iMac's and after market SSD's

cheef

cheef

cheef

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Joined
18 Aug 2009
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195
Hello,

I have a late 2009 iMac of the 27" variety. It was the first 27" model, 2.66 i5 and still performing admirably.

However, after using an SSD in both my Mac mini and MacBook Air's clearly loading apps doesn't feel as good as it could, so I wish to use an SSD to boot the OS and store apps.

Now, I don't want to open the unit up and perform upgrades like you'll see over YouTube and iFixIt, I want a quick and easy method and I'm leaning towards buying the SSD and a firewire 800 enclosure and using that as the boot device, leaving the internal 1TB disk as main storage.

Does anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions, maybe real life experiences of your own upgrade of this nature you can share?


Thanks.
 
That's another question for the thread as I'm not overly sure on the throughput comparisons of other methods.

Firewire 800 is pretty quick (it's not eSata, but still) and should be perfectly fine for running the OS... unless someone can tell me otherwise?
 
A lot of people use Velcro and stick the drive in place. Most SSDs come with a 3.5->2.5 adapter (I have an adapter from my Vertex 3 if you want it).

I work in the glass industry so I have access to suction cups, but anything with a cup on would work. I actually used a child's toy to remove the screen of my wife's iPhone haha
 
If it's that simple then I'll give it a shot. I'm not worried of doing it, was just more of a "can't be arsed" factor.

I don't suppose you can recommend a particular set of suction cups to buy for this type of job, or are they all pretty much the same?
 
Same. There are sets on eBay, but to be honest anything with a bit of suck will do the trick.
 
They will indeed. No TB slot on the 2009 model though.

It's a good thing the TB drives are out. New model iMacs have HDD sensors in them now meaning they HAVE to have Apple branded hard drives installed meaning paying through the nose for an already expensive, albeit worthwhile purchase.

I imagine you will be able to get around it somehow, but means ASPs won't be able to fit any 3rd party drives for you to keep the warranty in tact =[
 
Just to close this off, I performed the upgrade last night by taking the glass off and panel out as suggested by EVH.

Pretty painless. Hardest part is shifting dust from the glass and also the panel before putting it back together.
 
dav3evans said:
They will indeed. No TB slot on the 2009 model though.

It's a good thing the TB drives are out. New model iMacs have HDD sensors in them now meaning they HAVE to have Apple branded hard drives installed meaning paying through the nose for an already expensive, albeit worthwhile purchase.

I imagine you will be able to get around it somehow, but means ASPs won't be able to fit any 3rd party drives for you to keep the warranty in tact =[
Click to expand...


There are ways to stick an SSD in and get around this issue. In my case it means losing my DVD Drive however - not that I ever use it.
 
Interesting. I knew that you couldn't do it, though wasn't sure exactly what the additional connections did. I wonder if, because its a fan issue...you could install SMC fan control and override the fan controls.. It would have course mean that you'd need to keep an eye on things all the time, but it means you keep the optical drive if you want it. left inside the Mac.
 
You can short the sensor out too, but then you may have problems in Windows..

A whole thread about it on macrumors, but it's been a while since I read it.
 
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