Hey man, so your saying that only regular hdd users and not ssd users Will get this error? Hope your right. I just placed an order on 29k DKK at apple for the new imac 2011 fully upgraded along with an ipad2
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Apple Restricts Hard Drive Replacements on New iMacs
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Hey man, so your saying that only regular hdd users and not ssd users Will get this error? Hope your right. I just placed an order on 29k DKK at apple for the new imac 2011 fully upgraded along with an ipad2
I think that my 27" iMac i5 has more than enough juice left in it to last a couple more years, but after that, my next Mac will be a Hackintosh. If I will stay in the Apple software ecosystem at all. There were many reasons like this why I left Microsoft behind, and now there are even more reasons to either woefully return to MS or to move on to Penguin land.
You never could replace the hard drive in an iMac in four minutes. You have to take the screen off, which means you need a _seriously_ dust free room or you'll have dirt behind the screen when you put it back together. It was always a serious operation. I have replaced hard drives in MacBooks, MacPros, TV hard disk recorders, iPod batteries, but I wouldn't open up an iMac.
And there are good chances that in three years time you can do much better than USB by using a hard drive with Thunderbolt interface. Today the only ones sold are 500 GB SSD for massive prices, but surely your average hard drive (2 TB at that time) will come with Thunderbolt.
The only ones really affected are people who want to buy an iMac with the cheapest hard drive now and replace it immediately. Maybe some enterprising manufacturer comes up with a drive that uses Thunderbolt to connect and for power, in a case that can be easily attached to the back of the iMac. So you have your replacement drive at full speed in ten seconds.
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Not even those they're not. Many people have replaced the stock hard drives with 2Tb and even 3TB aftermarkets and have none of the issues in this article. OWC report is wrong and incomplete. Check the forums for success stories.
This is something I need to look into then. By all means, if this means that any S.M.A.R.T. compatible drive can be put in an iMac, so much the better. I just find it hard to believe that Apple do anything to make anything remotely better for their consumers.
French site HardMac explain this. The informations acquired from SMART stats interrupt the data rate. The 2010 iMac models did a trick to avoid this (special cable), and the 2011 models use this new way (parallel) to avoid to loose access time when SMART reading.
But it seems that some HDD (Caviar Black 2 To or Seagate 3 To) already give this information in the way the new iMac needs it. Maybe there will be only some HDD compatibles with this new system...
Or more than likely will just push people into buying a vastly cheaper PC once they have been burned by Apple, which is the most likely scenario. I don't know what planet you are on, but most people can't afford to get a new computer every 3-4 years.
Unlikely since it doesn't exist with 2011 iMacs either. This article and OWC reports are inaccurate.
I tend to agree, I checked all my PC's SATA, they are all 7 pin as well, I even have an old MSI motherboard in the cupboard that I dusted off to count the number of pins, it has 7. Maybe its just custom firmware, the same firmware from the 2010 iMac, maybe its just nothing, I think I will wait for more reports. When the warranty on my new iMac is done then I might start worrying, 1T internal is more than enough, I always move my files to an external source once I am finished with them so upgrading in the near future is not a concern.
That's a sensible decision but so far, there are other user reports which suggest that there is nothing special about the Firmware and other, standard hdd can be swapped without problems.
I have always seen Apple/Mac as a closed system (Hardware and Software), why does anyone believe differently?
Even their pricing is a closed system. If you want Apple you pay the price.
So there should be no shock here that Apple's goal is to keep it as closed as possible.
If not for the coolness factor of newer apple products...they'd be gone.
Kudo's to them for seeing this niche and exploiting it.
Even their pricing is a closed system. If you want Apple you pay the price.
So there should be no shock here that Apple's goal is to keep it as closed as possible.
If not for the coolness factor of newer apple products...they'd be gone.
Kudo's to them for seeing this niche and exploiting it.
If the hardware test which failed is located in the Boot ROM, then that test is not part of the AHT suite (as reported in the article) because the AHT suite is located on a supplementary disc included with the Leopard and Snow Leopard retail box. (In Tiger and below, the AHT suite was located on the same disc as the main OS installation.)
So we're still stuck with the article making ambiguous claims:
Is the test that failed actually part of the AHT suite or not?
If it is part of the AHT suite, and their Mac has truly become a paperweight as they claimed, then how did they manage to boot into the Snow Leopard supplementary disc in the first place in order to run the test?
If it is not part of the AHT suite, but rather it is part of the boot ROM, then why did they attribute the failure to the AHT suite?
Is the article actually claiming that their Macs actually become incapable of booting, or not?????
Since my iMac G5 has finnally expired, I'm planning of getting one of these iMac, and am a little concerned about this. Am confused though, and haven't read evey page of this thread, but whats to stop using the existing cable with a replacement drive? Is the cable attached to the drive?
I'm not too worried though as most of my content will be on an external and will only replace if it fails. I'll get applecare too, so hopefully there will be a solution before then.
I'm not too worried though as most of my content will be on an external and will only replace if it fails. I'll get applecare too, so hopefully there will be a solution before then.
No Sir, I am a Mac user... I am not part of the "Mac Community".. If you understood my post, you would realize that the things I typed are exact statements made on this forum and others by the "Mac Community".. The "Mac Community" doesn't need me to be "brought down".. They do a good job of it by themselves..
Enjoy you elegant, delicious, sexy, and magical Mac - that you can't even swap a standard HDD out in....
You must be on Ballmer's payroll. It's not our fault if you're poor and can't afford a new Mac. Enjoy your crappy PC with clunky old Windows on it....
Does a cloned image solve the problem?
forgive my back-up process ignorance...but
1. If you install a new drive and restore the old one from Time Machine, will the "proprietary" hard drive firmware move over too?
2. If you install a new drive and restore from a Super Duper clone of the drive( or other back-up software), will the "proprietary" hard drive firmware move over too?
If the answer is yes, then the problem is solved, unless you want to install a new drive then install the OS from scratch and rebuild your information.
forgive my back-up process ignorance...but
1. If you install a new drive and restore the old one from Time Machine, will the "proprietary" hard drive firmware move over too?
2. If you install a new drive and restore from a Super Duper clone of the drive( or other back-up software), will the "proprietary" hard drive firmware move over too?
If the answer is yes, then the problem is solved, unless you want to install a new drive then install the OS from scratch and rebuild your information.
Perhaps your IT experience has not permitted you to have recognized this before, but Apple has been using an iMac-specific firmware on their OEM drives at least since the Mid-2009 models.
I attempted replacing the stock 1TB HD in my Mid-2009 iMac with a single-platter 500GB version of the same drive, same manufacturer, same heat sensor connector/cable, and I experienced the issue wherein the cooling fans would gradually increase in rotational speed until reaching the maximum rpm and staying there.
When I replaced my Mid-2009 iMac with a Mid-2010 model (because of 14MB/s USB transfer speeds), I imagined the same kind of unique firmware would be applied and chose to stick with the stock drive. Even considering this 'flaw', it was worth tolerating considering the value of the iMac overall. It just sucks that this kind of information may not be known to an iMac owner until that owner discovers it the hard way. =/
Fud fud fud
I like OWC but they should be ashamed of this.
Fact - There is no proprietary connector here.
Fact - Most any standard Sata drive will work in these machines. ( only issues are the occasional models that have a firmware that doesn't like some particular hardware)
Fact - At worst fans will run on high until you use a third party fan control.
Fact - AHT means absolute nothing. Your surprised software written by Apple to test Apple hardware can't test non-Apple hardware ???
Fact - These new iMac hard drives actually more standard then the old models.
I like OWC but they should be ashamed of this.
Fact - There is no proprietary connector here.
Fact - Most any standard Sata drive will work in these machines. ( only issues are the occasional models that have a firmware that doesn't like some particular hardware)
Fact - At worst fans will run on high until you use a third party fan control.
Fact - AHT means absolute nothing. Your surprised software written by Apple to test Apple hardware can't test non-Apple hardware ???
Fact - These new iMac hard drives actually more standard then the old models.
I'm so jealous of your "expensive" proprietary mac.
I liked apple when they weren't on top, they were far more consumer friendly than they are now. They only care about lining their pockets and have apparently lost quality control about 4 years ago.