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i'm in the market for a new iMac. probably won't pull the trigger until holiday/BF but i want to know what i'm hunting for when the iron gets hot.
Currently: iMac 21.5 Late 2009. 12GB RAM. 3.06 Core 2 Duo. using 142GB of 500GB storage. Sierra.
Usage: far from a power user. i surf, email, message, word process, Moneydance, tiny spreadsheets, Spotify. I do not process video and rarely diddle with photos. I want to move up because i have the money and i get more spinning beachballs than i have the patience for. I will probably keep this computer as i have need of Quickbooks 11 and that runs no higher than El Cap which i boot into from an external drive.
i'd like to stay in the $1200 range. i haven't decided yet if i want to move up to 27". it just seems so large in my office space. but i do expect this new computer to last a very long time.
i guess i'm wondering if i'd be fine with the 1TB Fusion drive. folks here sure love their SSDs. is the basic 8GB RAM enough since it seems RAM is not easy to add? refurbs are on the table; how far back in years is it okay to consider for my needs?
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you can't post d.i.d.d.l.e. on the forum? seriously?
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Willing to buy used, or must be new/refurb? Not a ton available for 1200, IIRC...
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Ram was easy to add to the 2015 that I have, I think it is so for the newest iMacs too.
I REALLY like the 27” screen!
Mine was an Apple refurb through OWC, I remember it being in the $1500 range including 16GB of additional RAM.
Have fun!
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graylocks wrote:
folks here sure love their SSDs
Have you considered adding one to your admirably aged iMac?
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mikebw wrote:
[quote=graylocks]
folks here sure love their SSDs
Have you considered adding one to your admirably aged iMac?
at 10 years i think it’s time though as a vanity DIY experiment i may give it a shot at some point since i’ll be keeping it.
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anonymouse1 wrote:
Willing to buy used, or must be new/refurb? Not a ton available for 1200, IIRC...
there are some refurbs in the ballpark actually. it’s not a hard $1200 budget.
2019 iMac $1189
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Ram was easy to add to the 2015 that I have, think it is so for the newest iMacs too.
Only for the 27" iMac.
Easy peasy.
I don't know about any of the 21" iMacs. I don't recall any having an access door as do the big iMacs.
And I think even with a Fusion drive, gl, you should consider an SSD at some point, not right away. Don't bother with Apple's flash storage, unless you get a steal deal on such an iMac.
Even if you get a T-3 capable iMac, a standard SSD in an external box will be good enough, and an improvement over the Fusion drive.
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RAMd®d wrote:
And I think even with a Fusion drive, gl, you should consider an SSD at some point, not right away. Don't bother with Apple's flash storage, unless you get a steal deal on such an iMac.
Even if you get a T-3 capable iMac, a standard SSD in an external box will be good enough, and an improvement over the Fusion drive.
What is T-3 capable? and are you saying don't go with an Apple SSD unless it's at a killer price?
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RAM,
A standard 2.5" SSD in a USB-C box connected to a Thunderbolt 2 or 3 port isn't going to be an improvement on the fusion drives in the current models. Apparently, Apple has improved its fusion drives to a such a degree, the only way to do better is to go with a Thunderbolt 2 or 3 connected external NVME SSD. JDC can go into more details since he's the one who provided the info on it to me prior to my purchase of a refurb 2019 iMac 27".
That said, I have a 1TB Inland Pro NVME M.2 SSD in a USB-C Gen 2 enclosure as the boot drive of my iMac. It's connected via USB 3.1 Gen 2 to a Thunderbolt 3 port. It's wicked fast and faster than the internal 2TB fusion drive. The frankendrive would be significant faster if the same stick was in an actual Thunderbolt 3 box. Configuring my machine this way saved me a significant amount of bucks over buying an Apple SSD.
At some point, I may take the stick and drop it in a Thunderbolt 3 box. There are some boxes for $175 or less and it's an easy swap. Or, if I need more storage, it's easy enough to move to a higher capacity stick in the same enclosure. NVME M.2 stick SSDs are a little bit more expensive than a 2.5" SSD but they are _much_ faster. The boxes for the sticks are also more expensive. Despite that, it's still a bargain compared to getting the internal SSD from Apple or going through the agita and expense of replacing the internal platter or fusion drive with an SSD.
I was so pleased with the results, that I took a spare Mushkin Source 1TB SSD, dropped it into a USB 3.1 Gen 2 box and am now using it as the boot drive for my office's 2014 iMac 27" 5K. It's connected to a USB 3 port. Again, faster than the internal 1TB fusion drive. Not as fast as the frankendrive I'm using at home but still so fast that I can't tell that I'm running off an external drive.
These days, with the advent of USB-C Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3, a properly configured external SSD is going to be faster than any fusion drive and, depending on the drive and box, so fast that you're not going to want to invest in a stock Apple SSD or replace the original internal platter or fusion drive of an iMac with an SSD.
All this is based on my current experiences working off SSDs on the '14 iMac and the '19 iMac.
And, to confirm what others have said, upgrading the RAM in a '19 iMac 27" is incredibly easy. Takes less than five minutes.
Robert
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