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Replacing Hard Drive Imac 24" ?
- Thread starter katslo
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Any 3.5" SATA hard drive will work. If you want better performance go with an SSD and 2.5" to 3.5" adapter bracket.
Thanks redheeler, better performance sounds good, so ideally I would get the SSD as you suggested.
However you mention an adaptor bracket? Are the SSD HD more difficult to install?
Please forgive my ignorance, I am new to Macs and only had the 2008 Imac for 2 mths before it died lol
However you mention an adaptor bracket? Are the SSD HD more difficult to install?
Please forgive my ignorance, I am new to Macs and only had the 2008 Imac for 2 mths before it died lol
Just mount it in the bracket and it should fit like any normal hard drive.
Also, this guide will help explain the process of replacing the hard drive: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+24-Inch+EMC+2134+and+2211+Hard+Drive+Replacement/8968
Thanks dyt1983, the brackets don't seem to be all that expensive anyway so I'm not too worried if I have to pay that little bit extra.
I am just concerned with getting a bracket that fits the new HD and a new HD that fits, and is compatible with my mac.
I don't want to go through all the effort of taking the thing apart only to find the new drive doesn't fit or isn't compatible lol
Again please forgive my ignorance, I am new to all this, but will ANY SSD HD be compatible with my 2008 24 inch Imac? And is there any specific bracket I will need? 3.5" ?
Obviously the advantage of getting a HD that comes with a bracket included is that you know the bracket is at least going to fit the HD.
I keep coming across Seagate SSD's in searches, are these any good?
Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure I get this right.
Quite looking forward to taking the thing apart actually, even if it is a bit scary lol
I am just concerned with getting a bracket that fits the new HD and a new HD that fits, and is compatible with my mac.
I don't want to go through all the effort of taking the thing apart only to find the new drive doesn't fit or isn't compatible lol
Again please forgive my ignorance, I am new to all this, but will ANY SSD HD be compatible with my 2008 24 inch Imac? And is there any specific bracket I will need? 3.5" ?
Obviously the advantage of getting a HD that comes with a bracket included is that you know the bracket is at least going to fit the HD.
I keep coming across Seagate SSD's in searches, are these any good?
Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure I get this right.
Quite looking forward to taking the thing apart actually, even if it is a bit scary lol
Hi katslo. I've got a 24" Early 2008 iMac like yours, and I've replaced my HDD with an SSD (among other upgrades).
dyt1983 has given you some solid advice here, but:
I found not to be the case. However, it's not a very big problem. I was hoping to use the simple metal 2.5" to 3.5" converter bracket that came with the SSD I bought, but it wouldn't work to hold the SSD in the necessary position. Sorry I don't remember exactly why, though!
Since I had the iMac all taken apart and I didn't want to wait to order a new part, I decided to improvise. I used a double-sided foam adhesive tape to "stick" the SSD to the inside of the aluminum shell. I'd read of other people using velcro in a similar way. So far (two years?) it's worked fine for me. (It was a foam "tape" maybe 1/8" or less thick, with "permanent" adhesive on both sides.)
Some time after that, I came across two adapters that I thought would have worked, and I bookmarked them. Again, i can't remember what feature exactly was needed, but I believe these two would work (although they are more expensive than others):
Icy Dock EZConvert 2.5-Inch to 3.5-Inch SATA SSD / Hard Drive Converter at Amazon
Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket at Amazon
I highly recommend putting in an SSD -- my machine is great. Of course you won't get as much storage space for the money as you would with a hard disk drive. If that's an issue, you could consider the route I took: I put an SSD where the original HDD was, and replaced the optical disk drive (DVD drive) with a 1 TB 2.5" HDD. I combined a 512GB SSD and the 1 TB HDD into a 1.5GB do-it-yourself Fusion drive. (You can search and find the Terminal commands -- you have to be somewhat computer savvy.) It works great, though!
(Note: our machines have a 3 GB/s SATA interface where the original HDD is; you will want to use an SSD with a 3 GB/s or faster SATA interface (that should be almost all of them, now). The optical drive bay, if you go that route, has only a PATA interface so you need a special adapter to put a SATA drive in there -- ask me if you're interested.)
Good luck!
dyt1983 has given you some solid advice here, but:
I found not to be the case. However, it's not a very big problem. I was hoping to use the simple metal 2.5" to 3.5" converter bracket that came with the SSD I bought, but it wouldn't work to hold the SSD in the necessary position. Sorry I don't remember exactly why, though!
Since I had the iMac all taken apart and I didn't want to wait to order a new part, I decided to improvise. I used a double-sided foam adhesive tape to "stick" the SSD to the inside of the aluminum shell. I'd read of other people using velcro in a similar way. So far (two years?) it's worked fine for me. (It was a foam "tape" maybe 1/8" or less thick, with "permanent" adhesive on both sides.)
Some time after that, I came across two adapters that I thought would have worked, and I bookmarked them. Again, i can't remember what feature exactly was needed, but I believe these two would work (although they are more expensive than others):
Icy Dock EZConvert 2.5-Inch to 3.5-Inch SATA SSD / Hard Drive Converter at Amazon
Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket at Amazon
I highly recommend putting in an SSD -- my machine is great. Of course you won't get as much storage space for the money as you would with a hard disk drive. If that's an issue, you could consider the route I took: I put an SSD where the original HDD was, and replaced the optical disk drive (DVD drive) with a 1 TB 2.5" HDD. I combined a 512GB SSD and the 1 TB HDD into a 1.5GB do-it-yourself Fusion drive. (You can search and find the Terminal commands -- you have to be somewhat computer savvy.) It works great, though!
(Note: our machines have a 3 GB/s SATA interface where the original HDD is; you will want to use an SSD with a 3 GB/s or faster SATA interface (that should be almost all of them, now). The optical drive bay, if you go that route, has only a PATA interface so you need a special adapter to put a SATA drive in there -- ask me if you're interested.)
Good luck!
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Thanks for your reply Brian.
I ended up going for a hybrid drive. Basically because I'm a poor student lol and I didn't realise how expensive the SSD drives are.
Also because I didn't pay much for the old (2008) iMac to begin with and am reluctant to spend a lot of money on such an old computer.
I should receive delivery of my new drive in the next few days, and so am getting prepared for the job in hand.
Being that I have never done anything like this before, I am now wondering what to expect once I have installed the new drive.
Obviously it will be necessary to reinstall the OS, and am hoping somebody can help in giving me an idea of roughly how long it should take to install the OS (Yosemite) from a USB?
Also will it be straight forward / easy?
If anybody could please let me know that would be great and is there anything else I need to consider or look out for?
I ended up going for a hybrid drive. Basically because I'm a poor student lol and I didn't realise how expensive the SSD drives are.
Also because I didn't pay much for the old (2008) iMac to begin with and am reluctant to spend a lot of money on such an old computer.
I should receive delivery of my new drive in the next few days, and so am getting prepared for the job in hand.
Being that I have never done anything like this before, I am now wondering what to expect once I have installed the new drive.
Obviously it will be necessary to reinstall the OS, and am hoping somebody can help in giving me an idea of roughly how long it should take to install the OS (Yosemite) from a USB?
Also will it be straight forward / easy?
If anybody could please let me know that would be great and is there anything else I need to consider or look out for?
The hybrid drives have always sounded interesting to me. While I haven't used them or researched them much, I'd expect it will work out quite well for you.
After my replacement, I installed OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) from a USB stick (thumb drive). While I can't really remember how long it took, it didn't seem overly long to me -- less than an hour, I think. Most of that time you don't need to sit in front of it, either, as you can pretty much start the process and it'll reboot itself when it needs to. And while I installed onto an SSD (actually a Fusion drive setup), I don't think your installation onto a hybrid/HDD will be any slower because the real bottleneck is probably the thumb drive itself. (Unless you're installing from an external USB HDD, which should be much faster.)
Time to restore your files depends largely upon the amount of data and how you've got them backed up. It could take several hours if you've got lots of movies, for example.
There are a number of ways to install/reinstall your OS and files. E.g., you could clone your current HDD and restore the clone, you could boot from a USB drive/stick and restore from a Time Machine backup, you could (I believe) even boot from a Time Machine backup (although I haven't tried that), you could make a "bootable installer" on a USB thumb drive to install the OS and then use Migration Assistant or just copy files from your backup.
I don't know (or have forgotten) what OS level you're currently on, and more importantly, what type of backups (if any) you have.
It sounds like you're planning to make a "bootable USB installer" thumb drive to install the OS, and get your files (if any) onto the new HDD after that -- am I right? If so, the best advice I can give you is to TEST your bootable USB drive before you open up the iMac -- make sure your iMac will successfully boot from the device and that the Yosemite installer starts up. If it gets to that point OK, you can be pretty sure everything will go fine once you get your new drive installed.
As far as the actual opening up the iMac and replacement, hopefully you've found a good set of instructions, with pictures. I used one from iFixit.com, and it was excellent and very, very helpful. Try to get one for your exact model of iMac. iFixit goes by the EMC number (see their list of iMac repair guides here), which seems to be the most specific and reliable way to ID a particular machine. This site (http://www.everymac.com/) is very useful to ID your Mac.
One hint: the glass front on my iMac came off much more easily than I expected (it's quite lightweight). You don't need to buy heavy-duty suction cups, IMHO -- I just used a couple of 1 1/2" or 2" ones like you might use to hang an ornament on a window.
Another thing I did that seemed to work out well was to gently put a layer of fresh clean plastic wrap (food storage "Saran wrap") on the back of the glass screen and on the LCD panel. (Have someone help you.) I was paranoid about getting dust/smudges on the surfaces and not noticing them until it was all assembled again. I haven't heard of anyone else doing this, but I didn't feel the need to clean those surfaces and as far as I can tell didn't do any harm.
I'm pretty handy with tools working on bikes/motorcycles/automobiles, but had very little experience with small delicate disassembly like this. I went slowly, deliberately, and carefully on each step and I was rather nervous about it. However, now that it's done, I would say it was quite easy and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Hope you have luck as good as I did!
Thanks for your reply Brian33, very helpful.
Sorry, I should probably have mentioned that I do not have any files to back up at all, as I only owned the computer roughly 2 mths before it died on me. So I didn't lose anything important or anything that wasn't stored elsewhere anyway.
So I just want to install the new drive and the OS and start fresh. I do intend to use a bootable USB thumb installer to install the OS as you say.
When the computer first died, I tried everything I thought I could try and nothing worked, it still just did the same thing when I tried to boot it up.
It would switch on, I would hear the chime, the loading bar appeared as normal but it would only ever get to maybe half way up the loading bar and then just stop. At this point following advice on this forum, I thought it was probably the HD had crashed and I needed a new drive.
Before I bought a new a drive I wanted to see if I could boot the mac using the USB thumb drive, now when I turned the computer on something was different I got the orange icon of the USB installer, I thought OK this has to be a good sign (important to keep in mind that I know nothing about this stuff lol)
So I selected the USB installer option and held my breath, it did the same thing, got to half way up the loading bar and then nothing.
So by this point I thought it must be the HD has died, and now I am hoping that once I install the new HD, then I should be able to install the OS off the same USB thumb drive, am I right to think that? or am I way off? lol
The computer came with what I believe to be the latest version of Yosemite, I don't remember the number, 10. something? it's the same OS I am hoping to install from the USB once I have replaced the drive.
Yes I have read guides and have been watching lots of tutorials on how to install the new drive, and have familiarised myself with the process.
I have bought some suction cups already, and they are very much like you have described, so it's lucky I didn't need the heavy duty ones lol
I read the reviews on the suction cups and with mixed reviews, but they were the best of the lot I had found on Amazon/ebay.
I like you have little experience with this type of job, but after watching the reviews I feel quite confident of doing the job, as long as I am well prepared. I am quite looking forward to it actually.
I appreciate the response, very helpful and I have taken it all on-board.
Sorry, I should probably have mentioned that I do not have any files to back up at all, as I only owned the computer roughly 2 mths before it died on me. So I didn't lose anything important or anything that wasn't stored elsewhere anyway.
So I just want to install the new drive and the OS and start fresh. I do intend to use a bootable USB thumb installer to install the OS as you say.
When the computer first died, I tried everything I thought I could try and nothing worked, it still just did the same thing when I tried to boot it up.
It would switch on, I would hear the chime, the loading bar appeared as normal but it would only ever get to maybe half way up the loading bar and then just stop. At this point following advice on this forum, I thought it was probably the HD had crashed and I needed a new drive.
Before I bought a new a drive I wanted to see if I could boot the mac using the USB thumb drive, now when I turned the computer on something was different I got the orange icon of the USB installer, I thought OK this has to be a good sign (important to keep in mind that I know nothing about this stuff lol)
So I selected the USB installer option and held my breath, it did the same thing, got to half way up the loading bar and then nothing.
So by this point I thought it must be the HD has died, and now I am hoping that once I install the new HD, then I should be able to install the OS off the same USB thumb drive, am I right to think that? or am I way off? lol
The computer came with what I believe to be the latest version of Yosemite, I don't remember the number, 10. something? it's the same OS I am hoping to install from the USB once I have replaced the drive.
Yes I have read guides and have been watching lots of tutorials on how to install the new drive, and have familiarised myself with the process.
I have bought some suction cups already, and they are very much like you have described, so it's lucky I didn't need the heavy duty ones lol
I read the reviews on the suction cups and with mixed reviews, but they were the best of the lot I had found on Amazon/ebay.
I like you have little experience with this type of job, but after watching the reviews I feel quite confident of doing the job, as long as I am well prepared. I am quite looking forward to it actually.
I appreciate the response, very helpful and I have taken it all on-board.