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External SSD on 2011 27" iMac?

Z

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
227
9
Hi guys,

I successfully changed my system to an external SSD via USB3 on my 2013 iMac.

My friend who has a 2011 wants to do the same, problem is, there is no USB3 on that one, but there is thunderbolt.

As far as i can tell, options are:

1 - Get a thunderbolt 500gb disk or a thunderbolt enclosure for an ssd. Where? How much?

2 - Get a USB-thunderbold adapter. Would this even work?

3 - Any other option?

Thanks for your input.
 
I bought a buffalo 1tb thunderbolt external hard drive and put an SSD in it. It's been great so far.

It was a bit of a fiddle to open up though and required patient use of a hair dryer to soften a rather sticky adhesive pad inside. The plastic clips of the innards are prone to cracking too, so you have to be gentle (if you're bothered about that kind of stuff).

I found a video on YouTube that showed how to dismantle it/swap out the drive.
 
Yup, I guess that's the best option. Otherwise open it and replace the HDD.
 
zalle said:
Hi, thanks for your input. In your blog, you say: "Finally, I booted to the drive using the UBS 3.0 interface, and wrote data to a garbage file on disk."
Does your 2011 mac have USB3?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I wasn't clear. That is not my blog. It was a reference to show the LaCie and how to open it.

The 2011 Macs did not have USB 3, just USB 2. The LaCie drive supports Thunderbolt 1 & USB 3 connections. I have heard that the LaCie USB 3 connection does not work after installing a SSD, but I never tested it since I was only interested in the T1 connection.
 
I did this on the 2013 via USB3, and I get around 400 mb/s speeds, instead of 130, but the 2011 is a pain.

What speeds do you get with the 2011?
 
zalle said:
Yup, I guess that's the best option. Otherwise open it and replace the HDD.
Click to expand...
Far better option. It doesn't take very long. I do these in a half hour one-handed —with a helper, it takes less. OK, I've done many of these but the 2011 27" ties with the 2009 24" as being the easiest iMac to work on. Changing the 8 year old NV RAM battery adds around 5–10 minutes to the job.

With 2T SSDs costing under $300, the bracket and OWC temp sensor costing $50, this is a no brainer. With the HDD outa there, a CR2032 battery works fine but the OE BR2032 is readily available on Amazon. In addition, you eliminate the spinning heat pump that causes GPUs and other components to fail (many threads on this).

The LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt 1 HDD costs $129 new — same price as the parts and labor for installing an SSD into a 2011 iMac (minus the actual SSD. Yes, you can buy one used and throw an SSD into it but you still have the old drive sitting inside a 2011.
 
mikehalloran said:
Far better option. It doesn't take very long. I do these in a half hour one-handed —with a helper, it takes less. OK, I've done many of these but the 2011 27" ties with the 2009 24" as being the easiest iMac to work on. Changing the 8 year old NV RAM battery adds around 5–10 minutes to the job.

With 2T SSDs costing under $300, the bracket and OWC temp sensor costing $50, this is a no brainer. With the HDD outa there, a CR2032 battery works fine but the OE BR2032 is readily available on Amazon. In addition, you eliminate the spinning heat pump that causes GPUs and other components to fail (many threads on this).

The LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt 1 HDD costs $129 new — same price as the parts and labor for installing an SSD into a 2011 iMac (minus the actual SSD. Yes, you can buy one used and throw an SSD into it but you still have the old drive sitting inside a 2011.
Click to expand...

Soo... If I just remove the HDD and insert the SSD it doesn't work? I need the temp sensor then...
 
I'm using a regular USB C to USB A SSD for my 2011 iMac. My read write speeds are 30MBps lol. Still works tho. Waiting on those new Macs to be announced this year.
 
F23 said:
I'm using a regular USB C to USB A SSD for my 2011 iMac. My read write speeds are 30MBps lol. Still works tho. Waiting on those new Macs to be announced this year.
Click to expand...
Why don't you just put it inside the mac?
 
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zalle said:
Why don't you just put it inside the mac?
Click to expand...
I don't really know how to do that kind of DIY stuff and I don't want to risk breaking something. This solution is still much faster than the internal HD so I'll get by with it temporarily. I upgraded the RAM on it from 4 to 8GB also. That should hold me over until the fall Macs are released. The slow speeds don't bother me much since I only do light web browsing and read documents on this computer. Nothing heavy duty.
 
F23 said:
I don't really know how to do that kind of DIY stuff and I don't want to risk breaking something. This solution is still much faster than the internal HD so I'll get by with it temporarily. I upgraded the RAM on it from 4 to 8GB also. That should hold me over until the fall Macs are released. The slow speeds don't bother me much since I only do light web browsing and read documents on this computer. Nothing heavy duty.
Click to expand...
I can't really believe 30Mbs is faster than your original HDD. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro, original HDD speed was around 30mbs I replaced it for a small SSD, and it's about 120mbs now.

How do you measure it?
 
F23 said:
I don't really know how to do that kind of DIY stuff and I don't want to risk breaking something.
Click to expand...
Although understandable, there are people you can pay to do this. Going rate around here (Silicon Valley) is $75.

The iFixIt and OWC instructions do a disservice by including steps that are unnecessary. Not only are those the steps that make this a chore but they are the ones that can be messed up. If you read the comments and have the machine in front of you, it's not too hard to figure out what can be skipped but, without that, it does look a little like Mt. Everest.

... which is too bad because these are easy and fairly goof proof. You do Not have to remove the screen (unless there's a problem with it or the GPU).

2011s are old for me—only one of my regulars has one and will likely keep it till an OS upgrade forces the issue (I installed an 845 EVO SSD on it in 2014—doing great). The next one I do (if ever again) or a 24", I will record it so everyone can see.

Unfortunately, I'm expecting the next one to be this 2010 when I take it out of commission. These and the 2009 27" are just different enough that some steps don't apply to the 2011 and vise versa.
 
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mikehalloran said:
Although understandable, there are people you can pay to do this. Going rate around here (Silicon Valley) is $75.

The iFixIt and OWC instructions do a disservice by including steps that are unnecessary. Not only are those the steps that make this a chore but they are the ones that can be messed up. If you read the comments and have the machine in front of you, it's not too hard to figure out what can be skipped but, without that, it does look a little like Mt. Everest.

... which is too bad because these are easy and fairly goof proof. You do Not have to remove the screen (unless there's a problem with it or the GPU).

2011s are old for me—only one of my regulars has one and will likely keep it till an OS upgrade forces the issue (I installed an 845 EVO SSD on it in 2014—doing great). The next one I do (if ever again) or a 24", I will record it so everyone can see.

Unfortunately, I'm expecting the next one to be this 2010 when I take it out of commission. These and the 2009 27" are just different enough that some steps don't apply to the 2011 and vise versa.
Click to expand...

If mine was 2009-2011 I would do it, but it's 2013 and I don't want to mess with the glued screen.
 
zalle said:
I can't really believe 30Mbs is faster than your original HDD. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro, original HDD speed was around 30mbs I replaced it for a small SSD, and it's about 120mbs now.

How do you measure it?
Click to expand...
The original internal HDD has speeds of 120 MBps. But with real world use it performs much slower and takes a long time to do any tasks such as launching apps etc. It also makes a lot of sound when running. The external SSD I'm using to boot and run the computer has speeds of 580 MBps. But I can't utilize those speeds due to my iMac only having USB2 ports which have a limit of 480 Mbps or 60 MBps. I use the Blackmagic disk speed test app and it shows the 30 MBps read write speeds.
 
zalle said:
If mine was 2009-2011 I would do it, but it's 2013 and I don't want to mess with the glued screen.
Click to expand...
Who told you it is glued? Double-stick foam tape. Techs use rolls of the stuff. OWC and others sell kits with pre-cut strips, the temp sensor and the few tools you need—the plastic pizza wheel is much faster than using guitar picks to separate the screen. $49.50
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMACHDD12/

Only thing missing is the bracket. Around $10 on Amazon; a whopping $14.25 at OWC
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADPTADRV/

Again, you can pay people to do this. Tip: if you do it yourself, put it back together with a few strips of painters' or masking tape, make sure everything works, then remove the strips and install the tape kit.

For the 2015 iMac, Apple went with a cooler running HDD to cut down warranty and repair costs. It's still a lot (lot, lot) slower than SSDs but it lessens the heat damage from the inside out.
 
mikehalloran said:
Who told you it is glued? Double-stick foam tape. Techs use rolls of the stuff. OWC and others sell kits with pre-cut strips, the temp sensor and the few tools you need—the plastic pizza wheel is much faster than using guitar picks to separate the screen. $49.50
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMACHDD12/

Only thing missing is the bracket. Around $10 on Amazon; a whopping $14.25 at OWC
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADPTADRV/

Again, you can pay people to do this. Tip: if you do it yourself, put it back together with a few strips of painters' or masking tape, make sure everything works, then remove the strips and install the tape kit.

For the 2015 iMac, Apple went with a cooler running HDD to cut down warranty and repair costs. It's still a lot (lot, lot) slower than SSDs but it lessens the heat damage from the inside out.
Click to expand...

I get around 400MB/s with the USB3 (it's a verbatim 480GB). Would it be any faster if it was inside?
 
Before your friend spends very much $$$$ on a 2011 iMac, I'd suggest he start looking for something newer (perhaps Apple-refurbished) with an SSD inside...
 
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