Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Improvements on 2011 iMac Core i5 to i7 + SSD?

D

dannieboiz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 22, 2013
19
4
My 27" IMac have the original 1Tb drive and a Core i5 I've upgraded the 8Gb to 16Gb of Ram. I do some Sketchup 3D graphics, Photos and once in a blue moon would play around with Video editing and garage band. Overall I'm very happy with the IMac I don't use it enough to justify buying a brand new one. For the past few months, I've been doing a lot of photos and 3d designs and there's definitely a lag especially when I have multiple windows open.

I see that they have dual HDD kits available. I don't know if there are enough SATA ports on the board to support both the super drive and 2 HDD. Does anyone know?

I also have a Core i7 2600 CPU that I'm not using for anything. Thinking if I open it up and swap the processor, might as well drop in a 128Gb SSD just for OS and keeping the 1Tb for data. I store everything on my NAS anyways so the 1Tb is just so I can keep my files on there while working and moving it to the NAS once done.

Not sure if all the work is worth the improvements.
 
M

macuser453787

macrumors 6502a
May 19, 2012
578
151
Galatians 3:13-14
dannieboiz said:
My 27" IMac have the original 1Tb drive and a Core i5 I've upgraded the 8Gb to 16Gb of Ram. I do some Sketchup 3D graphics, Photos and once in a blue moon would play around with Video editing and garage band. Overall I'm very happy with the IMac I don't use it enough to justify buying a brand new one. For the past few months, I've been doing a lot of photos and 3d designs and there's definitely a lag especially when I have multiple windows open.

I see that they have dual HDD kits available. I don't know if there are enough SATA ports on the board to support both the super drive and 2 HDD. Does anyone know?

I also have a Core i7 2600 CPU that I'm not using for anything. Thinking if I open it up and swap the processor, might as well drop in a 128Gb SSD just for OS and keeping the 1Tb for data. I store everything on my NAS anyways so the 1Tb is just so I can keep my files on there while working and moving it to the NAS once done.

Not sure if all the work is worth the improvements.
Click to expand...

Having just done SSD installs in a couple of 2011 27" iMacs, I can tell you it's worth doing, but it is very detail-oriented. I did it with OWC's do-it-yourself SSD install kit and with and their very handy installation video, I added a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro behind the optical drive in both machines.

Yes, there is another SATA connector in there for a second hard drive.

As for swapping out the processor, I don't know what's involved with that so I can't answer that one for you. :)
 
D

dannieboiz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 22, 2013
19
4
I read that the CPU upgrade is possible. The socket is a standard LGA 1155 so I can't imagine that it's anything too crazy.

As far as the OWC kit goes, I'm looking at the picture and it looks like it has a couple suction cups, some screw drivers and a SATA cable. I watch a youtube video of a similar install and it looks like they use a double sided 3m tape to secure the drive. If that's the case then the term "Kits" is very deceiving. I was assuming a special caddie of some sort to actually mount the drive. If that's the case, i can even get started tonight. LOL

Sounds like a CPU and an SSD replacement is on order. :D
 
S

steve-w55

macrumors newbie
May 6, 2011
14
0
I initially went down the route of adding a 128G SSD and setting it up as a fusion drive which worked well.
However with 960GB SSD prices falling I decided to to replace the HDD as well and switch off the fusion drive.
The main benefit of replacing the HDD is that the machine is much quieter. There's also no need to disturb the mother board unless upgrading the CPU.
 
D

dannieboiz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 22, 2013
19
4
I have absolutely no noise issue on y IMac. I don't plan on using fusion. I need them to be treated as completely separate partitions. I'm only keeping the original 1Tb there just to be there. I may go with the 256Gb Route and that's probably all I think they're worth. When you're talking $400 up for 1Tb of space, I think it's a waste of money for a user like me. I rather spend that kind of money expanding my NAS. 1Tb of data on something with no redundancy is a lot of things to lose.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom