Can I upgrade the blade SSD in iMac 27 late 2012?

[geobadiu]

Hi,

I just bought an used iMac 27", core i7 3.4GHz, late 2012 with a 128Gb blade SSD. No HDD - removed by the previous owner.
I've seen the iFixit method to replace the blade SSD, I'm used to do a lot of fixings on many kind of Macs, so there's no problem for me to open the iMac.
Still, I don't know if the SSD can be replaced with a 256-500Gb one. Also, I don't know which model, brand would be the best (if any). I tried to google for that, but didn't find a clear answer.
Any suggestion?

Thank you.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi,

I just bought an used iMac 27", core i7 3.4GHz, late 2012 with a 128Gb blade SSD. No HDD - removed by the previous owner.
I've seen the iFixit method to replace the blade SSD, I'm used to do a lot of fixings on many kind of Macs, so there's no problem for me to open the iMac.
Still, I don't know if the SSD can be replaced with a 256-500Gb one. Also, I don't know which model, brand would be the best (if any). I tried to google for that, but didn't find a clear answer.
Any suggestion?

Thank you.

Don't bother just add a sata ssd of the size you wish from a reputable company like a Samsung evo or a crucial mx300 or a sandisk and join as a fusion drive for an all ssd fusion for blade speeds for the most used apps files and OS and the slightly slower speeds for everything else. It should be blazingly quick.

 

[geobadiu]

Ok, thanks, but I need a big HDD to keep my stuff, so I will buy a 3-4Tb classic HDD. I need a bigger SSD because I want to install Windows 10 as well, on the SSD. I found a dual SSD adapter for this kind of Apple blade SSDs, but got no feedback about them.
So, again, what (if any) kind of blade SSD should I look for?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Ok now I've got you.

A couple of options here, if you want to install windows 10 using bootcamp on an ssd that is fine but you will need to keep your drives separate no fusion as the fusion will only use the HDD portion of your fusion drive for bootcamp. Of course you may keep your drives separate but personally I find managing endless partitions across multiple drives a ball ache, and if you are going to do that I'd just throw in a sata ssd set up as fusion and install bootcamp on the sata ssd and use external storage over usb 3 for all your media etc. This is probably the easiest option.

If you would like to replace the blade and keep your ssd separate from your HDD all internally, then you'll need to use a specialist supplier, OWC do some replacement drives and so do a few others like transcend. Something like this

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/imac-27-inch/2012

 

[geobadiu]

Oh, great, thank you very much. Now I can see the light . Thank you again for your help, I'll start now to look for some good and not too expensive "blades".
Cheers!

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

No such animal as Apple use their own Proprietary Connectors so don't lash out until you know what you need:-


https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-guide-to-specs-and-upgrades

 

[hfg]

If you do find a larger SSD, you can set it up as a Fusion drive with a new hard disk ... and have Windows 10 running from the SSD.

Simply partition the SSD as you wish for your Windows partition size ... then create the Fusion drive with the remaining SSD partition using the full drive ID (drive & partition) and the hard drive. Then install Windows BootCamp to the so-designated partition on your SSD.

 

[geobadiu]

A big thank you to both of you, nambuccaheadsau and hfg, that was very helpful. With that guide I will not fail in buying the right SSD and about how to partition the drives, this is exactly what I will do.
This was my first thread on this forum and I'm really impressed about the fast and precise answers.