SSD drive in 24' imac alu?

[kucyk]

Hi all

In the near future I would like to buy SSD drive for iMac 24” but I'd like to make sure that this drive will be compatible with this model of Mac before I place an order. It will be 2,5". I'm just wondering if 2,5" SATA connectors are the same as in 3,5" SATA drives?

Is there anyone who has SSD already installed in iMac?

[colonels1020]

you know you'd be sacrificing like a 250-500GB hard drive for like a 32-64GB SSD, right? You'd lose more disk space than you'd gain. In this case, moving to an SSD would be a disadvantage imho.

[kucyk]

I know, I've got 1TB storage connected to FW so that's not big problem.
I need this drive only for operating system. So I'm waiting for some tests of new SSD drives from OCZ V2 and confirmation that I will be able to fit this drive.
Otherwise I will buy VelociRaptor ;)

[Schtumple]

I really wouldn't suggest this mod, seems like it's more hassle than its worth, by a long shot... Stick it out with your hard drive, once SSD's get really cheap, then go for it, or once your warranty expires.

[phoobo]

.... which is that you have a big honking 3.5" drive spinning about 15" from your face. . The sound level is OK if you live in a city and work in the day, but in a quiet environment at night it's fairly irritating - and that's just the noise level - vibration is just one more thing. Oh', and the extra heat generation. I like to warm my hands over the imac on cool days, but that's not really what it should be good for.

The SSD is the answer. (I know you were asking for details - but just wanted to support your quest.) You could also swap the drive out for a slow RPM drive, but why not go whole hog.

[Fonzijr1964]

Why?

[PaulexPC]

I am considering exactly the same thing. I have an old iMac G4. It's old and slow, but since I just use it for web browsing it's really fast enough. my only complaint is the 3.5" hard drive is too noisy. It's an ancient 40GB.

Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.

I am not an uber techie, I'd just like it to be quieter and even slightly fast would be cool too.

OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive
Core series SSD drives deliver incredible 120-143 MB/s 80-93 MB/s read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, making the Core series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis and up to 40% faster on a R/W basis that the best performing 2.5" HDDs on the market, all while consuming 50% less power.

[zedsdead]

I would love if future iMac's offered an SSD. The programs would load amazingly fast. Apple could also offer a media drive (500gig, 750gig, 1tb) as a second one in place of the optical slot (and people could simply add on the Macbook Air superdrive if so desired).

With this push to HD now, the media takes up so much space that a media drive is necessary, albeit it internal or external. The Drobo (http://www.drobo.com) is really amazing and will my next one personally.

[Mike in Kansas]

.... which is that you have a big honking 3.5" drive spinning about 15" from your face. . The sound level is OK if you live in a city and work in the day, but in a quiet environment at night it's fairly irritating - and that's just the noise level - vibration is just one more thing..

Is your drive going bad? I am on my iMac at night when my house is EXTREMELY quiet, and I can't say that I have EVER heard the hard drive. It's so quiet compared to my old Dell PC's....

[Thrash911]

Why?
Because he's a nerd, of course! :) So am I.. I love such little risky projects. Could be interresting to try it. But I agree with most of you, it's probably not worth it. At least wait until the capacity is bigger, and the price is lower. And of course, it might not be 100% compatible..

[Fonzijr1964]

Because he's a nerd, of course! :) So am I.. I love such little risky projects. Could be interresting to try it. But I agree with most of you, it's probably not worth it. At least wait until the capacity is bigger, and the price is lower. And of course, it might not be 100% compatible..

but u gain nothing

[thomanjones]

but u gain nothing

Yes, he gains the geek-cred of having an iMac with a SSD Drive. Or, he can post it on Ebay as a custom iMac (maybe even throwing in a BluRay Optical Drive - only another 1k).

[Thrash911]

but u gain nothing
As things are now, you gain nothing. Except the experience itself.

In the future, when the SSD drives get bigger and cheaper, it's another story. If the original drive is dying, and the SSD drives are cheaper, it's an obvious choice! If you don't decide to get a whole new Mac instead.. ;)

[phoobo]

I am on my iMac at night when my house is EXTREMELY quiet, and I can't say that I have EVER heard the hard drive. It's so quiet compared to my old Dell PC's....


Can't you tell the difference when you turn off the machine? *That's* practically what an SSD machine would sound like - most of the vibration is coming from the HDD.

The silent computing movement might not have come to Apple yet, but it will, and then people will wonder why they put up with the noise and vibration when trying to think.

Put those spinning parts in the basement! Remnants of the industrial age. They have no business in a computer. Remote storage makes more sense anyway, particularly if you have more than one machine. Or more than one room.

[Mike in Kansas]

Can't you tell the difference when you turn off the machine?

No, I can't. And with the quiet fans in the iMac (except when it's been doing a lot of video work) I can't hear them either. There is no way for me to even know it's on, except the display being on! No sound, no vibration.

[NintendoFan]

but u gain nothing

That is quite silly. He will gain speed and reliability. He says he is waiting awhile so chances are by the time he is ready to buy, both of Intel's MLC and SLC drives will be out. I really don't think he gains nothing: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403

[Mark-Mac-Attack]

No, I can't. And with the quiet fans in the iMac (except when it's been doing a lot of video work) I can't hear them either. There is no way for me to even know it's on, except the display being on! No sound, no vibration.

Then it seems like someone has listened to some music too loud for too long at some point in their lives :confused:

It is audible, not loud, but it'd be great if it were practically silent.

[Berlepsch]

kucyk,

It would be nice to see how big the performance gain for a SSD is compared to a HD, especially with the latest generation of solid state disks. Maybw you could run some benchmarks, like XBench (http://www.xbench.com/) before and after the swap? I am especially interested in "real world" comparisons, like boot time, video recoding or compile time for a larger project.

[OllyW]

I am considering exactly the same thing. I have an old iMac G4. It's old and slow, but since I just use it for web browsing it's really fast enough. my only complaint is the 3.5" hard drive is too noisy. It's an ancient 40GB.

Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.

I am not an uber techie, I'd just like it to be quieter and even slightly fast would be cool too.

OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive
Core series SSD drives deliver incredible 120-143 MB/s 80-93 MB/s read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, making the Core series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis and up to 40% faster on a R/W basis that the best performing 2.5" HDDs on the market, all while consuming 50% less power.

Sorry, your iMac can't use SATA drives.

[PaulexPC]

Thank you for the advice.

[chrono1081]

Have you guys even ever used SSDs? Not worth it at all in my opinion. There are several people where I work who ran out and bought em and really there is not a huge performance gain like everyone thinks. Not one person I work with thought it was worth it after buying and installing it (this is out of 7 people), and from what I used of them I dont think its worth the price either.

Make sure if you get one its from a place you can return it just incase its not everything you thought it would be.

[4JNA]

I'm just wondering if 2,5" SATA connectors are the same as in 3,5" SATA drives?

yes, the connectors are the same. you will need a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket adapter to physically mount the drive in the same location. or, just buy the 3.5" version to start with!

Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.

as already noted, you need the IDE version. tiger has a couple of transcend drives listed with the IDE interface, but they (tiger) are always high on price.

It would be nice to see how big the performance gain for a SSD is compared to a standard HD, especially with the latest generation of solid state disks.

benchmark HERE (http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ_Core_Series_SSD_Vs_VelociRaptor_Sneak_Peek/) that has the SSD compared to a velociraptor, and leading on most of the tests. for a seat of the pants benchmark, everything feels about twice as fast for everyday use. and the silence is amazing, even to an older guy who listened to way to much loud music!

edit: knew i had seen a better comparison, at the same site no less... HERE (http://hothardware.com/Articles/FourWay%2DSSD%2DRoundUp%2DOCZ%2DSuper%2DTalent%2DMtron/) and compares 4 of the current SSD to a velociraptor. good read for catching up on SSD tech.

[Berlepsch]

benchmark HERE (http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ_Core_Series_SSD_Vs_VelociRaptor_Sneak_Peek/) that has the SSD compared to a velociraptor, and leading on most of the tests. for a seat of the pants benchmark, everything feels about twice as fast for everyday use. and the silence is amazing, even to an older guy who listened to way to much loud music!

edit: knew i had seen a better comparison, at the same site no less... HERE (http://hothardware.com/Articles/FourWay%2DSSD%2DRoundUp%2DOCZ%2DSuper%2DTalent%2DMtron/) and compares 4 of the current SSD to a velociraptor. good read for catching up on SSD tech.

That looks promising. Still, would be nice to see the effect in an iMac under MacOS.

[Fonzijr1964]

U guys know that OS X.5 does not run SSD Drives as efficiently as it should. That will be a SL fix for sure

[hempcamp]

When my 1 year is up on the warranty (Jan 09), I plan to put an SSD into my iMac.

1) It will be geeky.
2) Intel's 3.5" SSD should be down in price a little by then.
3) I'm migrating all my media to external drives anyway.

If you're not squeamish, you're willing to take a bit of risk, and you're good with lots of parts, it could totally be worth it. The anandtech review is exciting.

As it is, the 320GB drive in my iMac is too small to hold all my media anyway, so rather than have it sit in there only to boot and hold my applications, it makes perfect sense to try out the SSD internally and keep all my media on easily-growable external drives.

--Chris

[phoobo]

as already noted, you need the IDE version. tiger has a couple of transcend drives listed with the IDE interface, but they (tiger) are always high on price.



Excellent post. I'm a big fan of SSD's and have owned 3 of them (used in notebooks). Just a word of advice: I would *avoid* Transcend drives, as I have had problems with the only 2 I used. Have a Samsung that is perfect. Would try them, or maybe some other reputable brand.

You won't want to have HDD's any more in any computer that's so close to you (too loud, too hot) after you try these out.

[jessica.]

Why would anyone put an SSD drive in a desktop machine? I get that there is the "geek factor" there, but why? Eventually common sense should prevail over any opportunity to just be a true geek and say "oh I have an SSD drive in my desktop machine." :rolleyes:

[phoobo]

Why would anyone put an SSD drive in a desktop machine? I get that there is the "geek factor" there, but why? Eventually common sense should prevail over any opportunity to just be a true geek and say "oh I have an SSD drive in my desktop machine." :rolleyes:

Just put em side by side, you'll pick the SSD every time. No vibration, no hum, no extra heat (all imperfections of the present iMac). Your other components will also last longer as a result. Only a matter of time before HDD's are just used for storage, then ultimately scrapped.

[davis.graphics]

You guys are missing the point of the SSD. It's not just a geek thing.

Let me list the benefits:

1. Crazy fast boot time
2. Fast loading of applications (perfect for Adobe's creative suite and 3D programs)
3. Stability, will pay for itself.
4. Awesome Disk performance, fast defrag times and disk verification

Cons:
1. Price
2. Difficult putting it in your imac

You would basically put all your applications and system settings on your SSD and the rest on an external for media and stuff

Just my two cents...

[DAMAC3]

You guys are missing the point of the SSD. It's not just a geek thing.

Let me list the benefits:

1. Crazy fast boot time
2. Fast loading of applications (perfect for Adobe's creative suite and 3D programs)
3. Stability, will pay for itself.
4. Awesome Disk performance, fast defrag times and disk verification

Cons:
1. Price
2. Difficult putting it in your imac

You would basically put all your applications and system settings on your SSD and the rest on an external for media and stuff

Just my two cents...

The posts in this thread and almost 7 months old. A LOT have happened with SSD since then. I have used the Macbook Air revB with both the regular HDD and the SSD. There is a very noticeable difference in boot times and basic applications (like you said). I have been very impressed with the SSD performance.

As someone who just purchased an iMac, I would consider the 256GB SSD drives when they come down in price. The HDD is the weakest link at this point in the computer. With the faster processors, bus speeds, and RAM, the 7200RPM (and especially 5400) drives are just not able to keep up.

[NATO]

Agreed. I am *this* close to buying a 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD to put in my iMac, and offload my videos/music onto a large external FW800 Drive. That way OS X and applications and my files will benefit from the SSD, and I can still access music, video etc via the external.

I think I've been spoilt by the 64GB Samsung SSD I put in my MacBook Pro. The iMac seems really slow at startup and loading apps in comparison, I'd really like to get that performance in my iMac.

[Beanlok]

If you bought a Prius would you constantly drive it at 5 mph so as to not hear a little noise?

[CarlsonCustoms]

If anyone is worried about the skill required to put a hd in an imac its not bad at all.. sure its not as easy as a tower system but I put a 1tb drive in mine awhile back and it was easy.

[darrellishere]

I put a £178 Corsier 128gb SSD into my mac mini 2009.

Definitely speeded up the whole system. Webpages notably snappier.
Opening apps its most noticeable. Start ups are the same though. Slowish ssd.

If your going to load an ssd into the imac, my advice would be to partion the ssd before you install osx. As boot camp wouldn't partition my ssd.


Don't underestimate the limitations of 128gb ssd.

[NATO]

I've just finished reassembling my 24" iMac after swapping out the 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD for a 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD drive.

My initial observations are that the system is eerily quiet and the speed is outrageous! Boot time is a fraction of what it was, login is instant and application startups are instantaneous. It really feels like a whole new machine! I would recommend it to anyone who's not afraid to take their iMac apart.

For those who are worried about the lack of space, my recommendation is to have OS X + Applications + most of your user data on the SSD, and have an external FW800 HDD for the big stuff such as movies/downloads/iTunes music (if you have a huge library). It works for me, and you get the best of both worlds (Speed where you need it, capacity where speed isn't as important).

[barjohn]

I installed a 500 GB SSD in my iMac 24 (current model 1 month old). Boot up is actually slower up to the log in page. It appears to me to be hunting for the boot drive. I say this because I have the former 640 GB hard drive with the same image I copied to the SSD connected as an external USB hard drive and if I don't do an option boot and select the SSD it will boot from the external USB HD. Once I enter my username and password and hit enter it is almost instantaneous to bring the system up. Applications like Word, Excel, Parallels, etc. launch very fast. It was darn expensive for the SSD but installing it was not hard (I didn't even have to remove the LCD panel). It sure is quiet. If anyone knows if I need to make a change to the EFI or something else to make it instantly recognize the SSD as the boot drive I would appreciate the help.

[superatombomb]

I installed a 500 GB SSD in my iMac 24 (current model 1 month old). Boot up is actually slower up to the log in page. It appears to me to be hunting for the boot drive. I say this because I have the former 640 GB hard drive with the same image I copied to the SSD connected as an external USB hard drive and if I don't do an option boot and select the SSD it will boot from the external USB HD. Once I enter my username and password and hit enter it is almost instantaneous to bring the system up. Applications like Word, Excel, Parallels, etc. launch very fast. It was darn expensive for the SSD but installing it was not hard (I didn't even have to remove the LCD panel). It sure is quiet. If anyone knows if I need to make a change to the EFI or something else to make it instantly recognize the SSD as the boot drive I would appreciate the help.

how could you change the hard drive and not remove the lcd when the hard drive bay is directly underneath? Also, how did you get it to fit? did you use a 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive adapter. This would be an interesting upgrade to document and post online btw.

[gianly1985]

Remember just one thing: there are very good SSDs, good SSDs and bad SSDs.

If you want to put an SSD in your iMac, my advice is the Intel x25-m.

As for me, I don't want to dismantle my late 2006 iMac 17" at the moment, so I'm going to try how the Intel SSD behaves as an external firewire400 boot disk. I already got the enclosure (2.5", fw400&fw800), I'll let you know when my ssd arrives.

I know, fw400 is a "bag of hurt" if compared to SATA, but since the most important boost of SSDs is in seek time and random write of small files, i think it will perform better than any HDD on SATA. Here's some figures:

Western Digital Velociraptor speed in "Random Write 4k" test ---> 1.5MB/s
Intel x25-m speed in "Random Write 4k" test ---> 40MB/s (yes....more than 30x the speed of the Velociraptor) (you find the chart here (http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/new-4kb-write-mbs.png))

SATA300 max bandwidth ---> 375MB/s
Firewire800 max bandwidth ---> 100MB/s
Firewire400 max bandwidth ---> 50MB/s

As you can see, I won't be "firewire limited" in the most important performance parameter.

I will be somehow limited in random read (60MB/s) and sequential write (80MB/s)

I will be very limited in sequential read, that at the moment is probably even SATA-limited. (see here (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=21))

[barjohn]

I am sorry that I didn't take any pictures; however, there are pretty good pictures on how to this if you do a google search. A few notes of explanation. Removing the glass and the bezel is pretty straight forward. All in all it is really a pretty easy project if you take your time and don't rush things. There are a total of 4 cables that connect to the LCD. I only disconnected 3. The first two are coming from the bottom edge (bottom is edge toward base of unit) one on each side. The left one is power and has a clip type connector to the mother board. The second is a slip down connector that is held down with two screws that must be removed. Once those two cables are disconnected you can tilt up the screen from the bottom. There are tabs protruding from the bottom to grip. You can then tilt it up far enough to see a twisted pair of wired going to a small slip in connector. You pull on the connector away from the bottom and once unplugged you can tile the screen up further until you reach the ned of play for the last cable. There is tape over the connector on the LCD side. I did not bother disconnecting this cable because there was enough room while holding it tilted up to lift the latch bar on the HD, tilt up the HD far enough so that I could disconnect the SATA connectors from the HD and remove the heat sensor from the HD (It is held on with an adhesive and I gently pried it lose after lifting off the foam protective piece covering it..

I had a 3.5" adapter try for the 2.5" Super Talent 500GB SSD. I installed it so that it would be sitting in the try the facing the way that the HD had been set up and installed the 4 pegs that were used to mount the HD into the 3.5" tray. I then discovered the first and only challenge. The HD SATA cables would not reach the connectors on the SSD. This is because the connectors on the HD are toward the bottom edge of the HD, not the center. However, when you install the SSD in the 3.5" tray the connectors are moved toward the center as the drive is centered in the space. I found I had to flip the drive over which placed its connectors closer to the bottom edge (bottom always refers to the bottom or base of the unit) and then I had to swap and reverse the two connectors but they then just made it and with a little effort I was able to get everything connected and put the unit back together. I did this without any help so I just used my forearms as the place to rest the LCD while working in the cavity like a surgeon. If I had help with another pair of hands to hold the LCD tilted up it would have been easier. I did use a small cardboard box to help hold the LCD at one point. I also put the heat sensor back on the SSD. So far it is working great.

I found the boot issue I was having was fixable in System Preferences Start Up Disk. I had the old disk selected as the start drive. It now selects the right drive to boot up. I can't say I see much of an improvement getting to the log in but that may be because I have a fire wire 800 and a USB drive attached to the unit and it seems to do stuff with those drives during the boot up. Once I am at the log on it is instantaneous.

Below you can see the results of Xbench performance test. The first is on the 650 GB Western Digital HD and the second is on the SuperTalent SSD.

[egendomligt]

Hi,

I swapped the drive in my iMac to an Intel 160Gb. The disassembly and reassembly was kind of straight forward with the help of all the guides out there. I did run in to a couple of problems though:

The 2.5" -> 3-5" spacers I bought (just two metal spacers) effectively put the drive connectors about an inch to the side compared to a real 3.5" SATA drive. The SATA cable had some (very little) slack further along its path, so I solved this by pulling the SATA cable really hard which gave me that extra length.

The spacers I bought also had different threads than a hard drive for some reason (CDROM-type threads), and the manufacturer seemed to think I should use the screws they sent along with them. This was of course a problem, but I raided my home for screws and finally found a couple that worked in place of the original ones.

So. Buy good spacers for this mod, heh.

Also, my iMac now boots (from the press of the button to logged in with everything loaded) in 24 seconds. Nice :)

[mrsir2009]

I know this is a stupid question, but what is a SSD drive?

[nullx86]

IDK why you want to do it, but it is possible. If your going SSD, you need a 2.5 to 3.5 Adapter, because of the HDD locking mechanism in the iMac. Also, 2.5 Sata connectors are exactly the same as 3.5 Sata connectors.

[barjohn]

IDK why you want to do it, but it is possible. If your going SSD, you need a 2.5 to 3.5 Adapter, because of the HDD locking mechanism in the iMac. Also, 2.5 Sata connectors are exactly the same as 3.5 Sata connectors.

You misunderstood what he was saying. Yes the connectors are the same but on a 3.5" drive they are closer to one side of the drive than the other. When you install the 2.5" SSD drive in a 3.5" adapter it places the drive in the center thus moving the connectors further away from the edge. Then the cable with the connectors doesn't quite reach the connector location on the drive.

[Heilage]

Have you guys even ever used SSDs? Not worth it at all in my opinion. There are several people where I work who ran out and bought em and really there is not a huge performance gain like everyone thinks. Not one person I work with thought it was worth it after buying and installing it (this is out of 7 people), and from what I used of them I dont think its worth the price either.

Make sure if you get one its from a place you can return it just incase its not everything you thought it would be.

I completely agree. I put an SSD in mine, and besides all applications booting up in about a second (Photoshop takes two seconds), everything being very smooth and fast, the write speeds five times those of a 5,4k RPM disk, the silence, the lack of heat coming from it and the fact it has no movable parts, there is no advantage what so ever.

[fhall1]

I know this is a stupid question, but what is a SSD drive?

...and you're a macrumors regular??? Solid State Disk......google it