iMac 27 2010 vs 2011 motherboard

[lbe]

Can I replace the motherboard in my 2010 width a motherboard from a 2011?
The reason for this is to get faster SSD access going from SATA II to SATA III
Is this "plug and play"?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Can I replace the motherboard in my 2010 width a motherboard from a 2011?
The reason for this is to get faster SSD access going from SATA II to SATA III
Is this "plug and play"?

That would be "plug and throw away".
Wanna get faster SSD access? Try RAID 0 on 2 SSDs in the iMac 2010.

 

[lbe]

Do you have a suggestion for what to buy for that RAID 0 solution?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Do you have a suggestion for what to buy for that RAID 0 solution?

- 02 SSDs of the same size and model/maker
- 01 SATA power + data combo cable (tailor made for iMac A1312); or 01 SATA power splitter + 1 SATA data cable
- 01 3.5" to 2x 2.5" adapter (to install 2 SSDs to the place of the HDD.)

RAID mode can be set in Disk Utility.

Some more info in the link below: (what and where to buy)

Blade style (NVME or SATA) SSD in 2011 iMac 27"

Just to encourage you. See the below links for the parts I mentioned above. https://aliexpress.com/item/32989402139.html https://aliexpress.com/item/32594880899.html https://www.amazon.com/SILVERSTONE-SDP08-3-5-2-5-Inch-Converter/dp/B002BH3Z8E

forums.macrumors.com

 

[passatgt]

I did a test with Raid-0 a while ago:

The system is a 2010 21.5" base model iMac, i3, 4GB ram and the original GPU with High Sierra and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Here are my results:

Storage device	Port	Write	Read
500GB HDD	Sata 0	80.5 MB/s	104.2 MB/s
240GB MX500 SSD	Sata 0	250 MB/s	267.8 MB/s
240GB MX500 SSD	Sata 1	242.2 MB/s	260.5 MB/s
240GB MX500 SSD	Raid 0(Sata0+Sata1)	450.2 MB/s	503.5 MB/s

So, in short, it works almost twice as fast in Raid-0 as expected. I also tried with Trim enabled but the results were the same for all tests.

For my second SSD, i replaced the ODD drive with an optibay. Cheap and no cable/mounting hardware required.

 

[lbe]

I did a test with Raid-0 a while ago:

For my second SSD, i replaced the ODD drive with an optibay. Cheap and no cable/mounting hardware required.

Thanks. Where can i get an optibay? How to configure the Raid 0 after installing the second SSD?

 

[passatgt]

Thanks. Where can i get an optibay? How to configure the Raid 0 after installing the second SSD?

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20210611045613&SearchText=optibay

To setup, Disk Utility -> File -> RAID Assistant and just follow the instructions. Obviously you want to do this during a clean install.