Squeezing some extra life out of mid-2010 27" iMac (upgrades)

LushMojo · Dec 13, 2012

So I ended up getting the Samsun 840 and will be installing this weekend. Quick question - when I remove the 1 TB HDD I may try to use it with my Airport basestation as a backup drive. Can I just leave OSX on it and everything in place and then plug it in via USB enclosure? In other words, does the drive itself need to have OSX on it? I've never setup a remote backup hard drive like this.

toddzrx · Dec 13, 2012

As long as you are using an AirPort base station, it should be plug and play. Once you have the SSD set up and running in your iMac, you should be able to plop the HD in the enclosure, erase it, then plug it into the AirPort and you're off to the races.

By the way, I did the exact same upgrades to a mid-2010 21.5" iMac: 120GB SSD and 4 more GB of RAM for a total of 8.

The SSD of course is great: for example, iTunes is open in one bounce of the Dock icon. What was surprising was that the increase in RAM, which I did about a week after the SSD, was fairly noticeable too, which surprised me.

Very satisfied with my iMac: planning to get at least three more years out of it.

Oh, and concerning TRIM support, I downloaded this free install:

http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/21037-trim_support_enabler

jsolares · Dec 13, 2012

LushMojo said:
I don't have the i7. I have the 2.8Ghz i5. Is it as finicky regarding memory?

I'll look into the OWC memory. I've used them in the past for macbook memory.

----------

Thanks. I'm really looking forward to the upgrade. Love the iMac; it just needs a little new life breathed into it.

I wouldn't think it's picky i have 4 patriot modules which is perhaps one of the cheapest brand names out there.

You can actually put 2 SSDs instead of one drive in it, so you could use two 128 or two 64 and have them in raid0 to achieve even better speed, i put two 256GB in

couldn't be happier, i think i'm set until broadwell

LushMojo · Dec 15, 2012

toddzrx said:
As long as you are using an AirPort base station, it should be plug and play. Once you have the SSD set up and running in your iMac, you should be able to plop the HD in the enclosure, erase it, then plug it into the AirPort and you're off to the races.

By the way, I did the exact same upgrades to a mid-2010 21.5" iMac: 120GB SSD and 4 more GB of RAM for a total of 8.

The SSD of course is great: for example, iTunes is open in one bounce of the Dock icon. What was surprising was that the increase in RAM, which I did about a week after the SSD, was fairly noticeable too, which surprised me.

Very satisfied with my iMac: planning to get at least three more years out of it.

Oh, and concerning TRIM support, I downloaded this free install:

http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/21037-trim_support_enabler

Thanks. I'm still curious about whether I should leave OSX on the HDD when I put it in the enclosure. Can I just keep it as is or do I have to wipe it clean? In other words, does it have to have an OS on it at all?

Anyone know?

toddzrx · Dec 15, 2012

LushMojo said:
Thanks. I'm still curious about whether I should leave OSX on the HDD when I put it in the enclosure. Can I just keep it as is or do I have to wipe it clean? In other words, does it have to have an OS on it at all?

Anyone know?

At least according to the AirPort page on Apple's website http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/features/harddrivesharing.html you just need to plug in any HD or SSD, and it will automatically show up on any computer (Mac or Windows) as AirPort Disk. So I would erase all the data on it. Leaving the OS on there is just taking up extra space.

After pulling the 1TB HD out of my iMac, I put it in an enclosure and now use it exclusively for Time Machine backups; it's currently connected over USB to the iMac. At some point I would like to upgrade to an AirPort router to do the same thing you are doing with a second external HD (it's actually a 256GB HD that I was using for backups before I bought the iMac). In my case, I'm looking to put all of my wife's and my music on one hard drive that can then be accessed by the iMac, any iDevice, or streamed to our (dedicated) sound system or Apple TV.

LushMojo · Dec 20, 2012

Finished the upgrade. Holy god this thing is FAST. Highly recommended if anyone has been sitting the fence about doing this.

Gelite55 · Dec 20, 2012

Buy a new 2012 21.5" iMac. Don't dump money in it!

LushMojo · Jan 9, 2013

After living with the upgrade for a few weeks I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I've always been one to upgrade fairly often to a new computer/phone/ipad/etc, but this simple upgrade to this aging iMac has made it feel literally like a new computer. It's super fast, responsive and completely quiet. The 27" screen is still super bright and crisp.

I took the existing 1 TB HDD and put it in an external USB enclosure and then connected it to my Airport Extreme. I've got backups running with TimeMachine now and it works flawlessly.

I do have one small issue with trying to figure out how to rename the HDD in the USB enclosure now though. Documented here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16632542#post16632542

Anyone know how to remedy that?

Shivetya · Jan 9, 2013

for those who did the OWC upgrade to SSD just a few questions...

1) How do you get the SSD loaded with the contents of the old drive? Or do you have to install from scratch? (can you do time machine restore)

2) Anyone with a bootcamp install?

LushMojo · Jan 10, 2013

Shivetya said:
for those who did the OWC upgrade to SSD just a few questions...

1) How do you get the SSD loaded with the contents of the old drive? Or do you have to install from scratch? (can you do time machine restore)

2) Anyone with a bootcamp install?

I didn't bother with going with OWC, but to get everything moved over to the new SSD I made an OSX boot image with this:

http://liondiskmaker.com

Then once I had OSX installed I just moved all my docs over via AirDrop. Reinstalled the few apps I needed and the installation was complete.

russelljsmith · Mar 26, 2014

Shopping list?

Hi @LushMojo

I was wondering if you had a complete list of everything you bought for your upgrade. I read you bought the Samsung drive but I wasn't sure if you had to by an adaptor to get the drive to fit into your chassis or any additional cables?

Many thanks / Russ

Search

Search

Squeezing some extra life out of mid-2010 27" iMac (upgrades)

LushMojo

macrumors regular

toddzrx

macrumors 6502a

jsolares

macrumors 6502a

LushMojo

macrumors regular

toddzrx

macrumors 6502a

LushMojo

macrumors regular

Gelite55

macrumors regular

LushMojo

macrumors regular

Shivetya

macrumors 68000

LushMojo

macrumors regular

russelljsmith

macrumors newbie

Our Staff