iMac upgrade is ridiculous

This isn't about Hubitat, but how many of you use an iMac in your daily life. I just replaced the ultra slow HDD in my iMac with a new Samsung EVO SSD and restored using time machine. Repair took about an hour and the restore about 2.5 hours (500GB of info in restore).
The thing is this 2015 iMac runs faster now than it did out of the box. It is insane. Maybe it is just that it was so slow before the upgrade. I mean things that took 30 seconds to open now show in less than 2 seconds. It is ridiculously fast.
Sorry if this doesn't apply to you, I just had to tell somebody.

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I updated the internal HD in my 2012 Mac Mini and 2013 iMac to SSDs a couple of years ago, and I agree completely with your observation.

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By default most laptop have 5400 RPM HDD, if your lucky you'll get 7200 RPM. Upgrading to SSD will give you about a 10x speed upgrade. Yeah that's noticeable, congrats and welcome to the world of real computing speed!

From the web - 5400rpm drive can have a throughput of around 100 to 150MB/s . A good SATA SSD has a throughput of around 550MB/s both ways, and a brand new bleeding edge NVME SSD can have a throughput of 3500/ 2500MB/s.

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Too bad Mac won't recognize your efforts and allow you to install the latest OS very soon. Not that they won't keep working, just Apple's planned obsolescence starting to take hold.

On the one hand I understand them not wanting to allow "older" systems OS to be upgraded, preventing the implied sluggishness, and "bad user experience" that comes with installing a new OS on old hardware. On the other, I'd prefer to have some bench-marking function to prove your machines worthiness to the almighty Mac gods. Alas that would not drive up market cap.

I cannot tell you how many jobs my good natured honesty has talked clients out of upgrades. "Sure I can make your Mac Book much faster, but Apple will still stop supporting in the next X years and you cannot have any new software upgrades or features unless you buy a new one" That goes over really well. (yes even though most 'features' may not be wanted some)

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I can see one of these in this room right now.

Screen Shot 2020-06-25 at 10.21.03 AM

It's powered off but the last time it had power it was working fine. If I needed a headless CPU that was faster than an rPi, for yet-another-NodeJS-service I'd consider powering it. :smiley: Whatever OS is on it will be the last available, and that will be OK for NodeJS certainly :smiley:

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I had the same experience on a PC, both Desktop and Laptop. I had always known the limiting factor was the harddrive but still it was amazing when I first booted to the SSD. I immediately stopped thinking about processor speed, memory and memory speed as they could only provide trivial increases in day to day performance compared to the SSD.
I am still under the belief that the SSD's are still a major (may be the major) speed limiting component.

Also compared to higher end processors and memory they are cheap.

SSD is the game changer. I've saved multiple people from unnecessary new computer purchases by replacing the HDD in their computers that were only a couple years old with SSDs. Completely different experience afterwards.

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Just one? (ok you got me beat on age) But don't get me wrong Apple makes great machines. I just wish they supported them a bit longer.

Use to use one for a Sonos node and home kit server, but Siri ticked me off. Been contemplating firing one up for NodeJS, maybe this summer. Anyone want a older used iMac I might be able to come of one lol

Unless your doing video rendering, gaming, or other high computation applications you don't need much over 2Ghz of processing power. Same goes for memory application specific requirement.

Data transfer rate = perceptional "speed"

Are you calling me OLD? :wink:

And no, I have many more of that vintage in the other room.. it's kind of a mistake that that one is still in this room. It's under a stack of iphone and iPad Mini (empty) boxes and has gone unnoticed til this morning when I started counting my Mac Mini's in this room. :slight_smile:

"I'll get it moved out this weekend, dear. :D"

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replacing HD with SSD is the single most significant performance iupgradething you can do.

Its also addictive all of my machines run on SSDs now

I agree. I have a 2009 that is still running. I only use it as a monitor for my NIght Owl Camera system when I am watching TV. It's stock and works OK for this.