Why can the 21in iMac be such a dog?

Why can the 21in iMac be such a dog?

It looks good (still), despite being launched in 2012. If you haven’t come to terms with the new colour coded M1 iMacs it’s still a nice looking machine. It’s just a shame so many of them don’t go like they should. But why?

In the case on the 21in iMac is comes down to one factor. The hard drive.

Inside every iMac the hard drive holds all your precious data. It also holds the operating system. Every time you turn it on the hard drive spins away, loading the whole OS and associated data. Then when thats done you sign in, and the drive spins and loads all your personal data. The same for applications that launch.

Then you go to work. The hard drive works away as well. Every byte of data has to be read or written to the drive. Spin, spin spin, work work, work.

So it follows that the faster the hard drive is the faster all this stuff goes. Which is why SSDs improve things so much. No spinning, no loving parts just electrons moving very, very fast.

So obviously Apple fits the fasted drives possible into what was a premium product? Well, not so much. While some iMacs came with SSDs fitted it was an expensive option. Most iMacs came with the standard spinning hard drive.

So obviously Apple specified the best one they could right? Well again, not so much. The hard drive fitted into most 21 in iMacs is a desktop (thin) drive; aesthetics you see, thin Mac, thin drive. Great. But also thin drive, slow drive.

But again at this point, hey, it’s a quality desktop drive obviously? Again not so much. The drives fitted to these Mac’s are terrible. Really awful. Slow when new they just get slower and slower. Then they stop. This slowness translates into how fast your iMac feels in daily use, which after far to short a period of time ranges from not fast enough to cripplingly slow.

Luckily it IS fixable. Despite Apple’s best efforts (gluing the screen in) you can retrofit an SSD to any 21in imac. Even ones with fusion drive setups benefit from going full SSD as they still use that goshawful hard drive.

SSD prices are a fraction of what they were a decade ago so it’s a cost effective solution. It speeds your iMac back up to modern standards and makes it a pleasures to use. It makes it how it should have been in the first place.

If you have an iMac that feels like it’s running through treacle or even barely moving at all then get in touch. With one day turnarounds you can be back in love with your Mac again without having to drop all that ££ on a new one.

Nice.

Call, text or email me at www.swindonmac.com

07711434912 and we can fix this (or any other Mac problem you have).