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iMac AL 24" Hard Drive Swap - Pics/Procedure inside

ZKL said:
Tom,

Thank you for this amazing guide!

I'm going to take the plunge and upgrade my harddrive because I'm looking for performance gains.

Oh, I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on my situation and whether or not I'll get the performance gains I'm looking for.

Right now I'm running Adobe Bridge, the newest version, on my iMac with 4GB of ram. The cache for Bridge is stored on an external harddrive (Drobo using a FW800).

Now, the issue I've noticed is that when in Adobe Camera Raw, I adjust say the tint by pressing the up arrow key, it seems slow. IE. if I hit the up arrow key multiple times as fast I can the numbers aren't changing as quickly as I press.

Also, I would like it to render previews, thumbnails faster. Or when I use the slider to adjust the tint the changes aren't instantaneous


Would upgrading my internal harddrive and moving my cache to that drive yield me significant performance gains or are there other factors at play? Perhaps optimization of the software in the snow leopard operating system?


Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Well, this is not my guide, but the person who started the thread.
But my upgrade went well & everything is working perfectly and faster. As for your Bridge slugishness, I'm not qualified to say if it will help, but with a larger HD, no reason all your cache cant stay on your internal HD, so maybe it will run faster.
 
Howabout dual hard drives :D

24 inch iMac.
I put an SSD in the main drive bay, and a 2.5 inch drive in the optical bay...

imacdualdrive.jpeg
 
ZKL said:
Tom,

Thank you for this amazing guide!

I'm going to take the plunge and upgrade my harddrive because I'm looking for performance gains.

Oh, I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on my situation and whether or not I'll get the performance gains I'm looking for.

Right now I'm running Adobe Bridge, the newest version, on my iMac with 4GB of ram. The cache for Bridge is stored on an external harddrive (Drobo using a FW800).

Now, the issue I've noticed is that when in Adobe Camera Raw, I adjust say the tint by pressing the up arrow key, it seems slow. IE. if I hit the up arrow key multiple times as fast I can the numbers aren't changing as quickly as I press.

Also, I would like it to render previews, thumbnails faster. Or when I use the slider to adjust the tint the changes aren't instantaneous


Would upgrading my internal harddrive and moving my cache to that drive yield me significant performance gains or are there other factors at play? Perhaps optimization of the software in the snow leopard operating system?


Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

My pleasure, glad it's still of help to folks! On the performance side, if you are running the stock 320gb drive, pretty much any modern hard drive you install is going to be faster. Moving that cache to the internal drive should help as you'll be eliminating the bottleneck that the FW800 is giving you. FW800 is a fast interface, but still not quite as much bandwidth as sata. No guarantees, but my guess is that it would help. If you have the means to entertain going for an SSD internally, THAT will no doubt make a huge difference.

Hope that helps some... and best of luck with the upgrade!
 
OP, very good guide. With it and one of the videos on Youtube, I upgraded my iMac 9,1 internal 1TB Seagate to the Hitachi 2TB w 32MB cache. It is faster and now has all the room I could possibly need.

I was tempted to either swap the DVDRW for a slot load BDROM combo or a second hard drive but that looked like more work (perhaps later).

The hard disk swap was very easy since I did not disconnect the isight camera or the LCD power, just leaned the LCD against my big Samsung 24" monitor so it was just removing a bunch screws and two connectors. Once that black hold down plastic bar on one side of the drive is pried up the drive just comes out. No screws to remove from the drive until it's out and easily accessible.

If you take your time and keep track of what screws go where it goes very smoothly. Thanks for spending the time to document your project.

Cheers,
 
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I'll take the plunge next weekend when I replace both the original hard drive and the superdrive in my late 2007 (7,1) iMac. So far, I've assembled:
a 3.5" 120 GB OCZ SSD
a 2.5" 7200 RPM WD Caviar Black
some suction cups
a Torx tool kit from OWC
and a copy of Snow Leopard from the local Apple store.

The only thing missing is a drive caddy in which to place the Caviar Black and an external FW optical drive (both of which are in transit).

The SSD will take the place of the stock hard drive and hold the operating system and apps; the Caviar Black will be mounted in the optical bay and hold...everything else. I have a dual drive firewire enclosure that currently houses a Time Machine drive and a SuperDuper drive. Still trying to figure out the best way to transfer over all my data given that my new OS drive will be considerably smaller than my current OS drive.
 
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That's awesome, so glad people are still getting value out of this write up/how to. That will be a major boost in performance going with the ssd/hdd combo. My current 27" iMac is set up that way and it's awesome.... SSD for the OS/Apps and 1tb drive for data.

Best of luck and have fun!
 
Success! I did my hard drive(s) swap last night. I replaced the stock drive with a 3.5" OCZ 120GB SSD, and the optical drive with a 750GB Western Digital Scorpio Black. I purchased an OWC external FW CD-ROM drive to install Snow Leopard on the SSD ( I couldn't make a proper bootable USB stick no matter what I tried).

Choosing a 3.5" SSD made the installation a snap. It was a drop-in replacement. But if anyone should try this with the parts I listed in my previous post, please note that the drive caddy I bought only had one hole that would line up with the original CD-ROM bracket. But it *is* enough to keep the unit stable. I'm not worried about it at all.

I moved my home folder to the Caviar Black and transferred all my data from my SuperDuper backup. I had to reinstall apps to read the data because the computer booted to a dock full of question marks. I was wondering if transferring my old home folder from my backup would also put my apps back. No. It didn't. Some apps reinstalled with serial number in tact; others serials needed to be re-entered (LicenseKeeper was the first app I reinstalled).

All in all, it was pretty painless. My wife has noticed the speed increase. Apps open instantaneously. Everything runs faster. If it stays like this, I'll definitely get another 3-4 years out of this vintage 2007 machine. Now it's time to add a SSD to the Mac Pro.

Thanks for the guide, Tom. I did the transplant on a table set up near my Mac Pro so that I could keep a Safari window opened to your procedure. The only thing that threw me was that you said a T4 torx was needed. I ran around to a couple of stores trying to find one, but couldn't. In the end, I just forged ahead with the procedure. I never needed a T4. The T6 and (mostly) T8 got me through the whole thing.


James
 
That's awesome James, glad to hear the upgrade went well! It has been quite a while but I think the T4 might have been for the video cable to the Panel. I recently had to open up my son's 17" White C2D iMac to replace the HD and it had screws on the video connector.

That MP will be worlds easier to add an SSD to, but you'll get tons of benefit from it as well. Once you use a machine with SSD for OS/Apps, you really can't go back... thus why my 27" has an SSD in it!

Enjoy!
 
..... RE: taking out the glass is trivial...


is it easy to replace the glass?
how is it made attach (confine)?

i ask this, because i wish to clean the glass inside my iMac 24 inch.
there is become many dust between the glass after 3 year use.
my glass is real bad thirty.

or maybe did become so thirty because by cigarette smoke too?

so i want to be sure when i take the glass off, i can safely replace it
 
musc said:
..... RE: taking out the glass is trivial...


is it easy to replace the glass?
how is it made attach (confine)?

i ask this, because i wish to clean the glass inside my iMac 24 inch.
there is become many dust between the glass after 3 year use.
my glass is real bad thirty.

or maybe did become so thirty because by cigarette smoke too?

so i want to be sure when i take the glass off, i can safely replace it
Click to expand...

Removing the glass to clean it would be a simple task, just use the suction cups to pull the glass.
Your biggest challenge is going to be cleaning it and not having streaks or smudges. I would imagine if it has been in a smoking environment that the LCD itself will have a cigarette smoke film as well.

Best of luck!
 
Im sitting in front of my iMac reading everything google could provide me with about this whole "hdd-swaping-thing" for several hours by now....... :rolleyes:
(my eyes already start hurt really bad .. :( )

thats what i've figured out so far:
I can swap my iMac 24" C2D 2.4(EMC 2134) 's 1TB Hdd with
with this:
http://thurly.net/15zc
to this ssd:
http://thurly.net/15zb
(just to speed up my iMac again.. :p -had 4GB ram from day one :D )

However I was wondering if this 115GB SSD would be enough for my OSX.
(OSX itself ca.???GB / iTunes ca.10GB / iPhoto ca.15GB /mail/iCal etc. etc.)
I can't think of any "large files" on my hdd beside the full HD stuff.
(wich won't move along with my OSX to the SSD)
So I should be fine. Right?

Then I'd buy this:
http://thurly.net/15zd
connect it via FW 800 to my iMac
and put my iMac's 1TB Hdd in it...
-the sole purpose of my then external 1TB hdd would be storing full HD mkv files between 300MB and 35GB!
I'm not totally sure about this but from what i've read so far the FW 800 port should be able to handle the throughput needed.. AM I RIGHT?

Note: the reason to go for this "hdd-dock" rather than an "conventional hdd-enclosure" was that I really appreciate the ability to be able to "plug and play" between any 2.5/3.5 hdd/ssd and having so many ways to connect!

So it seems like that would be one great option.
BUT:
I would still prefer to have that 1TB INSIDE my iMac.
I learned that it might be possible to swap the iMac's superdrive with an hdd/ssd.
I also learned that a ssd wouldn't make much sense because my iMac (unlike the newer ones) uses this "P-ATA"-connection :confused: to connect to it's superdrive.
I wasn't able to figure out if it is possible to put some 2.5 hdd with this:
http://thurly.net/15zg
in my iMacs superdrive-slot
And if I'd need some kind of adapter for the hdd (p-ata -->s-ata) :confused:
Some said the "pata-bottleneck" should be ok because it isn't one for hdd's (but ssd's) correct?
So far all the 1TB/2.5" hdd's I've seen around the web are 5400rpm's.(right?)
Would those be fast enough to play my full HD stuff nicely?
Aren't there any 2.5"/1TB/7200rpm's yet??

I just found this: http://thurly.net/1626
Would it work with my iMac??? :confused::confused:

If all this really is possible I was wondering if I could put that superdrive in a sleek little enclosure with USB 2/3 or FW 400/800 (preferably FW! because I don't own any FW stuff yet..)
Just for software updates! I never bought a music cd or dvd in my whole life!
(used my superdrive like 3-4 times in the last 3,5 years...)



I really hope you guys are able to enlighten me! :eek:

Regards,
Marku5 :apple:
 
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Not to +1 an old thread, but just adding my thanks for the guide. Whole thing took less than an hour, most of the time was spent cleaning instead of installing.

Wife's 500GB Seagate started to go out and I replaced with a 1TB WD Caviar Black.

You will need Torx 8 and Torx 6 bits, and a tiny dab of superglue helps in order to reattach the HDD temp sensor and the padding.
 
Thanx to the max

Never having tried anything like this before, It was highly daunting. But your directions were superb, and my dead iMac is humming happily at 1TB! I wish I had known which torx to buy, and I still haven't gotten the camera hooked back up. But man, u saved me hundreds of $$$, one way or the other.

Thank you again - Tim
 
Awesome, so glad to hear that this thread continues to help users! Now go click some ads on Octomac.com! ;) j/k!

Glad the iMac is alive again, enjoy!
 
I swapped my stock 320gb hitachi harddrive today for a wd caviar black 1tb. I was a bit nervous when i removed the screen. The cable under the tape sat a bit tight, but after a bit 'force' it came loose :)

Is the tape on the 'screencable' only to put things to its place :confused: ?
 
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Does the Western Digital Black speed up your system? Did you consider SSD?
 
icemantx said:
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Does the Western Digital Black speed up your system? Did you consider SSD?
Click to expand...

Yes i did consider a SSD. But i didn't want to remove my superdrive. Maybe later. The WD Caviar Black did speed up my system. My stock hdd was slow as **** and it looked like it was dying. I will post a xbench score later today.
 
I did this with a 2008 iMac just a couple of weeks ago, using an SSD. It's awesome. XBench speeds attached.

Wrote a small post about some pitfalls and stuff, here on my blog.

Models of SSD and RAM linked from the post too.
 

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Thanks for the replies...

My decision lies around where is the most benefit (have an early 2009 2.93 GHz 24") - WD Black with a 2TB internal vs. OCZ Vertex 2 240GB drive. WD offers improved speed (to some degree) over my stock 1 TB drive and double the capacity. Is the difference in speed for the SSD really that noticible to the point that it makes the sacrifice in space worth it? Would I need a Firewire drive as opposed to my USB 2.0 External WD Elements 1.5 TB to offload my iTunes media and possibly iPhoto Library?

If I offload my libraries to an external USB 2.0 drive, my concern is that any perceived improvement in app loads would be watered down my access and write speed to the external drive.

Thoughts?
 
icemantx said:
My decision lies around where is the most benefit (have an early 2009 2.93 GHz 24") - WD Black with a 2TB internal vs. OCZ Vertex 2 240GB drive. WD offers improved speed (to some degree) over my stock 1 TB drive and double the capacity. Is the difference in speed for the SSD really that noticible to the point that it makes the sacrifice in space worth it? Would I need a Firewire drive as opposed to my USB 2.0 External WD Elements 1.5 TB to offload my iTunes media and possibly iPhoto Library?

If I offload my libraries to an external USB 2.0 drive, my concern is that any perceived improvement in app loads would be watered down my access and write speed to the external drive.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You can put a 2.5inch hdd in an PATA-optibay on the place of the superdrive. And put a small SSD for the OS/apps in the SATA port with an 2.5>3.5 bracket.
 
XBench benchmark

Old 320gb Hitachi stock drive
imac_old_hdd.png


New 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black
imac%20new.png


Not so fast as an SSD but it was definitely worth it. My iMac feels faster now. iPhoto is much smoother now with loading the thumbnails.
 
I think the speed difference is well worth the sacrafice of disk size - it totally transformed my machine (as you can see from my benchmark). I use a firewire 800 external HDD for storage and only software on the OCZ.
 
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Do you think running the apps and my 80gb iPhoto library off of a 240gb SSD would be better than running the library off of either my USB 2.0 drive or buying a new FireWire drive for all of my media? Do you see any issues with that?
 
Well, I have a library of photos too (around 100gb of Canon raws). I keep one copy of them on my machine because they are fairly important, and another copy on the firewire drive.

My setup works beautifully at the moment. Best money I've spent in ages.
 
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