New iMac questions

[jpdemers]

My two cents: Given your situation, a 512GB internal drive will not leave you short of space. The default memory on the new iMacs is more than enough, unless you want to edit large video files.
Use one EHD for your photo storage, the other (larger) one for Time Machine, and get a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner - it will smoothly duplicate your photos folder(s) onto the Time Machine EHD on command or on a schedule. If either drive fails, you don't lose anything (other than the older versions of files that Time Machine stores, if that's the drive that dies.)
My "documents" folder is fairly large, so I keep that with my photos, on an EHD, with an alias in my home folder. Works like a charm, my internal SSD remains roomy, and CCCloner keeps it backed up.

 

[poppi]

Thank you Jake for your valiant effort to help. I think the main problem is the ancient age of my iMac and it's antique operating system. One final question Do you think the Apple store will be able to transfer everything to the new machine if operating in safe mode?

Thanks again

poppi

 

[MacInWin]

Probably. You should be able, on your own, in Safe Mode, to copy all of your documents from your home folder to an external drive yourself. Then, even if the Apple store folks can't make the migration, you can at least copy back from that external drive to your new machine what you need. But I do think it very likely that the store folks will be able to migrate your data for you.