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Slow Startup - Mid 2011 iMac running version 10.13.6

I recently purchased a new MB Pro for my wife which works great!

The speed of the new machine is wonderful!

Unfortunately, it has made me notice just how slow my 2011 iMac is.

Once it's up and running, it works fine, no problems running applications.

It just seems to take a lot longer to start-up than it used too.

I have run disk first aid. No problems there.

Is there anything I can do to breathe some life into this?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 5, 2019 9:19 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 5, 2019 10:02 AM

What you are seeing is the difference between a SSD (your new MBP) and a traditional hard drive (iMac). What you can consider is changing the HD in the iMac to a SSD. Most independent Apple Authorized Service Providers will do this service for you. If you want to attempt it yourself you can too, however iMacs are very difficult to work on. If either you or an AASP do it, please only use an www.macsales.com kit. Why, they work and some other SSD manufacturerss have problems.


You can find these kits at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/imac-27-inch/2011


Good luck!

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 5, 2019 10:02 AM in response to corvairkid

What you are seeing is the difference between a SSD (your new MBP) and a traditional hard drive (iMac). What you can consider is changing the HD in the iMac to a SSD. Most independent Apple Authorized Service Providers will do this service for you. If you want to attempt it yourself you can too, however iMacs are very difficult to work on. If either you or an AASP do it, please only use an www.macsales.com kit. Why, they work and some other SSD manufacturerss have problems.


You can find these kits at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/imac-27-inch/2011


Good luck!

Jun 5, 2019 10:24 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thank you rkaufmann87.


The prices for the OWC kits seem quite reasonable. I know my limitations however, so if I were to do as you suggest I would definitely use an AASP to do the installation. Definitely something to consider.


As an afterthought I timed my iMac starting up.

It takes about 1 minute 45 seconds to startup. I don't know what's normal for this machine. It's so slow compared to the new one!

But, maybe that's not so bad?

Thanks again!



Jun 5, 2019 10:33 AM in response to corvairkid

Your welcome. One thing to remember on your 2011, is it is now considered vintage by Apple. It will not be long before Apple is not doing security updates on High Sierra and also the HD is pretty old which means it might fail. I'm not trying to scare you, what i'm trying to do is get you to consider that it may be time to start thinking of replacing it in the not too distant future. As it turns out, I am in the same boat, I have a 2011 (I updated to a SSD several years ago) but I'm thinking I will want a new Mac in 2020 sometime.


Anyhow, best of luck!

Slow Startup - Mid 2011 iMac running version 10.13.6

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