Major iMac problems, help and advice needed.

[webby]

Glad you got to the bottom of it Steve.

Disk Utility is a good built in app, but it's not heavy duty and something like Diskwarrior may have shown up errors that DU could not in this instance.

A new SSD drive is on it's way and will get fitted shortly.

Oooh, SSD! Get you!

[webby]

Even though using a USB drive is going to be slower than an internal one, the old iMac was immediately able to run Dreamweaver, iTunes, Aperture, Photoshop, Creative Suite, Spotify AND all the Office products at the same time with hardly a moments pause.

I have other OS's installed on a USB drive for testing and whatnot and I find it runs pretty well, although I've not used them in this way for very long.

[twelvebears]

Glad you got to the bottom of it Steve.

Disk Utility is a good built in app, but it's not heavy duty and something like Diskwarrior may have shown up errors that DU could not in this instance.



Oooh, SSD! Get you!

It's only a little one 120GB which was only £75 from Amazon, so don't get too excited! Nothing apart from OS Apps and pics is on the iMac, all else is on a network drive, so it's speed rather than storage we need.

If I'm impressed though I might start considering them for our other machines now that prices seem to be coming down.

[webby]

It's only a little one 120GB which was only £75 from Amazon

That's not bad. Where are you going to fit it?

[twelvebears]

That's not bad. Where are you going to fit it?

I'll be using it as the OS and Applications drive on the 24" iMac. All of our bulky data is on a Drobo, so space isn't really an issue.

If it performs well, I'll consider them for our other machines.

I'll let you know what I think of it.

[twelvebears]

If any one is interested, I can confirm that sticking an SSD into an early 2008 MacBook (not Pro) has given it a serious boost in performance.

EVERYTHING is better. Start-up, shut-down, opening and closing applications, all massively faster. In fact opening and closing apps is almost instant.

As a test I raced my 4 yr old MacBook against Susy's new MacBook Pro, with it's 8Gb RAM and 2.3 i5 processor in a start-up of MS Office for Mac, Word. My Word app was fully open while Susy's 'W' ico was still bouncing in the dock.

Seriously chaps, if you don't need big storage on your machine or can store large data on an external drive, DO give an SSD a go.

[webby]

Steve, did you fit it in place of the MacBook's original HD?

[twelvebears]

Steve, did you fit it in place of the MacBook's original HD?

Yep, straight swap and then restored from a Carbon Copy back-up