So, I have a 2010 27" I bought for $1504.14 from the refurb store in late 2011. I specifically picked this one because it's the last one that came with DisplayPort input. I went ahead and got the $179.14 Applecare warranty too, since I tend to have a good experience with it. (they swapped the used MacBook Air I had bought from someone else, with a brand spanking new one just to fix a wifi problem I had - and on a different occasion they replaced a busted screen for free even though it was accidental damage - at that point, I was pretty much sold on buying the Applecare for it, which helped the resell value when I decided I needed something beefier than an MBA)
Some time last year, my cat knocked the iMac over from the top shelf of the desk to the kitchen floor. Gah. That was a stupid place to put it. It landed on the top left corner and busted that corner glass and bent the rear housing. Naturally, my Applecare wouldn't take care of that. I don't blame them, a 27" iMac is slightly more expensive than a MacBook Air. Luckily, it worked fine, so I kept using it. I even cranked it up to 32 gigs of memory when I found a pretty good deal on DDR3 for it. $153.98 to max out the RAM for good.
A month or two ago the hard drive stopped working. yeaaaah, I kinda figured that would eventually happen. I imagine because of the damage, of course can't be sure when the events are that far apart. Apple wanted to charge $603 to fix it back up to warrantable condition - including a $230 1 TB hard drive. I can understand charging for the housing and glass (I'm told it was actually a pretty good price for those parts), but $230 for a 1TB hard drive? Hell naw.
I said I could buy a 3 TB for half that price, and so I did (well, actually, $136.01 after taxes and shipping and whatnot). And while I was at it, I also picked up a 256 gig OCZ Vector for not much more than they were asking for a 1 TB hard drive - $258.62. Apple wouldn't install anything that wasn't their own parts, so I took it to an Apple-certified shop that would do it for me. I considered buying the parts and doing the install myself, but I'm not as full of piss and vinegar as I used to be, and I was concerned with affecting my warranty at that point. $735.29 for the housing, glass, parts needed to install the SSD, and labor. I bit the bullet and did it, just cause at this point I want the damn thing to work again so I can go back to coding and gaming (it's actually my PC monitor, thanks to DisplayPort input).
I suppose I may've been able to have Apple just replace the aluminum and glass, and then take the rest of it to the other shop to swap the bad hard drive for the SSD and 3 TB. But then I might've been charged just as much for the labor of them taking it completely apart to install the SSD bracket anyway. So I'm not too worried. Might be able to have them swap me a 1 TB hard drive under the Applecare warranty, now that it's outside of the computer. The price was worth the machine I got in return in any case.
I am happy to report that the thing is ****ing fast, feels like a new machine (it damn well better be for having paid as much as one -- $2,967.18 grand total). Luckily, I plan to have this for many more years so I will get every penny's worth out of it. (need a LifeProof case for my Mac, either that or get rid of the cat
)
SSD benchmarks in at 255 MB/s write, 270 read, which means it's probably pegging the SATA II bus. Apps load in a ...flash...(alright, that was bad)
Give me ideas on what to do with it now that I have it all fixed up and blazing fast and stuff. I'd like to dual boot or VM Lion or Mountain Lion along with Snow Leopard so that I can use the latest version of the SDK. (sadly, they broke the fantastic Spaces and Expose from Snow Leopard, but they won't release new versions of Xcode for anything lower than Lion)
Some time last year, my cat knocked the iMac over from the top shelf of the desk to the kitchen floor. Gah. That was a stupid place to put it. It landed on the top left corner and busted that corner glass and bent the rear housing. Naturally, my Applecare wouldn't take care of that. I don't blame them, a 27" iMac is slightly more expensive than a MacBook Air. Luckily, it worked fine, so I kept using it. I even cranked it up to 32 gigs of memory when I found a pretty good deal on DDR3 for it. $153.98 to max out the RAM for good.
A month or two ago the hard drive stopped working. yeaaaah, I kinda figured that would eventually happen. I imagine because of the damage, of course can't be sure when the events are that far apart. Apple wanted to charge $603 to fix it back up to warrantable condition - including a $230 1 TB hard drive. I can understand charging for the housing and glass (I'm told it was actually a pretty good price for those parts), but $230 for a 1TB hard drive? Hell naw.
I said I could buy a 3 TB for half that price, and so I did (well, actually, $136.01 after taxes and shipping and whatnot). And while I was at it, I also picked up a 256 gig OCZ Vector for not much more than they were asking for a 1 TB hard drive - $258.62. Apple wouldn't install anything that wasn't their own parts, so I took it to an Apple-certified shop that would do it for me. I considered buying the parts and doing the install myself, but I'm not as full of piss and vinegar as I used to be, and I was concerned with affecting my warranty at that point. $735.29 for the housing, glass, parts needed to install the SSD, and labor. I bit the bullet and did it, just cause at this point I want the damn thing to work again so I can go back to coding and gaming (it's actually my PC monitor, thanks to DisplayPort input).
I suppose I may've been able to have Apple just replace the aluminum and glass, and then take the rest of it to the other shop to swap the bad hard drive for the SSD and 3 TB. But then I might've been charged just as much for the labor of them taking it completely apart to install the SSD bracket anyway. So I'm not too worried. Might be able to have them swap me a 1 TB hard drive under the Applecare warranty, now that it's outside of the computer. The price was worth the machine I got in return in any case.
I am happy to report that the thing is ****ing fast, feels like a new machine (it damn well better be for having paid as much as one -- $2,967.18 grand total). Luckily, I plan to have this for many more years so I will get every penny's worth out of it. (need a LifeProof case for my Mac, either that or get rid of the cat
)SSD benchmarks in at 255 MB/s write, 270 read, which means it's probably pegging the SATA II bus. Apps load in a ...flash...(alright, that was bad)
Give me ideas on what to do with it now that I have it all fixed up and blazing fast and stuff. I'd like to dual boot or VM Lion or Mountain Lion along with Snow Leopard so that I can use the latest version of the SDK. (sadly, they broke the fantastic Spaces and Expose from Snow Leopard, but they won't release new versions of Xcode for anything lower than Lion)