Is it normal for my iMac to be really slow

Hello everyone, I have a 2015 iMac running Monterey 12.7.5. It has a 4 GHz quad-Core Intel Core i7. I also have 32GB of 1867 MHz DDR3 RAM and an AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4GB graphics card. I’m trying to use Adobe Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and the Topaz programs, but my computer is very slow—much slower than I expected. What kind of performance should I get with this setup? Can I speed it up, or do I need to buy a new iMac? Thanks

Update: I decided to get an external SSD. I thought about changing the internal drive but figured it would have more downsides than benefits compared to an external drive. The performance with the SSD has been great so far! Lightroom, Photoshop, and Topaz are much more responsive now. I’ll be moving important files from my old drive soon. Thank you all for your helpful suggestions and advice

That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Ray said:

Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your Fusion drive is failing! Change it to a real SSD before you lose data! You can buy kits from here; it comes with instructions and tools.

https://eshop.macsales.com/

Ari said:

Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your Fusion drive is failing! Change it to a real SSD before you lose data! You can buy kits from here; it comes with instructions and tools.

https://eshop.macsales.com/

Thanks for the link

Ray said:

Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Reeve said:

Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

Ray said:

Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

I wouldn’t recommend that. Fusion drives are not good and will likely fail at some point

You can either buy the kit for $50 and an SSD for under $100 or you could use an external USB 3 drive as your boot disk. It’s fast enough to work like an internal drive

Personally, I’d go for the kit and swap the internal drive, but the installation can be a little tricky if you’re not tech-savvy

Reeve said:

Ray said:
Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

I wouldn’t recommend that. Fusion drives are not good and will likely fail at some point

You can either buy the kit for $50 and an SSD for under $100 or you could use an external USB 3 drive as your boot disk. It’s fast enough to work like an internal drive

Personally, I’d go for the kit and swap the internal drive, but the installation can be a little tricky if you’re not tech-savvy

I’ve been watching some videos on drive swaps—removing the screen looks like the hardest part, but I think I could manage it. It would be great not to use one of the USB ports

Ray said:

Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

You misunderstand. The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is okay, even at just 40% life left

The problem is the HDD. It’s extremely slow. You should not use it, see it, or think about it with a modern Mac

The best suggestion so far is to get an external USB3 SSD from somewhere (Amazon is great, Macsales is also good) and then install MacOS on there, move your apps over to it, and then format or just ignore the old Fusion drive

Aeron said:

Ray said:
Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

You misunderstand. The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is okay, even at just 40% life left

The problem is the HDD. It’s extremely slow. You should not use it, see it, or think about it with a modern Mac

The best suggestion so far is to get an external USB3 SSD from somewhere (Amazon is great, Macsales is also good) and then install MacOS on there, move your apps over to it, and then format or just ignore the old Fusion drive

I’m convinced about booting from an SSD—why do you suggest it should be external

Ray said:

Aeron said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

You misunderstand. The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is okay, even at just 40% life left

The problem is the HDD. It’s extremely slow. You should not use it, see it, or think about it with a modern Mac

The best suggestion so far is to get an external USB3 SSD from somewhere (Amazon is great, Macsales is also good) and then install MacOS on there, move your apps over to it, and then format or just ignore the old Fusion drive

I’m convinced about booting from an SSD—why do you suggest it should be external

I recommend it being external because it’s quick to plug in (USB3). Amazon has plenty of them for cheap. Then just download and install MacOS and your apps on it, and set it as your startup drive; it’s easy

If you want to open up your Mac to remove the internal Fusion drives, expect to pay around $150 to your local Mac tech (plus the cost of the 2.5" 1TB or so SSD), and honestly, it’s not worth the money for such an old Mac

Aeron said:

Ray said:
Aeron said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
Ray said:
Reeve said:
That doesn’t sound right. I’m using a late 2011 iMac with 16GB of RAM and it still works well for those applications

What kind of hard drive do you have in there

I rarely see the RAM max out (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it max out). It has a Fusion Drive—128GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. The HDD spins at 7200 RPM

Your drive is likely the problem. Fusion drives are bad—it’s better to just use a 256GB internal drive and use external drives for data, projects, and work

That drive may be on its last legs

Can I stop using the SSD part of the drive and just use it like a normal hard drive? It seems like the SSD part has most of the wear and tear, and it’s only 128GB

You misunderstand. The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is okay, even at just 40% life left

The problem is the HDD. It’s extremely slow. You should not use it, see it, or think about it with a modern Mac

The best suggestion so far is to get an external USB3 SSD from somewhere (Amazon is great, Macsales is also good) and then install MacOS on there, move your apps over to it, and then format or just ignore the old Fusion drive

I’m convinced about booting from an SSD—why do you suggest it should be external

I recommend it being external because it’s quick to plug in (USB3). Amazon has plenty of them for cheap. Then just download and install MacOS and your apps on it, and set it as your startup drive; it’s easy

If you want to open up your Mac to remove the internal Fusion drives, expect to pay around $150 to your local Mac tech (plus the cost of the 2.5" 1TB or so SSD), and honestly, it’s not worth the money for such an old Mac

Thanks

What kind of storage does it have? Hard drive, Fusion Drive, or SSD?

What does Activity Monitor say about CPU usage?

If it has a hard drive or Fusion drive, think about getting an external SSD for storage

Sam said:
What kind of storage does it have? Hard drive, Fusion Drive, or SSD?
What does Activity Monitor say about CPU usage?
If it has a hard drive or Fusion drive, think about getting an external SSD for storage

It’s a Fusion drive—the HDD spins at 7200 RPM. CPU usage usually looks fine—often when the computer is really slow, the CPU is still low. Thanks

Ray said:

Sam said:
What kind of storage does it have? Hard drive, Fusion Drive, or SSD?
What does Activity Monitor say about CPU usage?
If it has a hard drive or Fusion drive, think about getting an external SSD for storage
It’s a Fusion drive—the HDD spins at 7200 RPM. CPU usage usually looks fine—often when the computer is really slow, the CPU is still low. Thanks

Download and run DriveDX to check the drive health and see if there are many errors. I’d say you should get an external SSD and install Monterey on it to run from the external SSD instead of the internal HDD

I have a 2015 too, and I set it up to run off an external USB SSD since I bought it

Did you just buy it or have you had it for a while? I usually ask for a DriveDX report or run it while I’m looking at a system to see how it’s doing and if I’ll have to replace it or use something else

Sam said:

Ray said:
Sam said:
What kind of storage does it have? Hard drive, Fusion Drive, or SSD?
What does Activity Monitor say about CPU usage?
If it has a hard drive or Fusion drive, think about getting an external SSD for storage
It’s a Fusion drive—the HDD spins at 7200 RPM. CPU usage usually looks fine—often when the computer is really slow, the CPU is still low. Thanks
Download and run DriveDX to check the drive health and see if there are many errors. I’d say you should get an external SSD and install Monterey on it to run from the external SSD instead of the internal HDD
I have a 2015 too, and I set it up to run off an external USB SSD since I bought it
Did you just buy it or have you had it for a while? I usually ask for a DriveDX report or run it while I’m looking at a system to see how it’s doing and if I’ll have to replace it or use something else

DriveDX didn’t find any problems with the SSD or the hard drive. But on the SSD, the Wear Leveling Count is at 40%, and the SSD Lifetime Left Indicator is also at 40%. All the other stats are at 99% or 100%. I got the computer new. Do you think they run well from an external drive

The problem is your Fusion drive. I have a 2017 27" i5 and the first thing I did was open the computer, remove the hard drive and SSD, and put in a 1TB OWC SSD. My computer is really fast. I have a MBA M3 and a 2018 mini, but I use the iMac every day. The 5K display is what I like. Anyway, change your HD and SSD