2008 IMAC - slow - restore

[sputterbug10]

My Dad has a Power <ac and an old 2008 Imac that he uses a lot. His Power Mac is in his office and he has a difficult time getting around his office in his wheelchair so he just uses the Imac. It sits in the kitchen so it's easier to get to. The Imac is extremely slow and I told him maybe we should remove everything by moving the files to an external drive and then setting the Imac back to factory settings, but I have a couple of questions: if I buy an external drive to use for this project, once I'm finished can I then use the external drive at my house for my PC? Can it be reformatted to work with windows? Also, when the computer was taken in to a computer store to be cleaned from a virus I guess (my brother did that), it came back with El Capitan on it. I was, and still am, under the impression that the most recent OS this old Imac should have on it is Snow Leopard. Is that true?
This computer is extremely slow at everything, including internet. His new router is an airport extreme base station (stands about 6" tall) and I just ordered him a new modem. The last thing left to do is clean out his machine as far as duplicate files, etc. I am trying to speed it up. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

First, macOS El Capitan is indeed the newest version of the OS that this 2008 iMac can support. But just because it can run it, doesn't mean that it should. First and foremost, let's understand that the machine is very old and outdated (from a technology perspective). It has served your father well and that's great to hear. You could return it back to Snow Leopard (assuming you have the original disks), have a full backup of the machine/data and restore it back again.

Upgrading the memory to maximum, replacing the HDD with a SSD, and possibly other things will improve the performance of the machine, but I would frankly suggest that you don't spend that kind of money on this machine.

Assuming this machine is either 20" or 24", the latest generation 21.5" iMac is a much better place to be spending any money at all. You can look at the refurbished store where you'll find the cheapest one is at $929.

Once you get the new machine, you should grab an external drive and enable Time Machine to create automatic backups of all the data. That way, you can always restore the data should you have to re-install for any reason.

 

[pm-r]

I didn't notice any mention of available drive space, and there should be at least 20GB-48GB free, and also, the HDD may actually be failing, a real cause of serious slowdowns.

PS: What is Activity Monitor.app showing as to what is happening with memory and CPU use.



- Patrick
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[sputterbug10]

Thanks for response. I'll check the available drive space and cpu use. Imgoing over there in 2 days and will check then. Thank you

 

[harryb2448]

If it is a Power Mac it is prior to 200-6 and not being Intel, will be unable to run anything newer than Leopard OS X.5. Either your terminology of a Power Mac or a 2008 iMac is not wuite accurate.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Harry, OP stated having both a Power Mac and 2008 iMac. The discussion is about the 2008 iMac and not Power Mac.

 

[Rod]

In regards to your question about the external hard drive the answer is yes.
If you get a USB external HD get one about twice the storage space of the device it is going to be used for. You can use it with the native Time Machine app to do a complete backup of the iMac but if the iMac is close to capacity (less than 15% free space) then I would move some files seoeratky onto the EHD first. I have seen problems with new full backups using Time Nachine where the backuo freezes because the source does not have enough room for the process.
If all goes well subsequent backups will be much faster than the first one which can take hours dependent on the size of the source.
The EHD can be reformatted for use with a PC but I really suggest that you keep it as a backup for the iMac if you value any of the data on it because it is quite old and could die at any time.