Who else is still using a 2017 iMac?

[SalisburySam]

TurboTax only supports the last two versions of macOS.

It also runs like crap on Apple Silicon as it's not a native port. It runs better on my 2017 iMac Pro than on my M1 Max Studio.

Alternative datapoint: After my 2017 27” iMac began to fail, I traded it in to Apple to partially offset the costs of its replacement, an M4 Mac mini and 27” Apple Studio Display. TurboTax for 2025, desktop version for macOS (Sequoia), worked just fine and a heck of a lot zippier than previous years on the iMac.

I try to avoid any mention of Tahoe in polite company.

 

[pshufd]

Alternative datapoint: After my 2017 27” iMac began to fail, I traded it in to Apple to partially offset the costs of its replacement, an M4 Mac mini and 27” Apple Studio Display. TurboTax for 2025, desktop version for macOS (Sequoia), worked just fine and a heck of a lot zippier than previous years on the iMac.

I try to avoid any mention of Tahoe in polite company.

The 2017 iMac Pro is probably a lot faster than the regular 2017 iMacs and the M4 chips are a lot faster than the M1 chips. But I'm telling you my experience with my hardware. Rosetta 2 adds a lot of performance cost for some programs. And Rosetta 2 goes away in 2027. If Intuit does not come up with a native Apple Silicon port, then I'll have to run TurboTax Desktop on Window.

One of the main programs I use, Active Trader Pro, has about a 65% performance penalty on Apple Silicon. I think that M5 runs comparable to my 2020 i7-10700 desktop now. They are not going to do a native Apple Silicon port so it will die on Apple Silicon when Rosetta 2 goes away. I've heard reports that at least one of the other programs that I use has problems with Tahoe so I'm running Sequoia on my Macs.

I plan to test Tahoe on an external SSD one of these days.

 

[rin67630]

I used to have a 27" iMac 2015, i7 and max RAM, but the screen was too large for me.
I sold it for a good price and bought a smaller iMac 2017, that has only 8GB RAM and i5 for almost peanuts.
That one has the advantage of having TB3 ports for which external NVMe cases are available, which are glued to the foot and carry the OSes.
Now I run Windows11 very fluidly on it, and can dual-boot on Sequoia (sometimes...).
It turns out to be largely sufficient for my usage.
A 4K screen used a 150% factor is perfect for me (Windows scales ways better than macOS).

 

[pshufd]

I used to have a 27" iMac 2015, i7 and max RAM, but the screen was too large for me.
I sold it for a good price and bought a smaller iMac 2017, that has only 8GB RAM and i5 for almost peanuts.
That one has the advantage of having TB3 ports for which external NVMe cases are available, which are glued to the foot and carry the OSes.
Now I run Windows11 very fluidly on it, and can dual-boot on Sequoia (sometimes...).
It turns out to be largely sufficient for my usage.
A 4K screen used a 150% factor is perfect for me (Windows scales ways better than macOS).

Big performance difference between the i5 and i7 so not surprising you got a good price. The i7 had 50% more multicore performance. If I had one of those, I'd probably be using it today.

 

[MacInTO]

I used my 2017 27" iMac from August 2024 until the end of last year. I edit photographs mostly and the glare was driving me nuts. It now sits unused. I replaced it with a 2013 mac pro and a 30" Apple cinema display.

 

[rin67630]

Big performance difference between the i5 and i7 so not surprising you got a good price. The i7 had 50% more multicore performance. If I had one of those, I'd probably be using it today.

Yes, but I don't notice a significant performance degradation on office/internet usage and even on compiling for ESP modules. The Thunderbolt 3 ports from the 2017 series are a blessing compared to TB2 from the 2015 ones, which had no cases for NVMe available on the market.

 

[rin67630]

It now sits unused

Sell it, as i did, with Windows on it.
I got 300€ and an ever grateful buyer, calling me from time to time to praise his purchase...
I bought my 2017 4K for 100€ and am perfectly happy with it today, 4K is largely enough.

 

[pshufd]

Yes, but I don't notice a significant performance degradation on office/internet usage and even on compiling for ESP modules. The Thunderbolt 3 ports from the 2017 series are a blessing compared to TB2 from the 2015 ones, which had no cases for NVMe available on the market.

I have the iMac Pro and can appreciate TB3, even if it took a bit of time to find something compatible and performant. Kind of the problem in the age of TB4 enclosures where backwards support can be clunky.

 

[rin67630]

I have the iMac Pro and can appreciate TB3, even if it took a bit of time to find something compatible and performant. Kind of the problem in the age of TB4 enclosures where backwards support can be clunky.

You currently have an offer on eBay : https://www.ebay.de/itm/187829987566 which appear to be a sell-off of new devices.
They tell that two screws are missing, these are just regular 2,5mm screws.
The case I received was brand new, just without these screws.
Looks like they deliberately removed the screws to circumvent a minimum price obligation.

 

[pshufd]

You currently have an offer on eBay : https://www.ebay.de/itm/187829987566 which appear to be a sell-off of new devices.
They tell that two screws are missing, these are just regular 2,5mm screws.
The case I received was brand new, just without these screws.
Looks like they deliberately removed the screws to circumvent a minimum price obligation.

I bought an Orico model that works well with the Samsung 990 EVO Plus, Mac Studio and iMac Pro. It supports TB4, USB4 and TB3 and USB 3.1 really well which covers all of my desktops. But it overheats on large transfers so my solution was to run it over a fan. I plan to try a PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD in it which is rated at 1-3 watts instead of the higher power of the EVO Plus.

I've tried an Acasis enclosure but couldn't get TB3 speeds on the iMac Pro with it.

 

[ignatius345]

Yes. Recently the 3-TB Fusion Drive went out, so after soliciting input from more knowledgable MR Forum members, I bought an on-sale $200 Samsung T7 portable external SSD (4 TB) and plugged it into a USB-C port. There some some drama getting the OS on that and then using a Carbon Copy Cloner backup as a source for Migration Assistant to get up and running on the new SSD as start up disc, but that's going fine now. When I click Apple Photos (I've got a bunch) or load Blurb's BookWright software with a big photo book, they pop open fast, so the 'how it feels' performance is better, which surprised me.

I, too, dread the day I need relinquish this 27" 5K very nice display.

Fusion Drives are a ticking time bomb at this point. The one on my 2014 iMac 5K died when when the small SSD part hit its wear limit. I actually opened mine up and put in a SATA SSD, which worked very nicely for a few years before I replaced the machine.

Any Fusion Drives still running out in the wild should be treated with extreme suspicion IMO.

 

[rin67630]

Fusion Drives are a ticking time bomb at this point. The one on my 2014 iMac 5K died when when the small SSD part hit its wear limit. I actually opened mine up and put in a SATA SSD, which worked very nicely for a few years before I replaced the machine.

Any Fusion Drives still running out in the wild should be treated with extreme suspicion IMO.

The risk is that the SDD blade dies only to half.
I had an iMac that took 3 minutes to boot, since the boot loader tried to desperately to access the defective blade.
The only cure was to open the guts and get the defective blade out of the iMac.
iMacs boot quite well from USB. Split the FD, format the HDD as hfs+, put an external USB SSD drive behind the foot and enjoy a faster and ways more stable iMac (the internal HDD can be used as user data or Time machine).

 

[ignatius345]

The only cure was to open the guts and get the defective blade out of the iMac.

Excellent thread here on sourcing the right components for this specific operation. Seems like a bit of a PITA, which was why I copped out and left the worn out blade in place and just worked with the SATA slot.

A list of successful iMac 27" (2012-2019) SSD upgrades

Here you can find and discuss all the collected knowledge regarding upgrading the HDD, blade SSD and CPU of a 27" iMac 2012-2019, as well as a list of performed upgrades. Here is a list of all 27" iMac models subjected in this thread: Late 2012 - 13.2 - MD095LL/A (2.9Ghz i5-3470S, HDD only /...

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