IMac – How to improve old, slow iMac — new SSD? Or more RAM

imacmacosmemoryssdupgrade

I have an old iMac for the kids: iMac 8,1 Core2 Duo with 3GB (2+1) RAM that was recently upgraded it to Mavericks 10.9

enter image description here

It's running quite slow; free RAM is always pretty low. Apps run "OK" once open; it's mainly switching between apps, loading apps, and booting up which take forever.

My question is how can I know if installing a 120 GB SSD (lying around) likely give me significant performance boost or if instead I need to upgrade RAM (which will cost me)?

I replaced with SSD — seems faster — but follow up here: Best version of OSX for 2008 iMac?

Best Answer

According to your comment, it looks as if you could do better with more RAM. If it was just launching slowly, then I would say the SSD, but since its switching apps also, I think more RAM would be nice. Unless your iMac ran a lot better under Mountain Lion or below, I really wouldn't downgrade.

BTW: Don't disable the user accounts. Just log off when you are not using that user account.

Since you have a spare SSD, you could also just connect it externally using an inexpensive USB to SATA adapter and install new OS on it and run some A/B tests. You won't see the full speed of an internal placement - especially if you use USB 2.0, but it's often enough to know rule out RAM or OS as a cause of slowness.

Related Question