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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone with an iMac (and not a notebook) comment on how Mavericks performs there?

I've got a 2008 iMac 2.8 dual-core that I thought was getting pretty long in the tooth, but I'm thinking it's just the 4GB ram that's holding it back now. I can't add any more RAM and Mountain Lion just draaaggggss on it.

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Actually, unofficially, the older iMacs support 6 GB (4+2) since the first aluminium iMac (mid 2007, I think)

I bought a 4 GB DDR2 DIMM for my Dad's mid 2007 iMac, installed it together with a 2 GB DIMM and it has been running non-stop for almost a year now, without any problems. DDR2 is now a bit expensive, due to being old, the 4 GB DIMM cost me around 50$ on eBay.

I've seen that unofficial fact but never heard from anyone that actually had it done. Thanks.

If I go to 10.9 I'll definitely up the RAM.

Mavericks adds ram compression. I don't know if it will turn out to be just a gimmick. I have been testing on a 2009 iMac with only 2GB ram w/ Intel SSD and it does just fine. Compressing 200-300MB when I check Activity Monitor.

I hadn't noticed the "compressed" field in Activity Monitor, thanks for pointing that out. On my 8 GB Mac running quite a few things (Eclipse, Xcode, tons of Safari tabs, all the "standard" built-in apps open), mine's showing "Compressed: 3.21 GB" right now.

On a mid-2010 iMac with 4GB I find it snappier than 10.8

Have you thought about adding an SSD?

I have, but on a 2008 it's a major surgery.

Consider adding a Firewire 800 SATA enclosure. Then you can externally add an SSD or an HD for increased throughput (e.g. put the root on the internal drive, your home on the external one; or using OS X logical partitioning to combine both drives into a single volume)

Dont bother with a top of the line SSD, since the FW 800 can be saturated by mid-range SSDs.

I have done it and it's not bad. Well worth the trouble and makes a 2008 feel like a new machine. There are detailed tutorials online with pics and everything you need.

Yeah I was on the fence about it but I might take the plunge soon. I've read the guides over and over and the only scary part to me is the LCD manipulation and coverglass removal.

do it! plus upgrade the ram and you will be happy for another 2-3 years with that machine!

I have replaced drives in these models a number of times. It is not that hard. You don't have to do a teardown or anything. You just have to remove the keyboard. There are just a lot of screws, and you have to be careful with the keyboard ribbon cable.

Make sure you are on at least 10.6.8, and don't forget to install Trim Enabler. (For 10.6.8 you need version 2.2).

http://www.groths.org/software/trimenabler/

We're talking about the iMac, not the notebooks. It's a little more intricate than the keyboard:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yQ3qzpzclhM/S8uSR76KeDI/AAAAAAAAAJ...

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