Apple Restricts Hard Drive Replacements on New iMacs

[brent0saurus]

Image

You've got to be kidding me.

No, seriously, this is a joke or a misstatement, right? Apple makes dick moves every now and then, but this can't be for real. If so, well, looks like I'm never buying an iMac again (at least until this crap stops). Because **** all if I'm ever going to pay the Apple tax on crap like HDDs and RAM.

It is indeed true. I work at an Apple certified repair center and can verify this. This is actually relatively old news. The mid-2010 iMacs have the same issue. Total BS.

 

[BobMcBob]

Vote: Negative

I vote negative.

Sad I can't vote on the new site.

 

[bushido]

apple is like china sometimes with there "we do it all for u" actually we do it for the MONEY excuses

i want the EU to step in or sth ^^

 

[jp102235]

easy now folks,
I am sure the engineers who decided on this felt it was needed for quality control / temperature stability. It cost them money to do it (and pissed off MR forum folks too). I can't imagine someone adding to the cost of the machine to prevent user service-ability alone. Either way: if you want a computer you can easily work on -> step on over to the mac pro.

I suspect this new drive connector stuff will be available through 3rd party anyway.

Everything is amazing and nobody's happy.

 

[roland.g]

All-in-one people. I guess people are missing that point.

 

[ed724]

That's not the point. The only reason to do this is because of pure greed. They want to stop users upgrading the hard drives themselves and charge a small fortune to perform a very simple upgrade.

Question is though, if you get a boot hardware failure, will the machine still externally boot ????

 

[Twylo]

Not cool

I'm not real pleased with this.

On one hand, realistically even before I knew this, I never planned on changing the hard drive myself anyway. The process on the last generation was terrible enough as it was. So I got myself a 2TB model and figured I'd just be happy with that until I needed external storage, and if the drive broke I'd be happy to pay someone else to do the work.

But on the other hand, dammit, I wanted the *option* to do it myself.

I know 98% of iMac users will never, ever think about replacing a hard drive themselves. And I guess I know that this is one of the compromises I was willing to make when buying an iMac. But I still don't like it.

I don't regret buying my 2011 iMac. It's a great system and it's replacing a 2006 MacBook Pro that I'd been using permanently docked on my desk, so it was a totally worthwhile upgrade. But I'm less likely to buy anything other than a laptop for my next mac. It's strange to me that it's easier to replace the drive on a MacBook Pro than it is on a desktop system, now.

 

[Ralion]

That's not the point. The only reason to do this is because of pure greed. They want to stop users upgrading the hard drives themselves and charge a small fortune to perform a very simple upgrade.

Not to split hairs.. but I would hardly call upgrading the HD in an iMac (since the G5s got iSight) "very simple". Replacing the HD in a MacBook or Macbook Pro is simple.

 

[OWC Nick]

Glad to see our ire is matched by the community and that by being first to break this story, we continue to be a source of products, service, and information...even if it is dissapointing.

On that last part....stay tuned (showing my age there lol) to the OWC blog (blog.macsales.com) to learn if any future developments occur.

OWC Grant

 

[roland.g]

I'm (was) hard core Apple, but after reading this, I gotta say, "Hacintosh". Sorry Apple, but you're beginning to really suc. In fact, I'm not sure I'm going to like the iOS'shness of Tiger either. This is a sad day for Apple fans.

Umm. Lion.

 

[ed724]

I suspect this new drive connector stuff will be available through 3rd party anyway.

I highly doubt that, and even so would only raise the cost of the replacement due to licensing fees.

 

[fixmymac]

Utter nonsense, this is going to affect a TINY minority of users who just happen to complain loudly. Let's be honest for a minute, you're buying an all in one machine with the components (memory excluded) behind a screen and clearly designed to not be user replaceable. If you want to get a machine to fiddle with and upgrade, this ain't it. Yes, it sucks for power users but let's keep a sense of perspective here.

Besides which, and please tell me if thus won't work, why not just get a Thunderbolt drive when they come on the Market? Shouldn't be much, if any, performance difference and theresno risk of breaking something or voiding the warranty.

Yes, let's maintain some perspective here.

I have owned and operated a Mac repair business for 6 years. The vast majority of customers are not 'power users'. They are average Joe's. They come with out-of-warranty products and receive a level of service that is unmatched, a turnaround time that suits them and at a price that beats every one of the AASP's.

Behaviour like this, if proven true, and there is already evidence to the contrary over at XLR8, will badly impact on the 'tiny minority' (which is actually the majority) that you refer to.

Let's look at a simple example.

Customer brings in a 2007 MacBook needing a new LCD panel.

Price for official Apple part = £157.20
Price from Fix My Mac = £90

Another...

Customer enquires about a brand new top-end 27" iMac with 16GB RAM.

Price for iMac from Apple = £2129
Price from Fix My Mac = £1649 (+ 16GB Crucial RAM £140) = £1789

Lastly, customer brings in iMac 24" and would like a 2TB hard drive installed.

Price from Fix My Mac = £170 (£100+£70)
Price from Apple = Apple don't sell 'approved' upgrades

It is laughable that Apple insist that an AASP carries out any work. I have seen the aftermath of their quality of work. I will happily state that my quality of work far exceeds the two AASP's local to me.


It is almost acceptable for a manufacturer to insist that you have any work done by an approved provider while covered by warranty. It is entirely unacceptable for a manufacturer to prevent you from continuing to maintain that product by not making the required parts available.

A very similar situation happened in the UK recently. Car manufacturers insisted that servicing was done by them in order to maintain warranty. Sadly, for them, the legal system here disagreed.

Replacing hard drives is, by far, the most common job i do. I carried out 3 replacements today. As many people have already stated, it is not 'if' a drive fails, it is more a case of 'when'.

I will be looking forward to reading the service manual for these new iMacs, as soon as it is available.

 

[roadbloc]

This is pathetic Apple. Truly pathetic.

 

[asdf542]

Didn't it void your warranty anyway if you replaced it yourself? Apple never listed the HDD as being user upgradable/replaceable in the iMacs.

Still a bummer though.

 

[Tyler.Schmaltz]

95% of iMac buyers never would consider swapping the HD themselves.
4% might try it if it is simple but now won't consider it
.5% would do it but will still buy an iMac and bitch about it
.5% will choose not to buy an iMac now

(Edit - These numbers are pure speculation by me and may be completely inaccurate...)

Apple has never worried about angering the individual who likes modifying the hardware themselves. Apple likes a closed system that requires Apple to be the one stop shop for everything and this change is further proof of that. Every change similar to this that Apple has done over the past 3-5 years has started with a thunderous cry of BS but has amounted to little or no lost profits.

I imagine this will be the same.

Totally agree with your numbers. 95% of iMac owners/user will not care or be capable of swapping the hard drive in there iMacs. Does this just affect the stock HD? How about the extra sata3 for a ssd? As i for one bought the i7 iMac and want to keep the Stock 1TB HD but add a cheaper OWC ssd? Will that be possible or is this special cable and firmware required on the ssd drive too?

 

[ed724]

Umm. Lion.

Thanks for the catch.

 

[AAPLaday]

All-in-one people. I guess people are missing that point.

A laptop is sort of an all in one too. If it happened to the MBPs people would go crazy! Its bad enough not being able to upgrade the Airs ram. Not everyone who uses an Apple machine needs treating with kid gloves.

 

[markcres]

Apple = greedy bastards !

 

[mayhone1]

I was going to buy a new iMac this week, guess thats not happening. the only thing I understand this type of thing on is the air, but the iMac is a desktop... What happened to apple?

 

[Nanker/Phelge]

I've seen some rationale behind some of their other douchey moves...but this make no sense whatsoever.

 

[scottlinux]

Hm 7-pin sata seems standard. What's going on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Edit: Oh the power cable is the different one?

 

[goosnarrggh]

Can someone please clarify:
The report says that replacing the hard drive will make the fans spin at full speed, and it will make the Apple Hardware Test suite fail.

Then it goes on to say that replacing the hard drive turns the Mac into a paperweight. That implies that the Mac is rendered completely unusable -- that it cannot even boot.

Note that for retail copies of OS X, the AHT utilities are located on a separate disc, and they are not installed by default. So AHT does not customarily run during power-up, in order to impose a restriction on booting.

So, is there some other side-effect, implied but not actually stated in this article, which actually does have the effect of preventing the Mac from being able to boot up after the hard drive is replaced?

If so, then come out and say it. If not, then what we're really dealing with here is an inconvenience foir sure -- ridiculously loud fans and false negative results in AHT -- but not a paperweight.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I only ever buy Hitachi in 3.5" for all my mac's and external HD's I've had ever since WD bought Seagate (shortly after a new Seagate failed after a month they acquired it).

I thought they tried to buy Seagate but then bought Hitachi instead.

 

[peterski]

I just upgraded a 21.5" iMac with a 1.5TB HDD

I don't know if this applies to the release prior to the ones with Thunderbolt ports... just bought the iMac 21.5 in mid March and replaced the stock 500GB HDD with a 1.5TB HDD from Seagate.

The only thing that was not compatible was the temperature sensor cable (apple plug is 8 prongs, where the HDDs socket is 4) so I left it unplugged, which kicked the HDD fans to 6000+ RPM, a little help from HDDFanControl and it's all back to normal. You can find that little app at http hddfancontrol dot com ... now with iStatPro I cruse at 1000 +/- HDD RMP and it is software sensing heat, so if anything goes hot it kicks up the fans (verified)

I also ordered the old school stick on temperature sensor from welovemacs and that will go in there as soon as it arrives, just in case, and because I don't like random cables hanging in the iMacs case.

1.5TB HDD $49.99 (some special at a local electronic shop).
Swapping hard drives took around 15-20 minutes.
TM restore took about 2 hours.

 

[Malcolm.]

But it seems now, that when that happens to the main drive on your iMac, you're left with two options - buy a new drive from Apple and have them install it via one of their Authorized Service Centers, or enjoy the rather large Apple logoed paperweight on your desk. Want a 3.5" drive larger than 2TB? Too bad - Apple doesn't offer them.

But I can think of quite a few other companies who do.

The iMac has always been a PITFA to upgrade anything beyond RAM, so this doesn't surprise me at all.

Although, I don't understand why, if you're worried about upgrades, that you would buy an iMac to begin with. A refurb Mac Pro or *gasp* a custom built PC would be far more suitable, methinks.