iMac memory

[hoody]

I have the 21.5" 2013 Imac, the one with the glued on screen. It's running pretty slow and although I've asked on here before I'm wondering if it would be worth upgrading the ram from 8 to 16 Gb. This is the one I'm talking about for A$229.00 from Macfixit here in Australia. "16.0GB (2 x 8.0GB) OWC PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz SO-DIMM 204 Pin RAM." I've watched a detailed instructional video linked to their site and am confident that I can do the job with the included kit they give you. I'd appreciate it if anyone's done this for a slow iMac and found it helps to let me know.
An alternative I was thinking of was to use the 4TB external drive that I recently bought and cloned the HD with CCC. Does anyone think this would be the way to go?

 

[chscag]

Adding more memory may give you a boost in speed and then again, it may not. Your iMac has a slow hard drive which doesn't help. In that model (your iMac) Apple used a 3.5" 5400 RPM hard drive which is slower than the larger and faster hard drives used in the 27" model.

If you're going to take the iMac apart to add memory, you might also want to replace the hard drive with a SSD. And by the way, it's a difficult task taking the glued screen off and then removing the board to gain access to the memory slots. If you're sure you can do it with the included kit, go ahead then.

Using an external hard drive to boot the machine (if that's what you're referring to with the 4TB drive) may actually slow things down. Booting from a SSD would be better, however, your iMac does not have USB 3.1/USB-C ports. You only have USB 3.0 ports which are slower. Changing out the internal drive with a SSD would be much faster but of course more expensive.

 

[harryb2448]

An SSD is the answer to your slow old platter drive as Admin chscag advises.

If it is a 2013 model it does have USB3. as do all glued screen Macs, and an external SSD used externally via USB3 will be a huge boost.

 

[hoody]

I hadn't thought about the external SSD. Might be worth a look. I know it has usb3, but chscag seems to be talking about the newer usb3 which from what I can gather, reading about it is getting awful complicated with the nomenclature. I am handy with physical things, but it's computers and the terminology that I sometimes can't handle, so I've no worries about putting in a new drive and/or memory. It's the money that's an object.

 

[pigoo3]

This is the one I'm talking about for A$229.00 from Macfixit here in Australia. "16.0GB (2 x 8.0GB) OWC PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz SO-DIMM 204 Pin RAM."

If I got the correct iMac model...16gig of ram (2 x 8gig) for your 2013 21.5" iMac is $87.99 (A$125.95)...plus shipping:

Memory Upgrades for iMac 21.5-Inch 2012 - Late 2013

Could probably check out their SSD's as well:

OWC SSD Upgrade Kits for 21.5-Inch iMac (2013 - Current)

HTH,

- Nick

 

[Slydude]

Before you invest in aditional memory try the following experiment for a bit. The results might give you a better idea whether additional memory would help:

1. Reboot the Mac and launch Activity Monitor first. Make sure you click on the memory tab. With nothing else running the "memory pressure" area should show green.
2. Launch other apps and go about your normal computing routine. If you normally open/use more than one program simultaneously do that as well.
3. When things start slowing down go back to Activity Monitor and look at memory pressure again. If it's yellow or red, and that's happening consistently, additional memory may help.

Personally, I suspect the slower hard drive is a bigger issue. This comes from someone who has invested in additional memory and not seen the performance boost I expected.

 

[hoody]

If I got the correct iMac model...16gig of ram (2 x 8gig) for your 2013 21.5" iMac is $87.99 (A$125.95)...plus shipping:

Memory Upgrades for iMac 21.5-Inch 2012 - Late 2013

Could probably check out their SSD's as well:

OWC SSD Upgrade Kits for 21.5-Inch iMac (2013 - Current)

HTH,

- Nick

What a difference in prices! We all know that it costs to send these things over, but saying that, these companies pay less for freight than you and I would making the mark up eye watering.

 

[hoody]

Slydude, I'll try that again, but when I did it before I only had one tab/app open. I'll try it again today with more stuff going on.

 

[hoody]

I've attached a couple of screen shots of the CPU History and the Memory Pressure and now need someone to tell me what they think of the CPU History. The Memory Pressure stays in the green no matter how many apps I open and use. I had Photos going with Adobe Photoshop Elements editing, iTunes, iMovie playing a clip, along with Pages. It went really slow and I shut everything down but when I got to iMovie I got the spinning beachball and had to force quit that.

 

[hoody]

I don't know what's going on here, but I posted two attachments in my last post and wanted to put one here as well but there's no attachment icon this time. Anyway, I found this hard drive at Macfixit (Australia): 1.0TB Micron 5100 Pro Series 2.5-inch 7mm SATA 6.0Gb/s 3D NAND Flash Ultra-High Performance Solid-State Drive (SSD) at A$170.00 inc post.
Here's the blurb of which I understand almost nothing:
Micron
1.0TB 5100 Pro Series
SATA 2.5" SSD
2.5-Inch | SATA 6.0Gb/s

Up to 540MB/s Read, 520MB/s Write
Micron's 5100 solid state drive (SSD) uses a single-chip controller with a SATA interface on the system side and four channels of Micron NAND Flash internally.
Highlights

Hot-plug capable (2.5-inch only)
Native command queuing support with 32-command slot support
ATA-8 ACS-3 revision 5 command set compliant
Enhanced power-loss data protection with data protection capacitor monitoring
Self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology (SMART) command set
Secure field-upgradeable firmware with digitally signed firmware image
Free Installation Videos
Warranty Safe Upgrade.
3 Year Australian Replacement Warranty


The SSD is designed to use the SATA interface efficiently during both READs and WRITEs while delivering bandwidth-focused performance. SSD technology enables enhanced boot times, faster application load times, reduced power consumption and extended reliability.

The self-encrypting drive (SED) features a AES-256 encryption engine, providing hardware-based, secure data encryption, with no loss of SSD performance. This SED follows the TCG Enterprise specification for trusted peripherals. When TCG Enterprise features are not enabled, the device can perform alternate data encryption by invoking the ATA security command set encryption features, to provide full disk encryption (FDE) managed in the host system BIOS. TCG Enterprise and ATA security feature sets cannot be enabled simultaneously.

The data encryption is always running; however, encryption keys are not managed and the data is not secure until either TCG Enterprise or ATA security feature sets are enabled.
I spoke to someone at Macfixit about 5 minutes ago and he recommended the above drive which he says are really good and they have no comebacks. What do people think?

 

[hoody]

I reset the SMC by shutting down, pulling the plug for 10 seconds and restarting and now I have the message that it can't find a wireless keyboard. I haven't even got a wireless keyboard! I can't get in to do anything because I can't enter my password. I fixed this once before with help from here, but I've forgotten how. Can anyone help?

 

[pigoo3]

What a difference in prices! We all know that it costs to send these things over, but saying that, these companies pay less for freight than you and I would making the mark up eye watering.

For many years now...we've heard from our Australia Mac-Forums members that RAM in Australia is super expensive. I think even with Australia's "GST" and shipping costs...I think RAM is still less expensive from the United States.

- Nick

 

[rachalmers]

For many years now...we've heard from our Australia Mac-Forums members that RAM in Australia is super expensive. I think even with Australia's "GST" and shipping costs...I think RAM is still less expensive from the United States.

- Nick

Everything in Australia is expensive, not just RAM.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[pigoo3]

Everything in Australia is expensive, not just RAM.

I think Vegimite and red soil is cheap!

- Nick

 

[pm-r]

I think Vegimite and red soil is cheap!

- Nick

And don't forget to include the bangers and beer!!!


- Patrick
======

 

[hoody]

For many years now...we've heard from our Australia Mac-Forums members that RAM in Australia is super expensive. I think even with Australia's "GST" and shipping costs...I think RAM is still less expensive from the United States.

- Nick

I'm now hoping that the new hard drive will fix it. Just waiting for some comments on what people think of the drive I put up in post 10. I might still keep looking for the same thing in the States though.

 

[hoody]

I've sent off for a SSD 1Tb drive from Macfixit in Australia. It's a Micron 2.5" 1.0TB Micron 5100 Pro Series 2.5-inch 7mm SATA 6.0Gb/s 3D NAND Flash Ultra-High Performance ... I'm now wondering if it might be worth upgrading the ram to 16Gb while I'm at it. I'm thinking about this because of the work involved in getting at things. It comes to A$150.00 and it's OWC. What do you more knowledgable people think.

 

[Slydude]

Given the results you got while running Activity Monitor I don't know that you would see much of a difference going from 8 GB to 16 GB. I didn't with my iMac but I got one heck of a deal on the memory. Having said that, I can see wh you are thinking of upgrading the memory and hard drive at the same time given the amount of work involved.

FWIW I think what this boils down to is how long do you typically keep your machines before you outgrow them? I tend to do these kinds of upgrades, as the budget permits, because I tend to keep my machines for quite a while. I've still got a 2008 MacBook Pro around as a backup machine. It was my primary one till about three years ago.

 

[pm-r]

What do you more knowledgable people think.

I wouldn't say that I am "more knowledgable", but I would agree as to what Slydude has mentioned and especially about Activity Monitor.

But also be aware that the later Mac OS versions have been able to utilize memory a lot better and more efficiently than the older OSs did years ago, and as Sly noticed, it didn't make a huge difference with the Mac he was using.

And as you are installing an SSD, any memory swaps you might end up with are going to be so fast you probably wouldn't even notice any stall. Don't forget, those SSD chips are very similar to the chips they use on memory modules, but different.

Actually I dodn't even know which 2013 21.5" iMac model you have and if its RAM is even replaceable???

You can check the different models including your here:
Apple iMac Specs (All iMac Tech Specs): EveryMac.com

PS: They also suggest various good suppliers (sponsors) depending on where you live.



- Patrick
======

 

[chscag]

Actually I dodn't even know which 2013 21.5" iMac model you have and if its RAM is even replaceable???

It's replaceable but the machine has to be disassembled in order to do it. Notice what Pete stated in a previous reply about purchasing the kit to open the machine and replacing the memory.