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2019 iMac external SSD upgrade

T

thatdarnfish

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 23, 2004
128
0
New York
Hi,

Looking for some recommendations for an external boot ssd (2tb) for my slowing 2019 27” iMac. I’m hoping that it will breathe some new life into this machine that seems to be aging rather quickly. Thanks for your help!
 
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Search the posts. Tons of threads, hundreds of posts with recommendations
 
HDFan said:
Search the posts. Tons of threads, hundreds of posts with recommendations
Click to expand...
Thanks, but most posts and threads about this are some 2-3 years old. I was really looking for a recommendation amongst the most current HD’s available.
 
 
So, if anyone else could please list one or two models that they would recommend, I would be grateful. Thank you.
 
Samsung t7 "Shield".

This is a USB3.1 gen2 drive that will give you read speeds around 850-900MBps.

Plug it into a USBc port (DO NOT plug into a USB3 "a" port, it will still work, but at half-speed).

You didn't tell us which version of the OS you're using.

Use disk utility to erase the drive to:
- High Sierra and earlier --- Mac OS extended, journaling enabled GUID partition format
- Mojave and later --- APFS, GUID partition format.

Then...
The easiest way to "get your stuff moved over" would be to download SuperDuper from here:

Then use it to clone the contents of your internal drive to the SSD.

Then, go to the startup disk preference pane and set the SSD to be the new boot drive.

SuperDuper is FREE to use for this job.
It's also very intuitive to use.

Good luck.
 
Thank you for this. Is it worth paying more for a Thunderbolt drive since it will be a boot drive, or is this not really necessary?

Fishrrman said:
This is a USB3.1 gen2 drive that will give you read speeds around 850-900MBps.

Plug it into a USBc port (DO NOT plug into a USB3 "a" port, it will still work, but at half-speed).

You didn't tell us which version of the OS you're using.

Use disk utility to erase the drive to:
- High Sierra and earlier --- Mac OS extended, journaling enabled GUID partition format
- Mojave and later --- APFS, GUID partition format.

Then...
The easiest way to "get your stuff moved over" would be to download SuperDuper from here:

Then use it to clone the contents of your internal drive to the SSD.

Then, go to the startup disk preference pane and set the SSD to be the new boot drive.

SuperDuper is FREE to use for this job.
It's also very intuitive to use.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
 
"Is it worth paying more for a Thunderbolt drive since it will be a boot drive"

NO...!
(have I made myself clear?)
 
I am using a Thunderbolt 3 OWC Envoy Express (external enclosure) using a 1Tb Samsung 970 EVO + NVME for storage. R/W speeds are excellent: 1356mb/s Write, 1530 mb/s Read. This is connected to my 2020 27" iMac as the boot drive. Very pleased with this setup and blows the doors off anything USB3. Cost for the Enclosure: $79, Cost for the drive: $79.
 
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