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iMac AL 24" Hard Drive Swap - Pics/Procedure inside
- Thread starter Tom Sawyer
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Hello, I just replaced the OEM drive (in my case it as a Toshiba drive) with a WD Velociraptor, 10.000 RPM and much faster!
Thank you all for the excelent info on how to do it, see my results below
Regards,
Bart
Very nice upgrade! The VR is a great choice.. you may want to look at SMCFanControl, you can bump up the fan RPMS just a little bit and keep the temperatures at lower levels without creating too much noise. That VR will run much hotter than the stock drive.
Glad the guide came in handy!
Enjoy!Very nice upgrade! The VR is a great choice.. you may want to look at SMCFanControl, you can bump up the fan RPMS just a little bit and keep the temperatures at lower levels without creating too much noise. That VR will run much hotter than the stock drive.
Glad the guide came in handy!
Hi Tom, thanks for the tip, I was wondering if this would be a problem, but to my surprise, it runs more quiet, and also cooler than the OEM drive. I guess is because it is enclosed within a 3.5" IcePack that looks like a big heatsink. It's a 2.5", 300Gb drive that is mounted into this heatsink and normal temperature is in between 35º and never higher than 50º
I started using Mac OS X in a PC, and bought this drive for a Quad-Core PC, and was glad to be able to install it on my new iMac, performance is almost twice as with the original HDD.
I can tell, it's worth every penny I spent on it!
If I ever purchase a Mac Pro, I'll purchase another VR and use them in RAID-0
Thanks again for the great info, I spent 2 weeks trying to figure out how to open this beautiful iMac to install my VR... I asked the Mac Store where I purchased it, but they just ignored me...
Keep up the great work,
Bart
Replace hard disk in imac
great post.
LOL... truly you never know about those kinds of things till you get into it. I have a 5 driver size torx set but they are the common sizes for computer applications so it worked out. I mulled this over for a few days before I decided to go for it.
great post.
An SSD would be fantastic in it; I have a single 80gb X25-M in my Mac Pro and the speed is unreal. I've had Raid 0 VelociRaptors that were nowhere the speed of this single drive... it's impressive.
In another year I expect that 256gb SSD's will be down to the $300 level.
Is there any chance you can please replace all your image tags with TIMG? This way, they won't be so huge on the forum page, and you'll still be able to click and get the full ones. They're just overwhelming my poor little work computer's real estate!
I agree.
http://www.computerstar.ca/
Not as scary as you quoting the entire, really big post full of really big images that's just above your reply!
TomSawyer - any chance you can edit your post for tags instead of just [img] ones? Thanks for taking us through the process though... very useful insight![/QUOTE]
I agree with you.
Wow.
Excellent photos and descriptions. Thankfully there are external drives for people like me.
+1 for the external. I run OS X exclusively on external 1.5TB FW800 and the stock 500GB runs bootcamp Win7 for my games. Would love to put the 1.5TB drive inside but Windows can't boot externally and I don't want to partition the 1.5. It's really nice being able to fit everything on that big disk. I even have a second one for backups.
Cheers,
spare OEM drive
are anyone wishing to unload their OEM drive they have pulled out? I have an dead Western Digital 320 GB Drive from 24" Alum 2007, which I am attempting to revive to retrieve data. I know sometime one can swap the PC board (circuit board) from a working unit to get the hard drive working again. However the PC board's revision number and maybe the serial number need to match on both drive. Can any one help out?
My dead hard drive model number is WD3200AAJS-40RYA0, DCM is HHNCHV24HN. The PC board revision number is, PWB2060-701444-003 REV A, The number on the sticker with bar code on the PC board is, 2061-701444-000AE
Thank you for helping
are anyone wishing to unload their OEM drive they have pulled out? I have an dead Western Digital 320 GB Drive from 24" Alum 2007, which I am attempting to revive to retrieve data. I know sometime one can swap the PC board (circuit board) from a working unit to get the hard drive working again. However the PC board's revision number and maybe the serial number need to match on both drive. Can any one help out?
My dead hard drive model number is WD3200AAJS-40RYA0, DCM is HHNCHV24HN. The PC board revision number is, PWB2060-701444-003 REV A, The number on the sticker with bar code on the PC board is, 2061-701444-000AE
Thank you for helping
Tom,
I am about to take the plunge and upgrade my 24" AL IMac's HD in the next few weeks. Although I plan to go a step further since I am now out of warrantee. I will also document it here if you like.
Anywho, I plan to completely remove the hard drive from the case. Adding an ESATA connector, just not sure where yet, going to an external ESATA hard drive enclosure.
I know you're asking... why bother?
My IMac isn't rated for a 64bit Windows OS, but I found out the hard way it can be done, but it takes over the entire HD leaving you with no MAC partition.
(I bought 32bit vista OEM and didn't catch that it had a 64bit disk in the box marked 32bit)
My thought is with ESATA I can have the best of both worlds. Win 7 pro 64bit, and Mac OSX, each in their own ESATA enclosure. I would just have to plug in the right one before I boot up. Unless I can find or make an ESATA A/B switch. I don't see that happening.
Heck I might even add an extra fan over the power supply while I'm at it.
I'm curious what your take is on this project, and if you might have any pointers or suggestions for me.
brian
I am about to take the plunge and upgrade my 24" AL IMac's HD in the next few weeks. Although I plan to go a step further since I am now out of warrantee. I will also document it here if you like.
Anywho, I plan to completely remove the hard drive from the case. Adding an ESATA connector, just not sure where yet, going to an external ESATA hard drive enclosure.
I know you're asking... why bother?
My IMac isn't rated for a 64bit Windows OS, but I found out the hard way it can be done, but it takes over the entire HD leaving you with no MAC partition.
(I bought 32bit vista OEM and didn't catch that it had a 64bit disk in the box marked 32bit)
My thought is with ESATA I can have the best of both worlds. Win 7 pro 64bit, and Mac OSX, each in their own ESATA enclosure. I would just have to plug in the right one before I boot up. Unless I can find or make an ESATA A/B switch. I don't see that happening.
Heck I might even add an extra fan over the power supply while I'm at it.
I'm curious what your take is on this project, and if you might have any pointers or suggestions for me.
brian
This sounds like an adventurous undertaking, right up my alley! I see no reason this would not work, the only thing to keep in mind is that naturally you won't have 'hot swap' capability but since it's only a single drive solution that won't be of concern.
Since you'll be removing the drive completely you'll have plenty of room to cut a hole for the esata port and you could do it using one of the sata to esata adapters which would give you some posts to tighten the connector to the back of the mac with. I'm referring to pieces like this: Sata to eSata atapter You would just need to make sure you found one that had a long enough cable to reach the sata port on the bottom of the main logic board.
Honestly, I think Apple should put two ports in the iMac (specifically for hdd / ssd storage) to give people some options. The 27" iMac could house 2 3.5" drives easily. This is why I now have a Mac Pro as I wanted to be able to have a drive dedicated to 64 bit Windows 7 as well as use an SSD, do raid 0 etc...
Anyway... your biggest challenge will be to keep the shards of metal from getting in the machine should you choose to cut/drill for the eSata adapter.
Good luck with it and definitely post some pics of the mod! This could be useful info for people wanting to add Raid capability to an iMac as well with an external Raid enclosure that has an eSata interface like this one: eSata Raid Enclosure
Tom,
Thank you for the encouragement. Using that type of ESATA connector is just what I had in mind. I'm thinking of putting it smack dab in the middle of where the HD went.
I should have all the parts in time to start the tear down next weekend. I will take pictures and notes on what I did. to post here.
If everything works and goes according to plan, I plan to add this to the mix shortly after. http://www.cooldrive.com/index.php/sahub5muussi.html . My thought is that this hub will keep me from having to plug / unplug the enclosures all the time. I will just have to turn the right one on. I will just need to find out if my IMac's SATA supports Port Multiplying.
Next week I'll have pictures.
Thank you for the encouragement. Using that type of ESATA connector is just what I had in mind. I'm thinking of putting it smack dab in the middle of where the HD went.
I should have all the parts in time to start the tear down next weekend. I will take pictures and notes on what I did. to post here.
If everything works and goes according to plan, I plan to add this to the mix shortly after. http://www.cooldrive.com/index.php/sahub5muussi.html . My thought is that this hub will keep me from having to plug / unplug the enclosures all the time. I will just have to turn the right one on. I will just need to find out if my IMac's SATA supports Port Multiplying.
Next week I'll have pictures.
Ok sorry but my camera died on me. but I was able to do the upgrade. and it went fine. no problems. I cut a nice neat hole for the ESATA connector to mount to about in the middle of where the HD went, connected via a male SATA to ESATA connector.I now have 2 external HDs with 1 ESATA cable that I switch depending on which OS I want to use. very easy and neat.
Mad Props to Tom for the great tutorial at the beginning of this thread.
Mad Props to Tom for the great tutorial at the beginning of this thread.
Bummer on the camera but congrats on the upgrade! Putting the HD externally really does open up some cool options. I'd have a hard time resisting the urge for doing a nice little raid 0 enclosure for speed! Well, enjoy and thanks for the kind comments, greatly appreciated. I'm glad this little how to can still help... hard to believe I did this back in '07!!
I forgot.
Is there a screw placement guide/map/service manual/take apart/disassembly guide thingy?
Fantastic post, bookmarked and will be extremely useful for me.
My 8.1iMac 24" with its stock 320GB hardrive is almost full now and system performance has slowed considerably.
I plan to purchase a new internal harddrive to update, what harddrive do people recommend these days for a 1TB drive that will fit correctly into my iMac ?
Speed and reliability are a must. I do like WD products, had bad experiences with Maxtor in the past...
My 8.1iMac 24" with its stock 320GB hardrive is almost full now and system performance has slowed considerably.
I plan to purchase a new internal harddrive to update, what harddrive do people recommend these days for a 1TB drive that will fit correctly into my iMac ?
Speed and reliability are a must. I do like WD products, had bad experiences with Maxtor in the past...
Awesome, glad to hear it. I have a reformatted version on my web site at www.octomac.com Haven't done much with the site in a while but the article is still there, a bit easier to print etc.
That said... You'll be good to go with any 1tb HD I'd say, beyond the brand preference etc. As long as it's a 3.5" SATA drive your good. The WD Black is still a fantastic drive, very quick, quiet and reliable.
Best of luck!
Thanks again,
I was looking at this WD drive, hopefully this one will work on my i8.1 24"
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Black-WD1001FALS/dp/B001C271MA/ref=sr_1_12?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1287638420&sr=1-12
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That's the one... will work like a champ! Enjoy!
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great guide!!
I'll be doing the swap hopefully this week - thanks for the great tutorial!
Replacing with a 1G Seagate Barracuda cause my original drive is failing.
The Apple guy at Micro Center said this isn't possible cause the fan sensor is on the original drive, so it MUST be replaced with the same drive. - yeah, right!
I'll be doing the swap hopefully this week - thanks for the great tutorial!
Replacing with a 1G Seagate Barracuda cause my original drive is failing.
The Apple guy at Micro Center said this isn't possible cause the fan sensor is on the original drive, so it MUST be replaced with the same drive. - yeah, right!
Tom,
Thank you for this amazing guide!
I'm going to take the plunge and upgrade my harddrive because I'm looking for performance gains.
Oh, I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on my situation and whether or not I'll get the performance gains I'm looking for.
Right now I'm running Adobe Bridge, the newest version, on my iMac with 4GB of ram. The cache for Bridge is stored on an external harddrive (Drobo using a FW800).
Now, the issue I've noticed is that when in Adobe Camera Raw, I adjust say the tint by pressing the up arrow key, it seems slow. IE. if I hit the up arrow key multiple times as fast I can the numbers aren't changing as quickly as I press.
Also, I would like it to render previews, thumbnails faster. Or when I use the slider to adjust the tint the changes aren't instantaneous
Would upgrading my internal harddrive and moving my cache to that drive yield me significant performance gains or are there other factors at play? Perhaps optimization of the software in the snow leopard operating system?
Thanks for your help!
Thank you for this amazing guide!
I'm going to take the plunge and upgrade my harddrive because I'm looking for performance gains.
Oh, I don't mean to hijack the thread but I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on my situation and whether or not I'll get the performance gains I'm looking for.
Right now I'm running Adobe Bridge, the newest version, on my iMac with 4GB of ram. The cache for Bridge is stored on an external harddrive (Drobo using a FW800).
Now, the issue I've noticed is that when in Adobe Camera Raw, I adjust say the tint by pressing the up arrow key, it seems slow. IE. if I hit the up arrow key multiple times as fast I can the numbers aren't changing as quickly as I press.
Also, I would like it to render previews, thumbnails faster. Or when I use the slider to adjust the tint the changes aren't instantaneous
Would upgrading my internal harddrive and moving my cache to that drive yield me significant performance gains or are there other factors at play? Perhaps optimization of the software in the snow leopard operating system?
Thanks for your help!