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2019 iMac 27 Extra SSD after upgrade - enclosure

Imac Sam

Imac Sam

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 9, 2011
383
58
Harrisonburg, Virginia
So I just updated my 2019 iMac 27” with a new SSD from OWC. So since I have the old 512gb SSD laying around. Can anyone recommend a cheap thunderbolt 3 bus powered enclosure I can put it in?

I am still confused with some of the terminology with the type of blade drives. So I want to get the correct one for it.
 
As I'm sure you already know, the Apple blade SSD uses a proprietary connection design.

BUT... try and find a 3rd-party enclosure that FITS this design.

I believe that OWC may offer one. But's it's on the pricey side (probably around $75 or more). Whether you wish to spend that much is up to you...
 
Imac Sam said:
So I just updated my 2019 iMac 27” with a new SSD from OWC. So since I have the old 512gb SSD laying around. Can anyone recommend a cheap thunderbolt 3 bus powered enclosure I can put it in?

I am still confused with some of the terminology with the type of blade drives. So I want to get the correct one for it.
Click to expand...

You can sell that 512GB blade of Apple proprietary nVME. There are many people will be happy with 512GB of Apple nVME (especially who owns the 32GB+1TB Fusion Drive). Shipping is easy for that piece, too.
 
OP:

Before you sell, something you should be aware of...

Some users have reported problems (usually with firmware upgrading) after replacing factory-installed Apple SSDs with 3rd-party drives.

The 3rd party drives work (for regular booting/running), but may cause OS upgrades to fail -- again, because a firmware upgrade (or some other process in the upgrade) "looks for" the factory SSD and then can't find it.

I'm not saying this problem will affect you (with your specific drive).
But it has affected others (usually with MacBooks, not sure if the iMacs can experience the same problems).

Again, something to be aware of BEFORE you sell off that old OEM drive...
 
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Imac Sam said:
So I just updated my 2019 iMac 27” with a new SSD from OWC. So since I have the old 512gb SSD laying around. Can anyone recommend a cheap thunderbolt 3 bus powered enclosure I can put it in?

I am still confused with some of the terminology with the type of blade drives. So I want to get the correct one for it.
Click to expand...
I'd like to know which OWC SSD did you use? Is that the Aura Pro X2?
 
Imac Sam said:
Yes it was. It's been working like a charm for the last 2 weeks. Faster than the OEM SSD too.
Click to expand...
You sure about that? I mean did you run any benchmarks to verify it is faster? In my testing I found that while the OWC SSDs were pretty fast for read they were anemic at write.
 
Hi, I'm about to upgrade my iMac 2019 21.5" with a 1TB OWC Aura Pro X2 and I'm looking for an external enclosure for the original SSD.
Anyone found any apart from the MacFixit one? It's too expensive here in Australia (just over $200 with postage) and not worth it for the measly 28GB I'm taking out. It would be useful for formatting the new SSD before I start but that's too much $$ for something I'm unlikely to ever use again.
 
DavoDavo said:
Hi, I'm about to upgrade my iMac 2019 21.5" with a 1TB OWC Aura Pro X2 and I'm looking for an external enclosure for the original SSD.
Anyone found any apart from the MacFixit one? It's too expensive here in Australia (just over $200 with postage) and not worth it for the measly 28GB I'm taking out. It would be useful for formatting the new SSD before I start but that's too much $$ for something I'm unlikely to ever use again.
Click to expand...

The original SSD won't occupied too much of your space.

And a 32GB USB flash drive is about 3~4$, isn't it?
 
Hi Sam,

I also upgraded my iMac 2 weeks ago. It's a 2019 model, 27”, i5 3 GHz, Radeon Pro 570X 4 GB, 64 GB RAM, 1TB fusion drive.

I removed the fusion drive and installed an OWC Aura Pro X2 Gen4 2 TB SSD and a Crucial MX500 2 TB instead. The new SSDs are not in a fusion drive group.

The boot volume is the Aura Pro. After the upgrade, I made a complete new macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 installation.

The Black Magic Speedtest delivers solid results.

- Blade SSD approx. 2700 MB/s write/read speed
- SATA SSD approx. 500 MB/s write/read speed

Everything would be fine if the Mac didn't start up so incredibly slowly. It takes 55 seconds before I see the login screen.

I have already performed a PRAM reset. No improvement.

What are your startup times? Have you installed macOS Sequoia as well?
 
The OWC was already preset. However, I marked it again and clicked on Restart. This did not shorten the start time.
 
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