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Just installed custom SSD as second disk in 2010 iMac 27"

lothar250 said:
That's quite ballsy, sending your device to Apple with those obvious modifications ;). I thought Apple was pretty strict about that kind of stuff. But it just didn't catch their attention. I figure an SSD stuck somewhere behind cables is more easily identifiable as a diy installation..
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I can confirm that I have done the same in virtually the same circumstances. Ultimately, the technicians just don't care. They would do the same to their own computers! They are not Apple-Agents doing Apple's bidding! I agree that the warranty issue is always overblown, esp on mac sites. Bizzarely many mac users don't seem to question the 'old wives tale' of warranty invalidation!
 
symbology said:
So, you cannot add memory?

Is it ok to put an SSD in a Mac Pro?

Get over this warranty nonsense. Just because it is not as straight forward of an install as with a Mac Pro, does not mean that you cannot open up and add an SSD to your iMac.

If you are not breaking any "warranty void" seals, you are not removing anything that should not be removed.

If you damage your iMac while working on it, it is your own fault.

Say you have a new car and you change your own oil and oil filter. When it comes time to put the drain plug bag in you over torque it and strip the threads. Should this be fixed under warranty? No. However, because you screwed up the oil drain plug does that mean that your transmission is no longer covered under warranty? Or your car's electrical system? Come on........... Common sense people............

If you are inexperienced with working on computers maybe this frightens you and that is fine. Maybe you don't want to work on your car either. That is fine. But stop with the nonsense.
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Thanks. Love the analogy. It seems like nearly every thread turns into a warranty scare. ;)
 
dogtanian said:
I can confirm that I have done the same in virtually the same circumstances. Ultimately, the technicians just don't care. They would do the same to their own computers! They are not Apple-Agents doing Apple's bidding! I agree that the warranty issue is always overblown, esp on mac sites. Bizzarely many mac users don't seem to question the 'old wives tale' of warranty invalidation!
Click to expand...

Well, it seems reasonable to me, that Apple would invalidate your warranty whenever they can.

What else would they do? Just say that they won't repair it because you modded it, and then send it back to you so you could go to another repair shop and try again?
 
newdeal said:
Hopefully your sand force drives last longer than mine did or you will be going into that case every few weeks to put in a replacement
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In addition to the OP's link:

businesswire.com

I am biased though, as I just bought a 240GB Corsair Force SSD to install in my on-route 27" iMac. Fingers crossed.
 
Nutter said:
And yes, you'll need to short the temperature cable to keep the HD fan at its minimum speed. This is easier than it sounds though, a paperclip and some tape should do it.
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Hi Nutter, thanks for your posts they got me going with my own SSD install nicely.
Can you elaborate on this more? It sounds to me like you have put a piece of metal onto 2 connectors, making them short. Why did you do this? Do you have the original article I can read or look at (hopefully) for when I'm doing it.

Here's a nice picture, if you can point it out that would help.
mid10imac-takeapart_lg.jpg


Kind regards
 
I've attached a close-up showing where the temperature cable is attached to the stock HD. This cable is used to control the HD fan, but since the SSD you're installing doesn't have a port for this cable you'll need to short the contacts at the end of the cable to keep the fan running at its minimum level (rather than at the maximum). This is perfectly safe as SSDs generate very little heat.

Note that you only need to do this if you're replacing the stock HD with an SSD, not if you're adding an additional SSD.
 

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Hi, Nutter, I'm mid install and can't for the life of me see where you connect the 2 female power cables?
I got the 6 inch ones with 1 male to 2 female. It's not like the Optical power cable which is split into two parts in one connector, it simply has 15 pins. Where on earth do you plug them in?

Thanks
 
That tip came right on time - I figured out how to connect the SATA cables, but now face another issue: the temperature sensor cable doesn't fit my Caviar Black - I was going to swap it with the stock Seagate Barracuda, and both HDD's seem to have different jumper pin standards. Anyone a fix? Do I need a different temperature cable? Adapters?

Thanks,

Joe
 
thanks - that did it.
I've got everything done but I'm getting the dreaded HDD fan on full whack constantly.
This makes no sense as I've not replaced the HDD only installed a second drive.
Any suggestions? I'm not eager to get a piece of metal and put it on the other end of the HDD temp cable. If this is the solution though, needs must. Not sure why it would happen though with the HDD being plugged in.
Could it possibly be another one of the sensors? I wasn't 100% on which was which but spent a lot of time making sure I had it right.

- youds
 
Nutter said:
I've attached a close-up showing where the temperature cable is attached to the stock HD. This cable is used to control the HD fan, but since the SSD you're installing doesn't have a port for this cable you'll need to short the contacts at the end of the cable to keep the fan running at its minimum level (rather than at the maximum). This is perfectly safe as SSDs generate very little heat.

Note that you only need to do this if you're replacing the stock HD with an SSD, not if you're adding an additional SSD.
Click to expand...

So if you are adding the SSD as a secondary HD, you do not have to short out the contacts? All that needs to be done is connect the two cables?

Also, any thoughts on the SOLID STATE DISK KINGSTON V-SERIES 128GB? I have it at my job, at a reasonable price too.
 
The.316 said:
So if you are adding the SSD as a secondary HD, you do not have to short out the contacts? All that needs to be done is connect the two cables?

Also, any thoughts on the SOLID STATE DISK KINGSTON V-SERIES 128GB? I have it at my job, at a reasonable price too.
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It was another connector that was plugged into the wrong place. Fixed it.
 
youds said:
It was another connector that was plugged into the wrong place. Fixed it.
Click to expand...

No, I wasnt telling you something, I was actually asking a question lol.

Since the SSD I will be adding would be a second HD, there is no cable/s that need to be short out, correct? Just connect the two cables to the SSD and thats it?
 
youds said:
I've got everything done but I'm getting the dreaded HDD fan on full whack constantly.
Click to expand...

Are you sure you reconnected the temperature cable to the HD after you finished installing the SSD? And, did you reconnect the HD to the same SATA cable it started with, not accidentally switch it round with the new SATA cable?

Don't short the temperature cable if the HD is still there. This is only an acceptable (and necessary) solution when you're replacing the HD with an SSD.
 
Nutter said:
Are you sure you reconnected the temperature cable to the HD after you finished installing the SSD? And, did you reconnect the HD to the same SATA cable it started with, not accidentally switch it round with the new SATA cable?

Don't short the temperature cable if the HD is still there. This is only an acceptable (and necessary) solution when you're replacing the HD with an SSD.
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I'd plugged another temperature cable into the wrong part, I went ahead and removed the entire logic board.
I've posted my expierence with pictures here: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=10918572#post10918572
Or for the full version with close up images, go to http://ssd.youds.com/

Thanks for the help!
 
youds said:
Or for the full version with close up images, go to http://ssd.youds.com/
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Fantastic job posting the info, I really appreciate it!

On a side note how are you guys moving the user folder for a windows 7 installation to a separate disk. I tried a method using junctions but it failed.

To do in OS X seems very straight forward but windows 7 not so.

Cheers.
 
tedus said:
Fantastic job posting the info, I really appreciate it!

On a side note how are you guys moving the user folder for a windows 7 installation to a separate disk. I tried a method using junctions but it failed.

To do in OS X seems very straight forward but windows 7 not so.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

It's been a while, but I believe right-click on the user folder, go to properties. You should be able to change the path there.

Don't quote me on this though, it's been an age since I played around with the Win7 beta.
 
Great thread. Thank you to everyone who has shared their experience. I'm a lot more confident about this now. I don't know what the writer of that "bad news" article was expecting (especially from an imac!), but this looks safer than several modifications I've made in the past.

I have a stock configured i5 on the way and I'm thinking of putting a 60GB ssd in there as system drive straight away.

:) Two stupid questions though...

Does it not matter that I will be plugging the intended system/boot drive in the 'spare' sata port? Shouldn't the drive order of sata1 and sata2 be swapped?

Also, should I make any software preparations before doing this? Or can I just do a fresh osx install on the additional drive once I've put it in?
 
To the OP, I am a computer idiot. But I do like to learn..... What is the advantage for adding the SSD to your iMac? Why do it?

Thanks, Brien.
 
I just finished mine yesterday. Only I used two 40GB Corsair Forces because I'm cheap. Running them on a striped raid.

I almost regret it.


I thought it would be a quick job.

It took me nearly two hours of hurt.

I missed taking out the ram and nearly ruined my whole mac.

Idiot mistake to male and my own fault.

I have built and upgraded Manu machines in the past but these iMacs have a totally different feel to them. There is no room at all inside them.

You are warned. Be careful and don't rush like I did.

However. My 250mbps disk speeds are kind of worth it. I get about 10/11 seconds on the boot time and it just feels so fast.


I wont be doing it again however. Next time I'm just going to get a mac pro. Far more fun.

P.S anybody know the best block size for OS X striped raid?
 
drcreek said:
I just finished mine yesterday. Only I used two 40GB Corsair Forces because I'm cheap. Running them on a striped raid.

I almost regret it.


I thought it would be a quick job.

It took me nearly two hours of hurt.

I missed taking out the ram and nearly ruined my whole mac.

Idiot mistake to male and my own fault.

I have built and upgraded Manu machines in the past but these iMacs have a totally different feel to them. There is no room at all inside them.

You are warned. Be careful and don't rush like I did.

However. My 250mbps disk speeds are kind of worth it. I get about 10/11 seconds on the boot time and it just feels so fast.


I wont be doing it again however. Next time I'm just going to get a mac pro. Far more fun.

P.S anybody know the best block size for OS X striped raid?
Click to expand...

What do you mean you missed taking out the ram?
 
I expect he means that he didn't know to take out the ram before trying to remove the logic board. There is metal casing (with a small slot cut out) between the logic board and the ram port. There is a good chance of breaking something if you were to pull against the connected ram modules that are anchored at the other side.

Thanks for the reminder drcreek. On the bright side, it was very nearly a lot worse and would have been an expensive lesson. I'm glad it turned out ok for you in the end though.

Can anyone shed some light on my two earlier questions?

Does it not matter that I will be plugging the intended system/boot drive in the 'spare' sata port? Shouldn't the drive order of sata1 and sata2 be swapped?

Also, should I make any software preparations before doing this? Or can I just do a fresh osx install on the additional drive once I've put it in? ​
 
As some form of reference for people too scared to open their iMac, I recently bought a 2.5" Firewire 800 enclosure and installed an 80GB Intel X25-M G2 I had lying around into it. According to Xbench I get:

Sequential 87.10
Uncached Write 88.09 54.08 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 93.10 52.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 58.40 17.09 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 149.17 74.97 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 251.49
Uncached Write 153.71 16.27 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 164.26 52.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1552.68 11.00 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 374.87 69.56 MB/sec [256K blocks]

With the small random read/write being around 10-15x faster than the built in HDD and the large sequential read/write being around 40MB/Sec slower due to the Firewire bus. In real terms this translates to:

Boot time: HDD 27 secs SSD 19 secs
Load Word: HDD 9 secs SSD ~1 sec
Load iTunes: HDD 6 secs SSD ~1 sec

Overall responsiveness is much better when performing heavy disk I/O as the one physical disk isn't having to seek all over the place. You would see a benefit here with an external mechanical disk too however.

One thing I have noticed is that the Xbench speeds can be very inconsistent but this doesn't seem to have translated into any noticeable slowdown in use. Will update if anything interesting happens with it.
 
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