Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Replace broken iMac 27" / 5k Blade SSD by NVME drive?

D

DN667

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 24, 2009
28
1
Hello all,

The (Apple original) blade SSD in my late 2017 27" Retina 5k iMac has died a while back. Since then I've been running off a USB3 / Thunderbolt drive. While this works, I want to get back to an internal drive to replace my broken Apple blade SSD.

I've looked around the interwebs and found that many people have placed NVME SSD's in their older iMacs and / or to replace Fusion drives, but I haven't found any useable info on how to get a generic (WD, Samsung, Seagate etc.) NVME drive to work in an iMac. I'm hoping to get some answers here :).

What SSD (brand, type) would be advisable? Compatibility and stability matter most to me, performance and cost matter less. Would I need some kind of convertor to get a generic SSD to work in my iMac or will any generic NVME drive work without a convertor?

Thanks :)
 
DN667 said:
Hello all,

The (Apple original) blade SSD in my late 2017 27" Retina 5k iMac has died a while back. Since then I've been running off a USB3 / Thunderbolt drive. While this works, I want to get back to an internal drive to replace my broken Apple blade SSD.

I've looked around the interwebs and found that many people have placed NVME SSD's in their older iMacs and / or to replace Fusion drives, but I haven't found any useable info on how to get a generic (WD, Samsung, Seagate etc.) NVME drive to work in an iMac. I'm hoping to get some answers here :).

What SSD (brand, type) would be advisable? Compatibility and stability matter most to me, performance and cost matter less. Would I need some kind of convertor to get a generic SSD to work in my iMac or will any generic NVME drive work without a convertor?

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
One question you have to answer for yourself is, is it worth it to you to invest around $350 for parts in upgrading a 7 year old machine, that no longer receives macOS updates? That's assuming that you do the work yourself as if you have to pay someone to do it, it would be significantly more. It's not an easy task, as you have to disassemble the entire machine. Also, in removing or replacing the screen, if you are not EXTREMELY careful, you can crack it and then it may cost another $500 for a replacement. That said, several years ago I upgraded 2 of the 2017 iMacs myself and this change works great.

If you're going ahead with this, here's the adapter you need from to fit an NVME SSD from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CWWAENG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Note that it says for 2015 Macbook, but works fine for the 2017 iMac.

You'll need a NVME SSD to put in it. I used this 1 TB Samsung SSD with no problems. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BN217QG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

If you need to replace the spinning hard drive with an SSD, you'll need a mounting adapter like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UN550AC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 and then use the SSD of your choice. I used this Samsung one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078DPCY3T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 but I believe any one will work.

Don't forget to get the tape to put back the screen. There are many stories of aftermarket ones that fail, but I've used this one from Ebay that purports to be OEM. In any case, it works. https://www.ebay.com/itm/332439433589 .
Good luck with whatever you decide.
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Like
Reactions: doriente and Andrey84
Thanks for the info, I'll read through it later tonight.

As for the question wether it's worth to invest in an older machine...? Well to me it is. This iMac is my daily driver and fits all my current needs. I'm not afraid to replace the parts myself, I've actually replaced the PSU about a year back and found this to be quite easy... the best tip I'd give anyone is not to hurry through this.

FYI I'm looking into buying a mini + studio display, but I still want to repair my iMac. It's still pretty fast, as I maxed it out back in 2017.

Last but not least... software support is a thing for sure, however, it runs Ventura just great and that version of MacOS will receive updates for a number of years from now. And there's always the option to use backported versions of MacOS. For me, that'll do..!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Andrey84
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back