SHOW US YOUR IMACS (formerly iMacs should I bother?)

[The History Man]

one of these do it? Ordered. Will be here tomorrow.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Canvio ... drive&th=1

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

You need to be sure it's Mac OS compatible, although I'd use the iMac's Disk Utility to reformat it for Mac.

There are a few ways to back your iMac up – Time Machine is one of them but the option I used was to make a complete copy or clone of the iMac onto an external drive. You can use Disk Utility to create a 'disk image' or use apps like Carbon Copy Cloner. This means that absolutely everything is copied and the clone on the external is a fully bootable working startup disk. I've started up from my clone and immediately been able to work, surf the internet and access accounts with my same auto fill login details. I've even run the clone on my iMac at work. This is the beauty of a clone.

 

[The History Man]

Apparently all drives will work. They just have to be reformatted in OS X Disk Utility. Should be fine.

I'll have a play when it gets here. The fully bootable thing sounds preferable. Can you then transfer it back onto a cleaned out Mac?

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Jolly good. Needs to be reformatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a single GUID partition.

With the bootable clone, yes you can transfer it all back. You can also just transfer or copy back items selectively too.

There's a lot of 'how to' out there but I found much of it spins the process into a mystical and expensive dark art beyond the realms of the likes of us.

You've just successfully performed open brain surgery on your iMac so essentially, making a copy of your iMac's HD to an external HD will be a breeze (aside of the time it takes copying).

You can use Disk Utility to 'duplicate a disk' or use an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper (for a small fee...)

You can read up more on 'Migration' on Apple at: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204350

 

[The History Man]

all backed up with no place to go....

Not sure how much dodgy ram was affecting it prior to total collapse but seems so much smoother and faster now.

Been looking at used SSDs on fleabay.

 

[ajm]

Been looking at used SSDs on fleabay.

I wouldn't. These things have a finite lifespan in terms of the total number of writes they carry out - nothing to worry about for most uses if you buy one new and factory fresh (they generally outlast a horrible old fashioned hard drive several times over in practice) but I would never risk a second hand one.

Another thing against second hand SSDs is that capacity and performance have both steadily improved over the last few years and newer models can be massively quicker than older ones.

They are relatively expensive for the amount of storage you get but I'm certain you wouldn't regret buying a decent one if the capacity was enough for you (and you can always use external storage for files you don't absolutely need access to all the time.)

In summary - no point in bothering with the uncertainty, particularly given how horrible a job it is to replace them in most iMacs!

 

[uno-speedo]

Re:

My setup at work. The LG screen is very good.

 

[The History Man]

Do you work in a Bond villain’s secret lair?

Thanks for the advice. Will just keep this one backed up regularly then.

 

[Silvergoat]

Re:

Invest in a brand new factory fresh SSD. Never buy used drives.

 

[Bumeaung50]

Re: Re:

That's great news – you've scored yourself a good Mac! I'm pretty confident that you won't look back to the HP.

At work, I have one of those cheapo slim LG external CD drives (about £25) plugged into my 2015 iMac. It works fine and very reliably – so you'll be ok burning CDs.

I have a turntable USB connected to my iMac at home. I installed Audacity http://www.audacityteam.org/download/mac/ as the intermediary ripping software. You can edit/mix and save into many formats including MP4s for then importing into iTunes. I also have Wire Tap Studio which I use to record music off Youtube and import into iTunes – have found all sorts of rare and obscure gems going back into the 60's. I use all three apps together to record/mix/edit and create set lists. Got about a month's worth of music on iTunes.

I downloaded audacity on my computer, but audacity guides for editing didn't work on my computer. I didn't fix it by my own. What would I do to make it well?