I have a 2007 iMac, maxed out on RAM, with the original Apple Hard drive. Given that most drives would've failed by now, I feel like I'm on borrowed time.
That being said, I'd like to extend the life of this machine as much as I can, however it's very slow and feels slower than when I got it.
I can think of a few options and I'm wondering, based on experience, how likely these are to make the machine faster and extend its life:
- wipe the internal drive, re-install - hope being more space and a fresh install makes things better
- get some suction cups and upgrade the drive - dicey, but cheap
- find someone (Apple?) to upgrade the drive - more expensive, or maybe not possible?
I would probably not get an SSD for options 2 and 3, as I'm still concerned about reliability, and the price/GB is just to high.
Also note that I have repaired permissions and repaired the disk several times.
So, will these make a noticeable difference, or is it just that it's been 4 years and the machine feels slow?