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On the iMac 5k, can you replace the fusion drive with your own SSD?
- Thread starter letsudo
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You can swap the SATA3 spinner for an SSD. Easier than those who ordered pure SSD as Fusion iMacs comes with SATA cables. You'll need to find Apple PCIE SSDs on eBay as Apple uses proprietary connectors from 2013. OWC's newest blade SSD should work, but it's slower than Apple ones.
I took a Seagate 2.5" external USB 3.0 drive, threw in a crucial 512GB SSD I picked up on Newegg for $190, and loaded OS/X.
Then set OS/X to boot from it.
It was a bit more responsive than the fusion drive.
But if you're still interested in DIY internal replacement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLJN4S5nJ6E
Then set OS/X to boot from it.
It was a bit more responsive than the fusion drive.
But if you're still interested in DIY internal replacement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLJN4S5nJ6E
This is slightly off topic, but this is no small DIY job.
I went down this path on my 2011 iMac thinking I'd save some serious money (SSDs were $$$ back then). After doing loads of research, in the end I strapped a thunderbolt external drive with SSD inside to the back of the Mac and booted off that.
Putting aside the 50 screws you have to remove just to get inside the Mac, there were just too many little annoying issues (e.g. hard drive fans spinning to full when using third party drives hence needing a special cable or software to get around it). These things all added up and made the whole project not worthwhile (considering I needed 100% reliability on the machine).
I'm not sure where the 5K iMac is at, but knowing Apple is becoming more proprietary with hardware connectors, there is a higher chance for unforeseen annoying issues when attempting such DIY projects.
I went down this path on my 2011 iMac thinking I'd save some serious money (SSDs were $$$ back then). After doing loads of research, in the end I strapped a thunderbolt external drive with SSD inside to the back of the Mac and booted off that.
Putting aside the 50 screws you have to remove just to get inside the Mac, there were just too many little annoying issues (e.g. hard drive fans spinning to full when using third party drives hence needing a special cable or software to get around it). These things all added up and made the whole project not worthwhile (considering I needed 100% reliability on the machine).
I'm not sure where the 5K iMac is at, but knowing Apple is becoming more proprietary with hardware connectors, there is a higher chance for unforeseen annoying issues when attempting such DIY projects.
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