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Just added an esata to my 2010 27" iMac i5

E

Ethernaught

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 11, 2011
14
0
Been a fan of this site your a couple of years and finally became a member.

Bought my iMac back in August and have been wishing since that it had an esata or USB 3.0 port. Lately I have been researching the different options I had for esata and it seemed natural to use the 3rd sata port that is on the 2010 iMac logic board, which would be used for an installed SSD. Spent less than $6.00 for a sata to esata "adapter" on eBay and 2 hours later I have a working esata port. Now I just need to find some benchmarking software to test the speed.

Had some reservations about doing this at first because it is not like popping open the case on a pc, but all went well.
 

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That is mighty hot!
Good job, I just bought an external HDD and then swore out loud when i realized there was no eSata
 
iMikeT said:
Very nice and good job.

I hate to say it but, there went your warranty. :p
Click to expand...

I'd say you're probably right but not 100% sure. Either way, nice clean work. I wonder if they'd even notice if they weren't near that area of the machine.
 
How much dismantling of the iMac did you have to do to install this? How did you get in? Took the glass off and went in that way?
 
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Glass off, LCD off, logic board screws loosened since ports on the otherside.

Ironically OWC has a video to show how hard this upgrade is and it actually made my decision to do it. There are other videos online showing iMacs being upgraded with SSDs which uses the same sata port.
 
Ethernaught said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Glass off, LCD off, logic board screws loosened since ports on the otherside.

Ironically OWC has a video to show how hard this upgrade is and it actually made my decision to do it. There are other videos online showing iMacs being upgraded with SSDs which uses the same sata port.
Click to expand...

What did you use to take the glass off? I it was a suction cup type tool what did you use exactly? I've seen videos where they used something made for the shower wall as an extra handle.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I had a heavy duty shower handle with suction cups. Was cut into two so one can be on each corner. Probably was overkill, I was amazed how easy the glass came off.
 
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Only special tool was torx bits for screwdriver.
 
Hi there, I'm new in this forum. Hope I could help someday.
I've read this post, and I have a doubt.
I'm going to add a SSD disc, as is shown in this nice guide. I've ordered every needed part, and I'm going to do this big upgrade.
The question is: Is there any other free SATA left?
It would be nice to get an eSATA connector, but I'm not sure there's another SATA connector free...
 
Ethernaught said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Glass off, LCD off, logic board screws loosened since ports on the otherside.

Ironically OWC has a video to show how hard this upgrade is and it actually made my decision to do it. There are other videos online showing iMacs being upgraded with SSDs which uses the same sata port.
Click to expand...

Do you have the link to that video? I can't find it. The only video I found is a basic overview of the upgrades they can do but they don't actually show anything at all in it about the actual upgrade process.
 
I have the same question as someone else just asked... if one puts an SSD drive in the 2010 iMac, are there any sata ports left?

The fact that OWC can do it makes me think yes, but combing the internet I'm finding you have to rob from something else to get one.
 
I felt accomplished when I took apart my mac mini (damn clips all along the side) and was ablet og et it back together, but this is a project I would not undertake as I do not want an 1800 dollar paper weight.
 
gopherhockey said:
I have the same question as someone else just asked... if one puts an SSD drive in the 2010 iMac, are there any sata ports left?

The fact that OWC can do it makes me think yes, but combing the internet I'm finding you have to rob from something else to get one.
Click to expand...
If there's anybody else interested, the short answer is NO.
There are only 3 SATA ports, and when you add an SSD all of them are busy.
 
If you have basic soldering skills you can, instead of cutting plastic in your iMac, cut the cable, feed it through the memory area and then carefully solder it back together again. 100% reversible if you also buy a replacement memory slot grill/plate. I noticed in pictures that the cable rests against one of the memory chips which, thermally, is not ideal. Perhaps best to upgrade to 12GB rather than 16GB.
 
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