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iMac AL 24" Hard Drive Swap - Pics/Procedure inside

KettyKrueger said:
Great guide.

Do Apple do these kinds of upgrades in-store? I wouldn't mind a bigger HDD but don't want to go the external route and doing the upgrade myself gives me a sense of panic!!
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Thanks... most definitely skip trying it yourself if you are not comfortable with the idea. Better to pay someone who is and guarantees the work than risk a mistake and bricking an expensive computer! :eek:

I'm not sure if this procedure would be offered at an Apple store honestly. I would imagine there are authorized dealers out there that might do it, but I'm doubting the Genius crew would offer this kind of upgrade in the store. On the iMac, any invasive type of repairs are usually just sent off to Apple, that has been my experience. Worth a call to see I would think....

Best of luck!
 
Wow, good stuff, I don't think id be too comfy opening an iMac and going along to do this procedure.
 
Great guide. You will not break anything if you follow this. Apple hardware is designed to be very easy to work on---always has been.

Apple Stores won't provide this procedure. They give you a firm no. They tell people to go to an independent Apple repair shop.

It's nice to see that people are breaking Apple's standard "save thy consumer from them self" teaching. :)
 
I encourage you all to do it!

I followed the instructions outlined in the beginning and I replace the 320GB HD in my iMac 24" with a WD 1TB HD.

I must say this was real easy upgrade to do. If you have worked with PCs in the past or are willing to follow the instructions as described I suggest you do it NOW! All you need is suction cup(s), a phillips screw driver, and a torx driver, you'll need about 3 different bits so this should do it (http://www.amazon.com/Husky-Precision-Screwdriver-Kit/dp/B0006JLLMQ)

I called the Apple Store but hey would not upgrade the HD unless the old one failed and Best Buy would not do it. Local Mac repair places wanted $120 because they include data migration which I did not want to do, I wanted a fresh install. I was willing to pay $50-$75 but I guess non of them wanted my money.


--Sam
 
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Just upgraded my stock 320GB to a seagate 1TB. The swap was to easy. I was able to get the HD out without disconnecting the cable to the power inverter, but I had my girlfriend hold the LCD back while I swapped the HDs. Thanks a lot for the helpful info though.

This was easier then swapping out my HD in my non-unibody MBP.
 
chewbaccacabra said:
Anyone put in a 2 TB hard drive yet? :eek:
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Anyone putting anything more than a 750Gb drive in is asking for trouble, and also rather naive. It's best to have multiple externals. Why would you assume that the procedure would be any different, regardless of capacity?.
 
glossywhite said:
Anyone putting anything more than a 750Gb drive in is asking for trouble, and also rather naive.
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Uh, and why is that? I stuck a 1TB drive in my 24" iMac. I don't want to hang a bunch of externals off the machine (the one I already have is enough), and for data I need access to immediately even the 1.5TB NAS over my gigabit network isn't quite fast enough. I've been working with computers for a couple decades now. Am I asking for trouble and being naive? The only thing I can possibly think of is that for some reason you think a 1TB drive is more likely to fail than a 500GB drive...which is not true.

For the record, the most difficult part of replacing the iMac's hard drive was finding a T6 screwdriver! I had a set long ago but misplaced it, and I had to go to three stores before I found one that small.
 
rogersmj said:
Uh, and why is that? I stuck a 1TB drive in my 24" iMac. I don't want to hang a bunch of externals off the machine (the one I already have is enough), and for data I need access to immediately even the 1.5TB NAS over my gigabit network isn't quite fast enough. I've been working with computers for a couple decades now. Am I asking for trouble and being naive? The only thing I can possibly think of is that for some reason you think a 1TB drive is more likely to fail than a 500GB drive...which is not true.

For the record, the most difficult part of replacing the iMac's hard drive was finding a T6 screwdriver! I had a set long ago but misplaced it, and I had to go to three stores before I found one that small.
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Most likely more concerned with putting all ones eggs in a single LARGE basket. 120GB or 1TB, backups are a must.

Cheers,
 
panzer06 said:
Most likely more concerned with putting all ones eggs in a single LARGE basket. 120GB or 1TB, backups are a must.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Oh absolutely, I agree. I just don't see how that has any bearing on what size hard drive you put in the machine...it can still fail, you should still back it up. Go for the biggest one you can, just make sure no matter what it is, it's backed up!

I use the external drive on my iMac to backup critical files locally, in addition to *everything* being backed up remotely on BackBlaze.
 
glossywhite said:
Anyone putting anything more than a 750Gb drive in is asking for trouble, and also rather naive. It's best to have multiple externals. Why would you assume that the procedure would be any different, regardless of capacity?.
Click to expand...

Just wondered if it had been done, man.

I'm looking for a storage solution for media (handbraked movies and itunes) and photos (scanned family pics that I am behind on as well as current digital photos.) Most scared of getting dust in between the glass and LCD than anything else. I am just hitting the wall with my 500 GB drive (07 2.8 AL 24").

Whatever I put in my imac I would certainly Time Machine it. Maybe I will get a 1TB WD mirror edition. and that will hold me over until I find something better.
 
I too replaced my iMac's HDD to an 1.5TB .
This is my second iMac which i'm upgrading the hard drive and everything went OK!!


The toughest part is to connect back the power cable to the psu .
 
rogersmj said:
Oh absolutely, I agree. I just don't see how that has any bearing on what size hard drive you put in the machine...it can still fail, you should still back it up. Go for the biggest one you can, just make sure no matter what it is, it's backed up!

I use the external drive on my iMac to backup critical files locally, in addition to *everything* being backed up remotely on BackBlaze.
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that, actually, areal density of a 1Tb drive is a great deal higher than most drives... and as for 2Tb :eek: I would never consider that. Anyone knows that a boot drive should be smaller and ONLY for the OS, and you use larger drives internally/externally for storage or rendering; common fact.

So yes, a 1Tb drive IS more likely to die from heat/shock inside your iMac - google if you want, don't take my word for it!.
 
glossywhite said:
Anyone knows that a boot drive should be smaller and ONLY for the OS, and you use larger drives internally/externally for storage or rendering; common fact.
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Perhaps for servers, databases and video processing but for the average user, partitions and external drives are a nuisance (other than for backup). Most people want all their music, movies and documents in a single partition and they don't care about any technical reasons why not to do it. This is true in the Windows world as well. According to our Dell rep, hardly anyone ever orders the additional partition or the second drive even when a PC can fit one.

Cheers,
 
Just complaining about FedEX

Not that this really has anything to do with Apple, but FedEx is horrible. Here my iMac is been sitting 4 miles away from me since Saturday morning. But because my scheduled delivery date is not till tomorrow I can not pick it up. So instead I have to wait till tomorrow, probably wont be home for it, and end up driving out to the FedEx center to pickup a package thats been there for 3 and half days.
 
maj3stic said:
Not that this really has anything to do with Apple, but FedEx is horrible. Here my iMac is been sitting 4 miles away from me since Saturday morning. But because my scheduled delivery date is not till tomorrow I can not pick it up. So instead I have to wait till tomorrow, probably wont be home for it, and end up driving out to the FedEx center to pickup a package thats been there for 3 and half days.
Click to expand...

As they say "you can't fix 'stupid' "
 
Would someone be kind enough!

I just replaced my stock 320 WD hdd with a 1tb Caviar Black 2 days ago, and the speed that i can write now it's incredible.. copy about 2gb file in about 25 seconds, awesome hdd, not loud imo..

But I am a little concerned about the heat that it may produce..

I was hoping that someone with a stock hard drive could take a look at their iStat Pro and look at their temperature and the rpms on your fan...

I didn't check the info b4 i changed it, i wish i would've..

Anyhow, thanks in advance.. :D
 
rgarjr said:
I wonder if Apple will re-design the new iMac models for an easier HD swap out or has this been the case for all iMac models?
Click to expand...

I had the original 20" iMac G5 (rev A) and it was VERY easy to access the internals on that machine. Just unscrew 3 screws on the bottom and the back plate would come right off allowing access to everything. They took 2 steps back with the Aluminum design.
 
I just put a 1TB Samsung drive into my 2009 20" iMac.

It was pretty easy.

biggest differences with the 2009 20" are

1) Hard drive isn't even screwed down. You lift up the black handle and the hard drive pops up and slides out. From this guide I spent some time looking for a way to unscrew the hard drive. My first thought was I up a creek without a paddle. The screws I saw were going to be impossible to get to without taking a hell of a lot of other crap out. But it turns out the screws in the side of the hard drive are just posts with rubber shock absorbers around them.

2) LCD has 4 sets of wires powering each of the backlights in it. You need to disconnect these. This is the 3rd "wire" you have to disconnect from the lcd.



Misc comments:

Glass was surprisingly easy to take off. I read that it was, but it still surprised me. Also the glass is light. I was expecting heavier. It felt more like plastic. I guess it was because it is also thinner than I expected.

The bezel is 12 screws. 4 bottom ones are much longer than the rest which are the same.

Little bit tedious slipping off the bezel. (make sure the RAM cover is off before you do.)

You only need a T6 and T8 torx screwdriver. You could probably get away with just a T8.

iSight camera connector was taped together. I left it connected and just flipped the bezel over.


LCD was 8 screws. Same as old.

Disconnecting the lcd wires wasn't too painful. I ended up lifting up the panel and propping it up with the tops of both hands while I used my pulled apart the 4 sets of wires that power the lcd backlights. The other 2 connections that you need to disconnect were easy.

Worries about dust between glass and lcd are overplayed. Not that you shouldn't use compressed air or (in my case) a small electric air pump to blow the dust off the lcd because it will accumulate while you are working on your iMac, but it will no problem to fix any annoying dust particles trapped in between later because the glass is so easy to pull off.

I bet you could use a 2 pieces of duct or solid packaging tape to pull the glass off even. You might have to wipe the residue off when you finish, but...
 
BulletToothTony said:
I just replaced my stock 320 WD hdd with a 1tb Caviar Black 2 days ago, and the speed that i can write now it's incredible.. copy about 2gb file in about 25 seconds, awesome hdd, not loud imo..

But I am a little concerned about the heat that it may produce..

I was hoping that someone with a stock hard drive could take a look at their iStat Pro and look at their temperature and the rpms on your fan...

I didn't check the info b4 i changed it, i wish i would've..

Anyhow, thanks in advance.. :D
Click to expand...



My temps are around 50C for the hard drive and 1200 rpm for the hard drive fan. This is on the stock 320gb setup.
 
TheDoctah said:
My temps are around 50C for the hard drive and 1200 rpm for the hard drive fan. This is on the stock 320gb setup.
Click to expand...

When I had my iMac, I would run smcFanControl and bumped the speeds up just a tad, made a nice difference on the temperatures and still maintained the quiet nature of the iMac. A cool hard drive is a happy hard drive! :D
 
TheDoctah said:
My temps are around 50C for the hard drive and 1200 rpm for the hard drive fan. This is on the stock 320gb setup.
Click to expand...

Thank you.. my temp was reaching 56 - 58c so i went ahead and brought the fans a tad higher with smcfancontrol.. after playing around with them i put the hdd fan at 2,000 rpm and it keeps it right between 48 - 50c i'm very happy now..

Apperently the Caviar Black does produce a bit more heat.. but the difference in writing speed is incredible.. worth the swap for sure..
 
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