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whenpaulsparks

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 5, 2004
210
1
Tallahassee, FL
Hello all, i'm an experienced mac user that is trying to determine if something is possible before prying open it's lovely case :) i'm also experienced with computer hardware.

i have a 20" iMac G5 with isight, and i was wondering if anyone else has upgraded the hard drive on it. mine currently is a 250 GB drive, and i want to put a 500 GB in it. i know that it is serial ATA, and i've seen the disassembly pics but they aren't very high quality.

1. does it use a normal serial ATA drive?
2. does it use normal power and data connectors, i.e. would i need to buy anything else?
3. does it use a certain drive height to fit in the case, i.e. would a 500 GB drive fit?

i know that i could use a firewire or usb 2.0 drive, and i have a 250 GB external one, but the speeds aren't fast enough for me. oh how i wish it had an eSATA connector!

also, i have a black macbook. i upgraded the memory to 2 GB right after i got it (the 2 GB upgrade from apple is something ridiculous like $450, and i got two 1GB DDR2-667 sticks for it from compusa for $240 shipped, and it came in 2 days... the memory upgrade is worth it since the graphics use the system RAM!). but i also know very little about serial ATA notebook drives, since i think they are relatively new. do they all use the same connector? also, is there a 160 GB drive on the market? i keep looking for them, and i hear they exist, but i can't find any.

thanks for any help.
 
My advice for prying open the Rev. C and beyond iMacs is, DON'T. The only really easily user upgradeable iMac was the Rev. A/B iMac G5. You could do the RAM, hard drive, and optical drive with just a screw driver and the instructions.
 
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