iMac 2013 fusion drive failure - how to proceed?

[wim.v]

So the spinning part of my 3T Fusion drive failed.

My iMac is a late 2013 27"
3,5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB

I've split-up the Fusion drive a month ago and now I only use the 128 GB blade drive.
I don't have any hardware related issues anymore and my iMac runs smooth again but 128 GB of storage space is not enough for me, my wife and 2 kids.
After installing the applications I need for work there's only 30GB of storage left so now I'm looking for upgrades regarding the hard drive and I have some questions.

At first glance OWC's solutions seem the way to go because you get all the tools necessary to complete the upgrade

OWC SSD Upgrade Package for 2012-2017 iMacs, Mercury Electra 1.0TB 6G SSD Express 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure, Installation Tools and iMac Screen Tape Set, (K21IM12HE1TB)

International products have separate terms, are sold from abroad and may differ from local products, including fit, age ratings, and language of product, labeling or instructions.

www.amazon.de

1) This package on Amazon does not include a thermal sensor. I read it is not needed anymore. No more spinning fans recently after ssd upgrades?

2) Is the price difference for the OWC extreme pro 6G worth it compared to the mercury electra 6G for a 2013 iMac model?

3) Do I need to buy an adapter bracket for the OWC disk?

4) Is there a good reason to buy a blade drive over the ssd drive mentioned earlier?

5) Are external USB3 / thunderbolt drives cheaper and do they have the same performance? I also read something about ssd TRIM issues.

The last thing I would like to say is that I'm searching for a cheap and reliable solution. I would like to have the same performance compared to what I have now with the 128 GB blade drive and 1TB in storage space will be sufficient. I'm not afraid of opening up my machine. The instruction videos seem straight forward.

 

[B.A.T]

I own the same machine. My fusion drive died years ago and I took my iMac to a shop and had two SSD drives installed internally giving me 1TB of storage. I bought everything from OWC and had them do the install because I didn't want to open up my iMac. It's worked great for about three years now and I am using this iMac until she dies.

 

[George Dawes]

I’ve had 2 fusion drives fail , never again

 

[Fishrrman]

There was a run of bad Seagate 3tb HDDs in the 2013 iMacs. I recall that Apple had a free replacement program for them at one time, but I'm sure that's ended by now.

I wouldn't spend a lot of money on a Mac that's now 8 years old.

If it was me, I'd leave the 3tb HDD "dead, but in-place", and add an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD to supplement the internal 128 boot SSD. Faster, easier, and perhaps cheaper as well.

 

[4sallypat]

On my sluggish 2013 iMac (retired) and 2019 iMac (current), I have been using an external bootable Thunderbolt LaCie SSD which speeds up the iMac like an SSD Mac should be.

When I get the new M1 iMac, I will be able to not have it boot from, but rather it will be an external storage device (using the Apple TB3-2 adapter dongle)....

 

[wim.v]

There was a run of bad Seagate 3tb HDDs in the 2013 iMacs. I recall that Apple had a free replacement program for them at one time, but I'm sure that's ended by now.

indeed

After 24h of reading I decided to buy an external SSD. The Samsung T5 for €109.

The original 128GB internal blade drive I'm now using has 600MB/s read and 300MB/s write speeds.
The T5 should have approximately 500MB/s read and write speeds. Hopefully I will not notice the small difference in performance.

My wife and kids use the computer for school (microsoft office). I mostly use Adobe CC.

I'm planning to use the computer for at least two more years!

 

[dcmaccam]

I have a 2019 iMac with fusion drive which I only bought about 5 months ago. I decided on a Thunderbolt Samsung X5 500gb SSD drive to speed up the machine a little. This gives me arond 1600MB/s write and 2500MB/s read. It cost me in the UK £173. I have it attached using cable ties to my iMac stand at the rear. If when space requires I can open the drive case and replace the 500GB with a larger unit. I just restored a backup of my fusion drive on the X5 and set that as the boot drive. I also unmounted the Fusion drive and as I rarely reboot or switch off my machine it stays unmounted. However it is remounted on reboot or power off. I have a 1TB SSD drive I use for data.

Now I have another WD 750 Black 500GB NVME drive that I plan to use in cheap Usb 3.1 gen2 enclosure. I am going to use this as a data drive to replace the Lacie drive. This setup gives me just over 900MB/s read/write as opposed to the Lacie 450GB/s read/write. If I can get a cheap Thunderbolt case I may swap the NVME into that.

 

[mw360]

I’ve had a 2013 iMac sitting on the floor for a couple of years since the (I assumed) the HDD part for the Fusion drive died. I couldn’t get it running on just the SSD part alone. Is there some process needed to get that going, or should it just work?

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

If it boots use the following to split the Fusion.

How to Delete or Split Your Mac's Fusion Drive

Fusion drives on a Mac can be deleted, split apart into their individual drive components. Apple doesn't allow Disk Utility to split a Fusion drive.

www.lifewire.com