
The overall question is if I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 8GB on the iMac would it be better than my air for aperture work?
Thanks!

 

[Nandifix]

Upgrade all the things!

 

[flopticalcube]

The RAM is seriously holding you back.

 

[slackmachine]

Nandifix, what else to upgrade besides RAM? I wouldn't want to upgrade too much or I might as well just get a refurb iMac for $999 from the apple store.
And even though it's an old 2007 iMac if I upgrade the RAM to 8GB it could still have similar speeds of Aperture 3 processing to my late 2010 air?

 

[Mike in Kansas]

Nandifix, what else to upgrade besides RAM? I wouldn't want to upgrade too much or I might as well just get a refurb iMac for $999 from the apple store.
And even though it's an old 2007 iMac if I upgrade the RAM to 8GB it could still have similar speeds of Aperture 3 processing to my late 2010 air?

The most the 2007 iMac will take it 6GB - a 4GB stick and a 2GB stick.

The only other thing you could do it to drop an SSD into it. I did that to my 2008 and the results have been amazing. I run Aperture 3 with no problems whatsoever. It is allowing me to extend this machine at least another 1-1/2 years, or until Apple EOL's my 2008 with their next OS update.

 

[slackmachine]

The most the 2007 iMac will take it 6GB - a 4GB stick and a 2GB stick.

The only other thing you could do it to drop an SSD into it. I did that to my 2008 and the results have been amazing. I run Aperture 3 with no problems whatsoever. It is allowing me to extend this machine at least another 1-1/2 years, or until Apple EOL's my 2008 with their next OS update.

I guess I would do 6gb then, but I have read that iMacs can often be updated slightly more than their recommended capacity? Would it be possible to do two 4GB sticks?
And regarding the SSD, the thing is that I would need a large capacity SSD to hold my aperture 3 library (which would be too expensive), and the library is already going to be referenced images off an external drive so I don't know if it would make much of a difference.

 

[Mike in Kansas]

I guess I would do 6gb then, but I have read that iMacs can often be updated slightly more than their recommended capacity? Would it be possible to do two 4GB sticks?
And regarding the SSD, the thing is that I would need a large capacity SSD to hold my aperture 3 library (which would be too expensive), and the library is already going to be referenced images off an external drive so I don't know if it would make much of a difference.

Apple states 4GB max but users report they can put in a total of 6. Same as in my 2008.

I run Aperture - I have a 48,000 image library that I keep as referenced. I keep my library on y internal SSD and the masters on an external 2TB FW800 drive. It is much faster than when I had it on my 1TB internal drive.

I have a 240GB SSD and am using about 100GB of that; 40GB of the 100 is my Aperture library (previews, etc.). The rest is apps, library, OS, etc. All of my user files in my Home folder have been moved to my external drive - iTunes library, iPhoto libraries, rendered video projects, etc...

 

[slackmachine]

Apple states 4GB max but users report they can put in a total of 6. Same as in my 2008.

I run Aperture - I have a 48,000 image library that I keep as referenced. I keep my library on y internal SSD and the masters on an external 2TB FW800 drive. It is much faster than when I had it on my 1TB internal drive.

I have a 240GB SSD and am using about 100GB of that; 40GB of the 100 is my Aperture library (previews, etc.). The rest is apps, library, OS, etc. All of my user files in my Home folder have been moved to my external drive - iTunes library, iPhoto libraries, rendered video projects, etc...

Thanks for the advice! The SSD does seem like a viable option but I'm still wondering mostly just about how much upgrading the RAM will affect the performance, because I don't want to put that much $$ into a computer that might not even get the next big update. I know you can't know for sure, but do you have any idea if upgrading to 6gb in the iMac would make it as fast as my air just for photo editing?

 

[Mike in Kansas]

You can see if you are maxing out your current RAM by using Activity Monitor and viewing the page out count. Everytime you get a page out, it means that there was not enough RAM so the system had to write to a file on your HDD instead. This is VERY slow, and the main bottleneck that not enough RAM will create.

To accurately see this, you must first reboot to clear the page in and page out counters. After rebooting, do some of the things that you want to see if more RAM will improve. Launch Aperture, edit some files (brushes and blurs really suck up RAM), zoom to 100%, edit in full screen, drag the image around. Maybe launch a browser and iTunes. If you keep the windows of the apps small, you can have Activity Momitor open at the same time and watch how these things affect your RAM.

I can tell you from experience and running Leopard, SL, Lion and ML, as well as Aperture 3, you really need 4GB to be productive and 6GB to give yourself some headroom. Going from 4GB to 6GB eliminated page outs in all but the most extreme conditions, and going to an SSD sped Aperture up even more.

 

[cyclotron451]

my 2007 iMac

I've taken the RAM up to 6GB and at about 24h since the last restart have Page Ins: 522.3MB, Page Outs: 0bytes with Swap used: 100.8MB.

I put in a 1.5Terabyte HDD as the SSD's were too expensive last year.

The max RAM is a great upgrade and makes everything 'snappier'

 

[slackmachine]

Mike in Kansas, it definitely looks like I need some more RAM from Activity Monitor, and if you noticed a difference from 4gb to 6gb I'm sure I would from 1gb to 6gb.

I've taken the RAM up to 6GB and at about 24h since the last restart have Page Ins: 522.3MB, Page Outs: 0bytes with Swap used: 100.8MB.

I put in a 1.5Terabyte HDD as the SSD's were too expensive last year.

The max RAM is a great upgrade and makes everything 'snappier'

Thanks for the info! Did the hard drive update speed anything up or just give you more storage? And is it snappy enough to rival a recent generation mac computer? Thanks!

 

[Motty750]

I have a mid 2007 iMac 20" My hard disk is just about full. However I have two external hard drives that I picked up for a good price. My question is can I crack open the case on one and use the drive in my iMac?

Model is Seagate goflex Desk 1.5TB, the other is a 2TB that I plan to continue to use as my backup disk. Ideally I like to rebuild the external case with my old hard drive and then format and use for PVR from my television. Just recycling really, I'm not bothered if I have to bin it really.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers Motty

 

[cyclotron451]

Did the hard drive update speed anything up or just give you more storage? And is it snappy enough to rival a recent generation mac computer? Thanks!

I chose a HDD primarily for size 1.5TB, then second thermal performance (5400 rev and 'eco-label'), then third buffer size (I think I went up to 32megabyte cache) I'm hesitant to add anything that would decrease reliability - so I did a lot of thinking about exactly which HDD.

*Anything* you do to upgrade an Apple computer makes it feel snappier, but the current/2011 computers are rather a lot faster in real world tests. I'm still very happy with my 2007/2008 iMacs and will be giving them to family members as very useable machines. My new iMac will actually have a smaller HDD but nearly double the size of screen, ten times the graphics power and will be upgraded to 20gigabyte RAM.

 

[Motty750]

Disregard my post above, mission accomplished