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Help to decide type of SSD form my IMac 21.5" Late 2013

A

Armandiux

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2015
12
1
Hi,

Actually I have the original 5400 RPM 2.5" 1TB HD in my 21.5" late 2013 IMac model 14,1 EMC 2638

I am looking for advise to decide which type or which combination of SSD units is worth for me since I have an internal PCI express port so the three options are:

1) 2.5" internal SSD
2) PCI express SSD
3) External SSD

I already know how to teardown my computer when I I upgraded the original 8GB memory to 16GB so open it again is not a problem in fact it's exiting :)

I bought my IMac just to make music, I installed Logic Pro X and more than 300GB of virtual instruments, as you know those type of libraries are very large, I have libraries from 16GB to 57GB and also these virtual instruments are good to save them in a much faster drive so I thought to place a 256GB or 512GB PCIexpress SSD to save those libraries and keep my HD for other apps. By the way I don't know where to get it but from Apple Service Center.

On the other hand I could place an internal 2.5" SSD instead the actual HD and use as I use my HD, I mean for all but I would need 1TB and it is very expensive for me.

And the last option would be to buy an external SSD to place 300GB of virtual instruments and digital music stuff and use my HD to place te OS, the apps and other files.

Any advice is very welcome. Thanks!
 
Armandiux said:
Hi,

Actually I have the original 5400 RPM 2.5" 1TB HD in my 21.5" late 2013 IMac model 14,1 EMC 2638

I am looking for advise to decide which type or which combination of SSD units is worth for me since I have an internal PCI express port so the three options are:

1) 2.5" internal SSD
2) PCI express SSD
3) External SSD

I already know how to teardown my computer when I I upgraded the original 8GB memory to 16GB so open it again is not a problem in fact it's exiting :)

I bought my IMac just to make music, I installed Logic Pro X and more than 300GB of virtual instruments, as you know those type of libraries are very large, I have libraries from 16GB to 57GB and also these virtual instruments are good to save them in a much faster drive so I thought to place a 256GB or 512GB PCIexpress SSD to save those libraries and keep my HD for other apps. By the way I don't know where to get it but from Apple Service Center.

On the other hand I could place an internal 2.5" SSD instead the actual HD and use as I use my HD, I mean for all but I would need 1TB and it is very expensive for me.

And the last option would be to buy an external SSD to place 300GB of virtual instruments and digital music stuff and use my HD to place te OS, the apps and other files.

Any advice is very welcome. Thanks!
Click to expand...
You can buy the PCIe SSDs pulled off other Macs on eBay.

You'll be looking for either SM0256F or SM0512F.
 
yjchua95 said:
You can buy the PCIe SSDs pulled off other Macs on eBay.

You'll be looking for either SM0256F or SM0512F.
Click to expand...


Thanks a lot for your information.
I found 2 PCIe SSD that possibly are compatible with my IMac, both are Samsung and the models are:
MZ JPU512T/OA6 (512GB)
MZ JPU256T/OA6 (256GB)
 
Armandiux said:
Thanks a lot for your information.
I found 2 PCIe SSD that possibly are compatible with my IMac, both are Samsung and the models are:
MZ JPU512T/OA6 (512GB)
MZ JPU256T/OA6 (256GB)
Click to expand...

Are you sure?

For all I know, they could be the mSATA blades that are meant for Ivy Bridge Macs and not the PCIe Haswell ones.

Edit: Alright they're good, they're the PCIe ones.
 
For sure I'm not sure :)

yjchua95 said:
Are you sure?

For all I know, they could be the mSATA blades that are meant for Ivy Bridge Macs and not the PCIe Haswell ones.

Edit: Alright they're good, they're the PCIe ones.
Click to expand...

Hi again,

No I am not sure, I just saw an add at Ebay saying that is good for Late 2013 iMac but I'm really not sure, in fact, I would like to know where I can get the exacly specifications for the SSD PCIe for my iMac.

Thanks for your comments yjchua95 !
 
Armandiux said:
Hi again,

No I am not sure, I just saw an add at Ebay saying that is good for Late 2013 iMac but I'm really not sure, in fact, I would like to know where I can get the exacly specifications for the SSD PCIe for my iMac.

Thanks for your comments yjchua95 !
Click to expand...

You have to look for SM0256F or SM0512F PCIe, 256 and 512GB respectively.
 
yjchua95 said:
You have to look for SM0256F or SM0512F PCIe, 256 and 512GB respectively.
Click to expand...

Hi yjchua95

As I understand APPLE SSD SM0512F or APPLE SSD SM0256F are the right PCIe SSD blades for my IMac 21.5" Late 2013 right?

Thanks
 
yjchua95 said:
Yes, it's the same.

SM0512F is also applicable to the MB Air, rMBP, iMac (retina and non-retina) and trashcan Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

Hi yjchua95, Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I don't know if I am right; I found that MZ JPU512T/OA2 (512GB)
MZ JPU256T/OA2 (256GB) are good only for Mac Book of year 2012.

On the other hand I found that Samsung PCIe SSD blades models MZ-JPU512T/OA6 (512GB) and MZ-JPU256T/OA6 (256GB) works with the following models:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2013)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2014)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Mac mini (Late 2014)

Am I right?

And one last question: I am not so sure if MZ-JPU1T0T/OA6 (1TB) COULD work in an IMac Late 2013 since Apple says that only works with 256 and 512 GB blades.

Thanks in advanced for your wise comments.
 
Armandiux said:
Hi yjchua95, Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I don't know if I am right; I found that MZ JPU512T/OA2 (512GB)
MZ JPU256T/OA2 (256GB) are good only for Mac Book of year 2012.

On the other hand I found that Samsung PCIe SSD blades models MZ-JPU512T/OA6 (512GB) and MZ-JPU256T/OA6 (256GB) works with the following models:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2013)
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2014)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Mac mini (Late 2014)

Am I right?

And one last question: I am not so sure if MZ-JPU1T0T/OA6 (1TB) COULD work in an IMac Late 2013 since Apple says that only works with 256 and 512 GB blades.

Thanks in advanced for your wise comments.
Click to expand...

You got it right on all counts.

The SM1024F 1TB works with every Haswell Mac except the MacBook Air and 21.5" iMac. The 1TB sticks are physically slightly larger. I'm not sure whether it'll fit into the 21.5" iMac though, considering it's much thicker than the Air.
 
yjchua95 said:
You got it right on all counts.

The SM1024F 1TB works with every Haswell Mac except the MacBook Air and 21.5" iMac. The 1TB sticks are physically slightly larger. I'm not sure whether it'll fit into the 21.5" iMac though, considering it's much thicker than the Air.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your confirmation yichua95, your knowledge has been very helpful.

In regard of the 1 TB PCIe SSD I think it is not suitable for IMac, at least Apple says that only PCIe SSD blades of 256 and 512GB can be used.

Kind regards and Thank You!!
 
yjchua95 said:
It's suitable for 27" iMacs, but not sure for 21.5".
Click to expand...

Hi pal !

I think you are right yjchua95 , Apple says that only Flash Storage of 256GB or 512GB are suitable for IMac 21.5" Late 2013 maybe is the same for a 21.5" IMac 2014.

After all if I place in my iMac 21.5 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD and a 500GB 2.5" SSD I think I will make a super jet!! At least I won't neeed anymore but I'm still wondering to do it because I think it would be enough to place only the 256GB flash storage and still using mu 2.5" 5400 rpm HD.

Cheers !
 
Armandiux said:
Hi pal !

I think you are right yjchua95 , Apple says that only Flash Storage of 256GB or 512GB are suitable for IMac 21.5" Late 2013 maybe is the same for a 21.5" IMac 2014.

After all if I place in my iMac 21.5 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD and a 500GB 2.5" SSD I think I will make a super jet!! At least I won't neeed anymore but I'm still wondering to do it because I think it would be enough to place only the 256GB flash storage and still using mu 2.5" 5400 rpm HD.

Cheers !
Click to expand...

Well you could always build your own Fusion Drive :)
 
SSD will only assist you in fast boot times and fast opening of applications etc. Once the app is open then GPU, CPU, RAM grunt is far more important.

It may be you don't have best model for you needs, simple as that.

The internet is a great place for learning but it is also a great place for gossiping and misinformation.

It really is about your personal computing needs. Let's put it this way, me personally, if someone said to me you can choose between a 3 TB HDD or a much smaller SSD I would choose the 3TB HDD every time. If you listen to people on this forum you would think that HDDs have suddenly become an antique from another age overnight when nothing could be further from the truth.

Who cares if I have to wait an odd extra second here or there by using a HDD? What am I going to do with the time anyway?
 
Lankyman said:
SSD will only assist you in fast boot times and fast opening of applications etc. Once the app is open then GPU, CPU, RAM grunt is far more important.

It may be you don't have best model for you needs, simple as that.

The internet is a great place for learning but it is also a great place for gossiping and misinformation.
Click to expand...

YOU SAID IT lol... and you should stop misinforming people on the subject of SSDs, since you've never used one.

It really is about your personal computing needs. Let's put it this way, me personally, if someone said to me you can choose between a 3 TB HDD or a much smaller SSD I would choose the 3TB HDD every time. If you listen to people on this forum you would think that HDDs have suddenly become an antique from another age overnight when nothing could be further from the truth.
Click to expand...

If you had noticed, the OP has a 21.5" iMac... which can only take 2.5" drives... so they couldn't fit a 3TB inside it...

Who cares if I have to wait an odd extra second here or there by using a HDD? What am I going to do with the time anyway?
Click to expand...

This is why you need to be quiet about SSDs, because you have ZERO experience with them. SSDs do more than improve boot times and application launch times, they make web browsing faster because the browser cache can be read so much faster than off a hard drive.

Until you've used a Mac with an SSD, you really can't appreciate the improvement it makes.
 
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matreya said:
YOU SAID IT lol... and you should stop misinforming people on the subject of SSDs, since you've never used one.



If you had noticed, the OP has a 21.5" iMac... which can only take 2.5" drives... so they couldn't fit a 3TB inside it...



This is why you need to be quiet about SSDs, because you have ZERO experience with them. SSDs do more than improve boot times and application launch times, they make web browsing faster because the browser cache can be read so much faster than off a hard drive.

Until you've used a Mac with an SSD, you really can't appreciate the improvement it makes.
Click to expand...

Big deal, I've never drunk poison but know it's not good for you. So your mantra is unless you have something or done something you can't have an opinion is that it?
Look, most of us would not shut down a iMac but use sleep mode, so boot times are of little consequence. My dock icons bounce once then they are open, that for me and lots of other consumers is way fast enough.
Perhaps it is you that should look at not encouraging people to spend in many cases lots of unnessary cash. :eek:
 
Lankyman said:
Perhaps it is you that should look at not encouraging people to spend in many cases lots of unnessary cash. :eek:
Click to expand...

Spoken like someone with ZERO experience. The difference between a 5400 RPM system drive and an SSD is staggering, but as you've already established in other posts, you're not a demanding user, you dawdle on your iMac, typing with two fingers... listening to your grandfather clock as you read a book...

The premise of this thread is the OP wants an SSD to speed up his iMac.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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Lankyman said:
Look, most of us would not shut down a iMac but use sleep mode, so boot times are of little consequence. My dock icons bounce once then they are open, that for me and lots of other consumers is way fast enough.
Perhaps it is you that should look at not encouraging people to spend in many cases lots of unnessary cash. :eek:
Click to expand...

Prove it that most of us sleep our iMacs.

I don't. I shut down all of them every night.
 
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