Late 2013 21.5 iMac HDD upgrade question

[vyruzreaper]

All,

I have a base late 2013 21.5 iMac and the stock 5400RPM HDD is a dog. I recently snagged a a great deal on a 500GB Samsung EVO 850 SSD. I want to throw that sucker in there. So my questions are:

• What type of 2.5/3.5 conversion kit do I need? Just the brackets or additional wires?
• Will I have a problem with the thermal sensor for running the fans? I see that OWC sells these for the 2011 iMac but no mention of it being a problem for the late 2013 models.
• Any additional tools or information I need to know of?

I understand the risk and pita to tear these apart. ifixit has me covered and I'd be doing it with someone that has done this sort of thing before. I thought about slapping the SSD into an enclosure and running it through TB/USB3.0 but want a clean setup. Anyone want to convince me otherwise?

 

[DeltaMac]

The spinning hard drive in your 21.5 iMac is a 2.5-inch hard drive (laptop size), so no 2.5-3.5 adapter is needed.

 

[hfg]

Taking apart a current iMac is not for the average user ... plus it will probably void any warranty you may still have.

I would put your 850EVO SSD into a bus powered enclosure and stick it on the back of the iMac stand out of sight. I prefer using Thunderbolt enclosures for this (LaCie "Rugged" refurbished 1TB disks are $80 and easy to swap the hard disk for your SSD. You can sell or repurpose the removed 1TB hard disk). Use the iMac internal hard disk for backup and/or archive data (music, videos, etc.) which don't benefit from any speed. You could also use a cheaper USB 3.0 enclosure with UASP available for $20-30 if you desire.

 

[vyruzreaper]

The spinning hard drive in your 21.5 iMac is a 2.5-inch hard drive (laptop size), so no 2.5-3.5 adapter is needed.

Awesome, thanks. just checked and you're right

 

[vyruzreaper]

Taking apart a current iMac is not for the average user ... plus it will probably void any warranty you may still have.

I would put your 850EVO SSD into a bus powered enclosure and stick it on the back of the iMac stand out of sight. I prefer using Thunderbolt enclosures for this (LaCie "Rugged" refurbished 1TB disks are $80 and easy to swap the hard disk for your SSD. You can sell or repurpose the removed 1TB hard disk). Use the iMac internal hard disk for backup and/or archive data (music, videos, etc.) which don't benefit from any speed. You could also use a cheaper USB 3.0 enclosure with UASP available for $20-30 if you desire.

$80 for a TB enclosure is money. I would rather put that towards a professional installer haha.

I am way past my warranty period, so not too worried about that.

 

[vyruzreaper]

The spinning hard drive in your 21.5 iMac is a 2.5-inch hard drive (laptop size), so no 2.5-3.5 adapter is needed.

Also, any ideas on fan problems and additional connectors I would need?

 

[vyruzreaper]

So I went with a USB UASP 3.0 enclosure. I am getting speeds of 380/420 - those are great but a little under what is advertised.

However, I am getting random reboots. Anyone else experience something like this?