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| Bluest Member Since: 23 Apr 2016 Location: Lancashire Posts: 4209   
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Thanks for all the ideas, been doing a bit of reading up. All my important stuff is on an external HDD already (photos, Documents etc). I don’t have any special apps or programmes I need to keep as I only surf the ‘net and have been using Google Docs for word processing etc. Therefore, I think I can just erase the HDD and do a clean install using Apple’s macOS Recovery process here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204904
After that, just reconnect my external drive and I should have a fresh machine. Any flaws in that plan? If it makes an improvement, great. If not I can look at other things like an SSD upgrade after that. 2007 110 TDCi Station Wagon XS |
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29th Sep 2019 9:20pm |
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| AMBxx Member Since: 24 Jul 2016 Location: York Posts: 1032 
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If you're going to all the trouble of reinstalling the OS then buy yourself and SSD drive at the same time. Spinning HDDs don't last forever, so you might as well bite the bullet now.
I replace all non-SSD drives after 5 years. Storage isn't expensive any more. When it breaks, it's always when it's least convenient. |
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30th Sep 2019 6:46am |
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| Balvaig Member Since: 19 Feb 2016 Location: Fife Posts: 730  
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Your plan of action is the best, given the way you use your mini. It should boot up in seconds and launch apps quickly too. However the critical issue will Likely be how current your software is and the age of the mini.
Really nothing to lose in trying, given that you have everything backed up. If there is no improvement Apple have a hardware test hidden away in the OS software. |
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30th Sep 2019 8:26pm |
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| Bluest Member Since: 23 Apr 2016 Location: Lancashire Posts: 4209
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I would consider an SSD upgrade but think I’ll try a clean install first, don’t want to waste my money if there are other problems. OS is fairly current, I think this model was only declared obsolete quite recently. 2007 110 TDCi Station Wagon XS
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30th Sep 2019 8:30pm |
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| moleac Member Since: 04 Sep 2019 Location: West Sussex Posts: 6  
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I had the exact same problem on my 2012 iMac. Slow to start, slow to recover from sleep, 20 seconds+ to load MS Word etc. I bought a 500gb external Samsung SSD for £80 from Argos. Reinstalled the OS and configure to boot from the new SSD and it's like a new machine again. Office apps now load in approx 4 seconds and recovery from sleep is almost instant.
I did try a complete fresh reinstall on the original 5200k internal drive and whilst there was a small improvement, it was the move to SSD that made the biggest difference. |
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30th Sep 2019 11:15pm |
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| Bluest Member Since: 23 Apr 2016 Location: Lancashire Posts: 4209
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My Mac Mini is like new again! I did a clean install of the OS to start with, and that made a huge improvement, much snappier than before all around but still a bit lazy, especially launching apps and booting up. It also freed up an unbelievable amount of storage (50%+!), so god knows what was filling up the HDD. So, that made me think about a cheap SSD so I bought a budget 240GB one from Crucial and fitted it tonight. Now it really is like new, if not faster, and I'm running the very latest OSX Catalina on a year old machine.
There were a couple of hiccups. First up the latest version of OSX has some weird dual partition thing and a lot of the HDD cloning tools can't handle it yet. I found on called Carbon Copy Cloner which did the job though. The there was fitting the HDD. On this model of Mac Mini you have dismantle hapf the machine to swap the drive including mucking about unscrewing various things from the logic board which I hate going near. Anyway, all good in the end. Thanks to all the posters that suggesated this would sort it out. I was skeptical, but you were right  2007 110 TDCi Station Wagon XS |
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27th Dec 2019 7:50pm |
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