Use an external SSD to make an old Mac feel new (without cracking it open)<article>
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My mid-2011 Mac mini had slowed down. Way down. Starting with Mavericks, the mini would eventually bog down after a number of days between restarts, and require a force restart or manual one.</p><p>
It took several minutes to power up and start loading apps, and then around 20 minutes, if not longer, to be fully responsive—this despite 16GB of RAM. My late-2011 MacBook Air, with just 4GB, restarts and is available within a couple minutes. What gives?</p><p>
I had to figure it out, because I increasingly found myself wasting time and waiting.</p><h2>No pressure, honestly</h2>
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You’d think someone writing
the Mac 911 column would have plenty of ideas, and yes, I did. Restarting would often free up 20 to 40GB of disk space on the mini’s internal 500GB hard drive. (See
this Mac 911 column for more about caches.) But the Mac wasn’t any faster after a restart than before.</p><p class="jumpTag"><a href="/article/2907125/use-an-external-ssd-to-make-an-old-mac-feel-new-without-cracking-it-open.html#jump">To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here[/url]</p></section></article>
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Use an external SSD to make an old Mac feel new (without cracking it open)
