2017 Imac?

[Guitarmas]

Hey everyone,

I just got a 2017 Imac.
This may sound strange...what is it good for?
It was donated where I volunteer. They don't refurbish Apple computers. So they asked me if I wanted it.

 

[Bigwaff]

This may sound strange...what is it good for?

If you can wipe the internal storage and reinstall Ventura macOS 13.6.x then it's good for any computing task you throw at it.

 

[Dana Beck]

What a gift! I also have a 2017, and it is the best machine I've ever owned. I attribute that to a reliable UPS and great Apple build. You can still easily add RAM to this model, and I rarely have to even restart it (after updates, etc.) Enjoy!

 

[coffeemilktea]

Well I wouldn't put the latest version of Xcode on it or install software that requires Apple Silicon, but it'll do pretty much anything else that you'd want a Mac to do.

All the major browsers still support Ventura, so at the very least you can install Chrome on it and use it as a pretty good Internet browsing machine.

 

[Fishrrman]

Take it home.

It probably has a fusion drive inside (or perhaps even just a platter-based hard drive).
The info you posted doesn't show that.

If it has an SSD inside (some do), you're all set -- just use it.

If no SSD, you can buy an external USB3.1 gen2 SSD (I like the Crucial x9).
Or, get an nvme "blade" SSD and a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure, and make it yourself.

Either will give you drive read speeds around 910MBps -- very respectable.

Use SuperDuper (free to download and use for this job) to "clone" the contents of the internal drive to the SSD.

After that, it should run quite well.

 

[Guitarmas]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

It has a 1TB Fusion drive installed.