Hardware speedboosts
Discover ways to build up your Mac’s strength — starting with memory…
There are a number of things you can do to your Mac’s hardware to speed it up. We’ll cover the various storage options on the following pages, including swapping a mechanical hard drive for an SSD, or making a Fusion Drive. That leaves two main areas: memory and graphics. (Unless you own a Mac Pro, you won’t be able to upgrade the Intel processor.)
Adding more memory should boost your Mac’s performance across a whole range of apps, because it will have to resort to paging the contents of memory to disk less often. If your investigations with Activity Monitor regularly reveal a lot of red on the Memory Pressure chart, adding more memory will definitely help.
Whether you can upgrade your Mac’s memory depends on its type and how old it is. Owners of modern portable Macs are out of luck, as their memory is not upgradeable. Things are more nuanced with iMacs; Apple maintains a list of which models allow aftermarket memory upgrades at bit.ly/mfmemupg.
Basically, if you have a 21.5–inch iMac from late 2012 to 2019, you’ll need to ask an authorized service provider. Note that 2015 models are stuck with their original amount. Older 21.5–inch and all 27–inch iMacs can be upgraded by you.
Max out your mini The situation with the Mac mini is only a little less complex. Those made until 2012 are user–upgradeable. The 2014 mini’s memory is soldered in place, so isn’t upgradeable. 2018 models have removable modules, but upgrading is involved enough that you should seek expert help from an authorised service provider so that remaining warranty/AppleCare on your Mac is unaffected. Learn more at bit.ly/mfminmem.