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Replace optical drive on Imac for SSD

K

Keepoffthegrass

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 4, 2012
21
0
Hi,
I have had a good search but i'm yet to find a conclusive answer so i thought i would post a new thread.
I have a 2007 20" imac which is now starting to get quite slow. I was thinking of putting in a small SSD for the OS and having another internal drive for storage.
Is this possible on my machine ?
What accessories would i need to convert the optical bay ?

On a second note does anybody have any recommendations for a plug in external CD/DVD ( possibly Bluray ) drive ?

I am in the UK if that helps.

Many thanks
 
I have that same iMac and recently uppled the ODD out of it. The connection for the ODD is P-ATA and not S-ATA, thus you need to get a P-ATA SSD, or you put the SSD into the HDD slot and get a 2.5" P-ATA HDD for the ODD slot.
I only have the SSD in my HDD slot and use an external Firewire 800 HDD bay with two 1.5 TB HDDs, thus I can not advise you on how to do what you want or even the reverse I "recommended"
 
Looking around i think I'm gonna hit a brick wall with PATA speeds on the SSD.
How fast is the FW enclosure ?
 
Keepoffthegrass said:
Hi,
I have had a good search but i'm yet to find a conclusive answer so i thought i would post a new thread.
I have a 2007 20" imac which is now starting to get quite slow. I was thinking of putting in a small SSD for the OS and having another internal drive for storage.
Is this possible on my machine ?
What accessories would i need to convert the optical bay ?

On a second note does anybody have any recommendations for a plug in external CD/DVD ( possibly Bluray ) drive ?

I am in the UK if that helps.

Many thanks
Click to expand...

Try these guys for the right parts

http://www.thebookyard.com

Relevant discussion here...

http://forums.macnn.com/t/407408/ssd-installation-in-24-inch-imac

Between the PATA optical slot, the 4g RAM maximum, I have to wonder if this is worth spending on a SSD for. Why not consider upgrading to a more recent machine than a 5 year old one, even a second hand one, and get more speed benefits out of this type of upgrade? If the optical slot is PATA, that's quite the speed limit.

Or what about a Seagate Momentus hybrid on the main HDD slot, and use the firewire external for extra large storage needs?
 
simsaladimbamba said:
60 to 70 MB/s.
Click to expand...

That does sound like an option - thank you

----------
CASLondon said:
Try these guys for the right parts

http://www.thebookyard.com

Relevant discussion here...

http://forums.macnn.com/t/407408/ssd-installation-in-24-inch-imac

Between the PATA optical slot, the 4g RAM maximum, I have to wonder if this is worth spending on a SSD for. Why not consider upgrading to a more recent machine than a 5 year old one, even a second hand one, and get more speed benefits out of this type of upgrade? If the optical slot is PATA, that's quite the speed limit.

Or what about a Seagate Momentus hybrid on the main HDD slot, and use the firewire external for extra large storage needs?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links - i will have plough through later at work.
Its not my primary machine - i have RMBP for the fun stuff.
I'm keeping it for itunes library and iphoto library duties mainly so i can stream from it. I do a bit of encoding and surfing - usual kind of stuff.
Its due a storage bump as i'm getting to 800GB of the 1TB HD so i was looking at a fresH install on a quick drive and keeping a slave energy saving drive for storage.
I know what you are saying about a newer one but i dont really need it.
On reflection i could chuck in a small SSD install ML and keep my storage on a bigger FW drive ?
( i do think that the sluggishness is prtly down to iPhoto at the moment but thats a different storey).
 
This makes more sense, I just did my 2009 iMac for the same purpose, home media server/archive. Optical 120 ssd, 3tb in the main slot

I wonder if the sluggishness is related to ram and graphics memory. And, you are right to suspect a large iPhoto library as culprit. Consider using Lyn or some other lighter photo catalog, iPhoto is notorious resource hog.

I still think a momentous in the main slot, FireWire 800 media and maybe going to 6 g ram is better money than an optical sad. Or, if you can afford a 250g ssd or larger, put that in the main slot, run a lean system, and external the media (and switch to Lyn unless you need photo stream over Dropbox)
 
Sorry , just dragging this up from last week.
My new drive schedule needs to come foreward a bit as everything seems to be crapping out a bit too often now and i could do with a fresh install.

Would a permantly attached USB external hard drve be suitable to put my home folder on ?
I am thinking now of SSD inside the iMac with my 1TB external.
Would it be too slow to stream stuff over homeplug to my ATV3 ?

Many thanks
 
Anybody ?

I am just wondering if the USB2 interface has enough bandwith to run my home folder and pump it over Lan to my ATV ?

Sorry if this is a stupid or obvious question .
 
Keepoffthegrass said:
Anybody ?

I am just wondering if the USB2 interface has enough bandwith to run my home folder and pump it over Lan to my ATV ?

Sorry if this is a stupid or obvious question .
Click to expand...

I'd be wary of this working, but I'm not sure. Video to your tv?

Don't you have a Firewire 800 port on this model? Is this yours?

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-2-duo-2.0-20-inch-aluminum-specs.html

I would use an external firewire 800 enclosure for this.
 
Thanks very much for getting back to me buddy,
Yes that is my model and i didnt realise i had a FW800 port ( i have a 800 to 400 converversion cable in there for a very old external )
FW800 seems to have more bandwidth - does it have any more advantages over USB2 ?
Do you have any recommendations for external enclosures ? Everything seems to be based on the USB bus now.

Thanks again
 
Keepoffthegrass said:
... i didnt realise i had a FW800 port ...
FW800 seems to have more bandwidth - does it have any more advantages over USB2 ?
...
Click to expand...

just a point that Firewire always used to have its own dedicated comms chip whilst USB used to have to run its data through the actual CPU , hence slower everything, not just bandwidth consideration?

this bunch www.2ndchancepc.co.uk/ex-hdd.html (who I've never dealt with so have no suggestions about them) have an interesting £60 Macally G-S350SUA (USB 2.0/FireWire/SATA case for 3.5" SATA HDD) but I'm not sure if that's a good deal - check scan.co.uk also?
 
Keepoffthegrass said:
Thanks very much for getting back to me buddy,
Yes that is my model and i didnt realise i had a FW800 port ( i have a 800 to 400 converversion cable in there for a very old external )
FW800 seems to have more bandwidth - does it have any more advantages over USB2 ?
Do you have any recommendations for external enclosures ? Everything seems to be based on the USB bus now.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

Firewire 800 will be superior to USB 2.0, and there are still things around. Did I link to http://thebookyard.com? They are a good mac resource, or one of the large UK computer component stores like Misco or CCL etc.

or http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/

Its a good idea to look for dual port, Firewire 800/USB 2.0 for redundancy. There were a load of these type of things around, NewerEgg, Lacie, etc, and as the world is moving on to USB 3 you should find some deals around
 
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