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Question about iMac late 2013 HDD

matt9013

matt9013

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2013
333
16
I have a 21.5 inch Imac late 2013 model. I was wondering, if the HDD ever dies does Apple replace it with a new one I purchase (for a fee of course)? Or do I just get an external drive and use that?

Never owned an Imac before. Also does secure empty trash damage the drive if I do it a lot?

Thanks
 
matt9013 said:
I have a 21.5 inch Imac late 2013 model. I was wondering, if the HDD ever dies does Apple replace it with a new one I purchase (for a fee of course)? Or do I just get an external drive and use that?

Never owned an Imac before. Also does secure empty trash damage the drive if I do it a lot?

Thanks
Click to expand...

If it dies during the warranty period, Apple will replace it for free, you don't have to buy one of your own.

In the meantime, you can create a bootable OS X external drive for contingencies such as this.

I went pure SSDs in all my Macs to avoid the chances of drive failures.
 
matt9013 said:
I have a 21.5 inch Imac late 2013 model. I was wondering, if the HDD ever dies does Apple replace it with a new one I purchase (for a fee of course)? Or do I just get an external drive and use that?

Never owned an Imac before. Also does secure empty trash damage the drive if I do it a lot?

Thanks
Click to expand...

If it fails during the warranty period Apple will replace it with a new one for free, but many of them will fail afterward requiring some DIY work to replace (or they will replace it for a fee). If you have Applecare that's still a few years in the future and you don't need to worry right now.

Secure Empty Trash writes 0s over blocks of data rather than just flagging it to be written over. It may put slightly more stress/wear on the HDD if used often and with large amounts of data, but for the most part it should be perfectly safe.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies. Will an external HDD be fine for when this one finally does bite the dust? I had my last HDD fail after 4-5 years on my macbook so I'm not expecting this one to die anytime soon.
 
matt9013 said:
Thanks for the replies. Will an external HDD be fine for when this one finally does bite the dust? I had my last HDD fail after 4-5 years on my macbook so I'm not expecting this one to die anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Yes, it will work just fine, but a Thunderbolt SSD would work even better :D
 
yjchua95 said:
Just curious though, why didn't you buy an SSD equipped iMac from the start?
Click to expand...
The model I got was on sale and didn't include the SSD drive. Plus in truth I have no clue what the difference is between a regular drive and an SSD one.
 
matt9013 said:
The model I got was on sale and didn't include the SSD drive. Plus in truth I have no clue what the difference is between a regular drive and an SSD one.
Click to expand...

An SSD Macs starts up in just 8 seconds.

Normal 5400rpm HDD reads and writes: Between 70-80 MB/s.

256GB SSD reads: 720 MB/s
256GB SSD writes: 670 MB/s.

So it's magnitudes faster on an SSD.

An SSD also has no moving parts, greatly reducing the chance of drive failure.
 
yjchua95 said:
An SSD Macs starts up in just 8 seconds.

Normal 5400rpm HDD reads and writes: Between 70-80 MB/s.

256GB SSD reads: 720 MB/s
256GB SSD writes: 670 MB/s.

So it's magnitudes faster on an SSD.

An SSD also has no moving parts, greatly reducing the chance of drive failure.
Click to expand...
Wow, that's awesome. Will stick with SSD drives in the future than.
 
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