Apple Restricts Hard Drive Replacements on New iMacs

[madmaxmedia]

That 99.999% of the market would never replace the HD regardless, this move impacts them none. So why make it proprietary at all?

You introduce 2 different arguments and mix them together as if they are one- one aimed at improving their products (and ultimately overall user satisfaction and corporate profitability), and the other aimed at improving corporate profitability at the expense of user experience (for some but not all users.) If Apple believes this increase overall reliability and user satisfaction, then that's one thing. If Apple is doing it to lock out users from replacing a previously user-replaceable/upgradable component, that's another.

My guess at this point is that Apple did not purposely do this to lock anyone out, but to somehow improve operation of HD's in the iMacs. This being the case, some sort of workaround will probably be available at some point.

Apple does not care about you (the ultra enthusiast types who would open up an iMac and replace parts). You account for about .001% of the market. Honestly if every single one of you stopped buying all apple products they would never see any sort of fiscal change in quarterly earnings.

You are fooling yourself if you actually believe apple cares about anything other than being the biggest and most profitably consumer technology company. And why should they? They are a for-profit business in a capitalist nation. If they feel that altering the internals of an iMac could in some way hurt it, then that would mess with their brand reliability. That brand is in the top 5 most recognizable brands in the world at this point. This isnt even a decision for them, its an obvious action. The only way to combat somthing like this would be to cause a big enough public stink, that it would be an even bigger hit to their brand then an over heating iMac line would.

Honestly they could put 5 year old drives and processors in these things at this point, and their main customer base would never know, and would continue to buy everything they slap a big ol' on. Its what I would do if I was trying to create even more profit and please stock holders (and already had a brand that has this level of garanteed purchases built in). I would just be happy that they haven't gotten to that point yet.

 

[tdream]

Totally weirded out by the responses that accept this kind of limitation. Today Hard Drives, tomorrow RAM. Next week only 1 screen size, etc. etc.

If you don't voice your opinion and accept this kind of crap, they will continue to do this kind of thing. Look at the number of people who were annoyed at the 1.5GB SATA limitation on the 2009 macbook pros, the voices of macbook users everywhere got this problem sorted out. Same with the iPhone 4 antenna issues. People had the option to get cases and a redesign of the iPhone 4 began post haste. If you accept this, you're accepting a lower standard.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Canceling my order.

Lets see in a few weeks, and what iFixit has to say. If its true im not buying crap i cant modify. Its my mac if i buy it. Im not ****ing renting it!

This is a serious issue if it turns out to be fact. And its a worrying trend. Apple products seems to be more and more fitted for planned obsolecense.

well ifixit has already done a teardown of the imac and they make no mention at all of this. They also give the imac a repair-ability score of 7/10 saying specifically

RAM, hard drive, and optical drive can be replaced with relative ease, as long as you don't mind taking out the LCD (for the drives).

Interesting to say the least, but if true, Apple is really pissing off a lot of customers!

 

[MSlaw]

Thankfully this doesnt affect me as I'm on an 09 Mac Pro. BUT, after the last few months worth of crap that has come out of Apple I'll certainly not be buying another desktop from them. The hackintosh is very stable now and much easier than it used to be to get up and running. I'm strongly considering one as the next Mac I have.

It's still a pain in the ass.

 

[saintstryfe]

To the people saying "No one will open it themselves:"

Yes, I agree. However, that doesn't mean that in 3 years I might not want a HD upgrade. What happens then? I'll take it to my local Mac guy.... what's he going to do?

 

[kingtj]

re: thermal issues?

Apple has *long* had thermal issues with their line of iMacs. It's an inevitable result of packing all those electronics in close proximity to each other (including the display), and then making quiet operation one of the primary goals, on top of that. (Oh, and don't forget a big requirement of the case styling meeting certain aesthetic standards.)

I know quite a few iMac owners who either had to resort to a 3rd. party utility like "smc fan control" to boost cooling fan speeds above the normal/default settings, or had to religiously keep dust out of any openings on the back of the system, to keep it from crashing or freezing when doing graphics or CPU intensive tasks.

There's no question that iMacs generally run "right up to the thermal limits", and it doesn't take much to push one over the edge (especially in a warm or hot room).

That said? I don't think this move had anything to do with that issue. This was all about finding a clever way to force people to pay full price for Apple-branded replacement parts (and push some more people to pay for extended AppleCare warranties too). They were able to get a perfectly reasonable estimate of the hard drive temps. from the external sensors they used before.

Frankly? This move pisses me off. I've been a long-time Mac supporter (basically since around '99 or 2000 when I switched out about 5 Windows PCs I owned with Macs and OS X, and never looked back). I just bought my wife a new Macbook Air last weekend (she's a big Mac fan too, and a former Apple employee). But I've watched Apple inch ever closer to actively preventing anyone from servicing their own machines in recent years, and up till now, I was able to at least make logical excuses for much of it. (EG. The new tamper-proof screws they put on iPhones and on the Macbook Air annoyed me, but at least in those cases, I could reasonably ask why most people felt the need to open one up anyway? There's not much in them that's user-serviceable, and they're generally designed to be purchased "as configured" and used that way throughout their usable life.)

But preventing an industry-standard SATA hard drive replacement in a DESKTOP machine?! No.... that's not even remotely acceptable, especially since hard drive technology changes rapidly and drives are "wear items" that are designed to fail after a certain amount of use! I will *not* be buying any of the new iMacs until someone comes up with a proven work-around solution for this.

(I think they will, probably by way of a special SATA cable with module inserted in the middle of it to inject whatever temp. signals the iMac is expecting to see on those extra pins.) But still, this is B.S. Apple!

Time for an after market upgrade kit. This sounds like Apple was having thermal issues with the hard drives. With any luck, Apple will include some kind of firmware switch for people running SSD as SSDs should not have the thermal issues.

 

[Xtremehkr]

4. What actually happened is engineers made a call that a more accurate HDD temp sensor system made a measurable impact in service life. (thus making the entire unit, which is what we are concerned about, more reliable)

Karl P

This is much closer to what I imagined the issue is.

Here's where Apple saves money on this new design, they replace far fewer HDD's under warranty by better controlling the temperature.

Replacing fewer HDD's hurts OWC and other companies who make HDD's and who clearly aren't that interested in HDD's lasting year longer than they do now.

It's actually a benefit to consumers if their HDD's last longer.

 

[nebulos]

... as i just wrote in the MBA forum:

wow.

by next year, Apple will only sell 'disposable' electronics. when anything breaks after the 365th day, we simply toss in the dump and buy anew.

Apple certainly thinks 'green', but which green is it?

 

[gpolk50]

Hold on a minute.... *feigned surprise* What you're trying to tell me is that APPLE has opted to rely on PROPRIETARY hardware to the DETRIMENT of its customers?

I say nay!

 

[adcx64]

I am sure Apple had good reasoning to do this. A company wouldn't make sacrifices like this if it didn't mean anything!

 

[spazzcat]

How many people really open an iMac and change the HD? I would bet 99% people plug in an exteral HD.

 

[thinkthis]

Meh

I just bought a 2011 27 iMac. All I want to do is add an SSD and make that the primary boot drive. You can still do that so I'm kind of ambivalent about this. As long as you don't disconnect the factory installed drive you are fine.

 

[TheUndertow]

Would Apple accept a setup in its data centers that allowed for difficult swapping of hard drives? No. Why don't these companies put themselves in our shoes before making these decisions.

Well perhaps this is not true anyway. Not sure i believe it.

You wonder how many iMacs are being repaired or replaced due to "operator error" with hard drive replacements.

That's the only thing that makes sense....

Though I will say, the prospects of cracking into an "All in One" for user customization seems a little odd....that's what towers are for.

 

[daneoni]

...and the iMac gets even more locked down. If this turns out to be true. This was one of the reasons i left the product line a few years back. It has become far too inflexible post-original iMac G5. You MUST like it the way it shipped from the factory or you're SOL.

These were the good days...a couple of screws and you're in just like the current MBPs.

It's also why i decided to jump on the current MBPs because i just have a niggling feeling that once they do the MBA-esque redesign things might go south in terms of accessibility. That, and i'm wary of Lion.

This latest move is simply perplexing. I can't think of any real justifications for it. If i were desktop customer right now i'd either get a 2010 i7 whilst i still could or i'd be heading towards the Hackintosh route.

 

[Ashyukun]

What I wonder is how many people on this thread complaining about the change actually own the tools necessary to safely disassemble an iMac.

Looking at the teardown of it done a few days ago, replacing the hard drive only really requires two suction cups (<$10 from Harbor Freight), a torx drive bit (I know I have several- hell, the Swiss Army Knife I carry all the time has the required bit, but then it is also designed for working on computers...), and an ability to follow instructions (more people will lack this than the previous two, as it can't be easily bought...).

Honestly, I wouldn't plan on replacing the drive- if I get one, I'd likely pay for the 1TB upgrade and upgrade the RAM to the max myself, and expand its storage with Thunderbolt externals. I'd also be buying the Applecare for it- it's proved well worth it in the past on iPods and my MacBook- so I wouldn't be worrying about the drive going bad for a few years. But, I did upgrade the drive on my MacBook after a few years due to just really needing the space, so having the option to do so on the iMac is something I'd like to have. And I think it's just a bit of a lame move on their part. Count it out of warranty if it's opened (presuming you can replace the RAM relatively easily, I think I remember seeing that it was easily accessible), that's find with me- but forcing us to pay a considerable premium for a replacement/upgrade if the old one dies out of warranty or we want an upgrade is just low.

 

[jwdsail]

Meh

A few thoughts..

1. I'm a consultant and have come across a few 27" iMacs with drives failing prematurely.. I think it's quite possible this trend was seen by Apple and an engineer was told to "Fix it, or you're fired". Could be, that this is the fix. I doubt there's any malicious intent here, just an engineer covering their ass. And in this economy, can you blame them?

2. I can assure all the trolls claiming that this is a simple 10 minute upgrade, that it's far from it. But then maybe you like dust/lint/smudges/bugs/etc. on the LCD under the glass? Or on the inside of the glass? Or dropping the glass and fraking up your in-waranty $1200-$2800+ iMac? Heck, I've seen units repaired at AASPs come back with crud under the glass. I'm too anal for that, my workshop is damn near cleanroom clean, but that doesn't make the task simple for even the most l33t 'power-user's'.. Is it an upgrade that can be done by someone willing to take the time and proper diligence to do so properly? Sure! But, it's far from a "simple" upgrade.

3. If expansion is that important to you, that you're beating your breasts and gnashing your teeth and crying here over it, what are you smoking that made an AIO a possible purchase in the first place?

4. Thunderbolt. Drive docks (toasters) w/ thunderbolt will be my primary drives as soon as they are available. I'll spin down the internal drive, keeping it set aside as a back-up/restore drive only. I see no drama in this.

5. I'm sure, almost positive, that a non-waranty-voiding work-around will be available soon 'nuf. Chill.

 

[bilbo--baggins]

Looks like I'll have to keep buying Mac Pro's. I had seriously been considering getting an iMac next time but this precludes that possibility.

 

[got2go]

Remember when IBM couldn't get a G5 into a laptop? Too hot!
Look at the iMac... 3.4GHz, 2GB graphics, 27" screen... Max Ram 16GB...
I bet it gets hot in there... It's not a GAPING cavern like a mac pro to allow a huge block of fans in there or multiple wide fan-zones.
However, Apple you seem to be acting highly iillogical,
1) Each gen of Intel chips gets both faster and cooler, or you can choose to run fast or cool.
2) Is apple known for it's hard drive failures? No... so wtf? Yeah we know all hard drives fail eventually (even SSDs have that cell ware that is being greatly curbed with newer ones however).
3) Doesn't apple use pretty HQ HDs? Hitachi, Fujitsu, Toshiba? I only ever buy Hitachi in 3.5" for all my mac's and external HD's I've had ever since WD bought Seagate (shortly after a new Seagate failed after a month they acquired it). To My knowledge apple doesn't use WD's too much right now...
but the point is... I ALWAYS want to know exactly what the part number is for the harddrive I'm getting in an apple machine! Often I recommend ordering a Hard Drive with any new apple purchase... but now?
4) Apple just came out with Lightpeak/Thunderbolt. Why didn't they partner up with Hitachi or WD to implement this technology if it's so important/necessary? MB because some HD companies don't want to get branded "joins with apple to make drives cooler so they last longer" because then it might appear that their drives don't last as long as the competition without some special cooling system...
5) No as has been said, FORCING people to go with their highly 'taxed' HD options is def going to be a no go for us apple modders. I don't have an extra 100 bucks to throw away on some apple HD upgrade when I can get the same thing for that much less. (obviously the ram too, which again, is getting to be 'old').

Yet another reason NOT to buy an iMac (primary reason being glossy screen). But sadly, this is not a concern for the vast majority of iMac users... but they are just pushing more people to other choices... doesn't seem smart.

For one thing WD did not buy seagate.

For another the stock HDD in the 2009 iMac was a piece of ****. I had to replace my Hitachi one twice (under warranty but still a huge hassle to drive an hour each way to get it fixed). Now i have a WD black edition HDD and its been fine ever since.

 

[Discoverer]

This makes perfect sense. If you want to upgrade or replace your HDs, go buy a Mac Pro.

I'm fairly sure that Apple knows what they are doing

 

[canadianpj]

Utter nonsense, this is going to affect a TINY minority of users who just happen to complain loudly. Let's be honest for a minute, you're buying an all in one machine with the components (memory excluded) behind a screen and clearly designed to not be user replaceable. If you want to get a machine to fiddle with and upgrade, this ain't it. Yes, it sucks for power users but let's keep a sense of perspective here.

Besides which, and please tell me if thus won't work, why not just get a Thunderbolt drive when they come on the Market? Shouldn't be much, if any, performance difference and theresno risk of breaking something or voiding the warranty.

Finally some sense. I have a Mac Pro now, but some time next year I will get an iMac. Does this bother me? No. At all. I'm not going to be taking it apart myself given everything that is inside. Just not happening. This would be a completely different story were the drive accessible from a slot or something but considering what you have to do to replace it yourself? No way in hell I am doing that.

Neither would anyone else I know either. Yes, bad for power users but power users likely do not make up a very significant portion of buyers.

 

[tripjammer]

I was contemplating replacing my 2006 imacfor a new one. No friggin way now. Apple can kiss my 4th point of contact. What next, make the Mac pro's hard drive upgrades done by apple only? Hope a hack comes out to stick it to apple. Total BS. Glad I've been migrating to win7 and ubuntu. I'll build my own for now on!

You will come back...OS lion will rule them all....and google Chrome...but it only runs on netbook type devices.

Windows 7 is good...but it is still bloated.

The apple hardware is so sexy and awesome looking. Just wait till the third parties have a work around...

 

[DirtySocks85]

Meh...mixed feelings I guess. I mean, if the drive fails, then ya I think this sucks. I mean, I can get an inexpensive replacement drive cheap, and put it in less than 10 minutes. But in terms of upgrades; I've rarely ever done it. Even when I had desktops I rarely "upgraded" stuff. Reminds me of the old tower days. All these bays, and things so I could "upgrade to killer stuff". Never happened...

Maybe you didn't, but I got several more years out of some pretty crappy towers by upgrading components.

 

[h00ligan]

As someone who just bought a 27" iMac. This may make me take it back. I have to think.

 

[HiVolt]

1 less reason to buy an iMac. Why can't they just fetch the data via SMART is beyond me.

Now you have to use an Apple blessed hard drive. What a crock.

Apple is too obsessed with thinness, that it resorts to these idiots thermal management decisions...

Who really cares if the iMac is as thin as it is? Like really. If they stuck to the same format as the iMac G5's had, they were fully accessible and serviceable thru the rear, and still thin enough to look like a display only.

They will remove the optical bays in the next revision, just watch, making it 33% thinner (typical numbers), they will switch to stick SSD for OS and 2.5" laptop drives for storage since they now reach 1TB.

 

[kingtj]

Doesn't matter though ....

I don't necessary disagree with your statement here, but Apple DOES have a vested interest in maintaining a high level of respect for their brand.

One of the big reasons people keep recommending Apple computers to their friends and helping convert people to them from Windows PCs is the history of their systems outlasting the average useful life of a comparable PC.

(Apple computers generally cost more than a Windows PC counterpart, but that's arguably not a big concern because Macs have better resale value in the long-run.)

If they start taking steps like this that ensure a given machine will be basically "worthless garbage" outside the warranty period, they'll upset all those "2nd. owners" who buy them on the used market from the original owners who had factory warranty coverage. That will certainly damage their brand's reputation and hurt sales!

Apple does not care about you (the ultra enthusiast types who would open up an iMac and replace parts). You account for about .001% of the market. Honestly if every single one of you stopped buying all apple products they would never see any sort of fiscal change in quarterly earnings.

You are fooling yourself if you actually believe apple cares about anything other than being the biggest and most profitably consumer technology company. And why should they? They are a for-profit business in a capitalist nation. If they feel that altering the internals of an iMac could in some way hurt it, then that would mess with their brand reliability. That brand is in the top 5 most recognizable brands in the world at this point. This isnt even a decision for them, its an obvious action. The only way to combat somthing like this would be to cause a big enough public stink, that it would be an even bigger hit to their brand then an over heating iMac line would.

Honestly they could put 5 year old drives and processors in these things at this point, and their main customer base would never know, and would continue to buy everything they slap a big ol' on. Its what I would do if I was trying to create even more profit and please stock holders (and already had a brand that has this level of garanteed purchases built in). I would just be happy that they haven't gotten to that point yet.