Should I take the hard drive out of my 2008 Intel 24" iMac

I have a 24" 2008 iMac with a 500Gig harddrive running the latest OS and it is really running slow (pinwheeling etc.) I've maxed out the RAM and I'm not sure if I can get it to run any better.  I've cleaned up the drive using repair disk permssions etc.    I am considering taking out the drive and putting this in an inclosure to take data off of it and replacing the drive and doing a clean install to sell it.  I'd then try to connect the drive to my Airport and use my MBP as my primary computer.  Anythoughts or suggestions on how I can go about doing this?  Are there easier or better options?
Thanks.

That's far too many apps running simultaneously with only 4 GBs of RAM.
Intel version of OS X, especially, OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion are serious computer resource hogs.
OS X, by itself, can use between and up to  2-4 GBs of RAM to run smoothly, quickly and efficiently.
Tthis doesn't leave a lot of extra RAM and in your situation NO extra RAM for running additonal applications.
It's apparent you need more RAM.
Your model iMac can take 6 GBs of RAM.
You can substitute one 2 GB RAM module with a 4 GB RAM module for a total of 6 GBs of RAM.
You still need to cut back on how many apps you run simultaneously, but you'll have more leeway with the extra 2 GBs of RAM installed.
Correct and reliable Mac RAM can be purchased from online Mac RAM sources Crucial memory or OWC (macsales.com).
Here's a link to OWC's 4 GB RAM module for your model iMac.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/6400DDR2S4GB/
Good Luck!

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