SSD upgrade for iMac 2011

[freshe]

Hi,

I rang the reseller and they said they could fit an ssd for me (yay!). They could provide 256GB Crucial M4 for 300euro (sic!) where on crucial.eu it's 200e... but if I provide my drive it will cost around 100e with all the cables etc. I still have an applecare plan till mid 2015 so I prefer them to do it.

So my question now is which drive would you recommend ?

cheerio!

 

[No Pain No Gain]

Hi,

I rang the reseller and they said they could fit an ssd for me (yay!). They could provide 256GB Crucial M4 for 300euro (sic!) where on crucial.eu it's 200e... but if I provide my drive it will cost around 100e with all the cables etc. I still have an applecare plan till mid 2015 so I prefer them to do it.

So my question now is which drive would you recommend ?

cheerio!

You don't need any cables if you are installing SSD in place of your current drive.

 

[freshe]

I'm keeping both drives. I might even replace teh 1TB with bigger for storage.

 

[jav6454]

Hi,

I rang the reseller and they said they could fit an ssd for me (yay!). They could provide 256GB Crucial M4 for 300euro (sic!) where on crucial.eu it's 200e... but if I provide my drive it will cost around 100e with all the cables etc. I still have an applecare plan till mid 2015 so I prefer them to do it.

So my question now is which drive would you recommend ?

cheerio!

Who is doing the swap? Also, I think HDD/SSD swaps are not covered by warranty and may void in the iMac as you need to take out the glass cover plus LCD to reach the main board.

 

[freshe]

It's the authorized reseller. The drive will not be covered (the new ssd) if it fails, same with the ned HDD if I replace it. But the warranty for the rest will be valid - which is fair with me.

Can mid-2011 macs use SATA3 or SATA2 only ?

 

[jav6454]

Ah ok. Then go ahead, I see no issue. Also, I don't know exactly if the mid-2011 iMac has SATA III, but my educated guess is that no, it doesn't.

 

[kgian]

The mid 2011 imac DOES have sata 3 ports... To be more exact it has two sata 3 ports for HDD and SSD and one sata 2 for optical drive.

 

[macthefork]

The mid 2011 imac DOES have sata 3 ports... To be more exact it has two sata 3 ports for HDD and SSD and one sata 2 for optical drive.

This^^^ Is exactly correct. I've added a 6G SSD to my 2011 on one of the SATA III ports. The other SATA III port still has the original Apple HDD (which, incidentally, is a SATA II drive.) You will be pleased with the speed of the SSD.

 

[Drharrington]

Yes, 2010 27s on -- believe all have three... It's a natural upgrade. I've used the Crucial m4s and had great results.

 

[mmomega]

Personally I use Samsung SSD's I have 2- Samsung 830 SSD's in my 2011 iMac + a WD Black 1TB HDD.

I also have a Samsung 830 in an '09 15MBP and a Samsung 840 Pro in a '12 Mac Mini.

They all perform great, the SSD are some of the highest rated drives on the market, I wouldn't replace them with any others at this point.

 

[Raima]

Hi,

I rang the reseller and they said they could fit an ssd for me (yay!). They could provide 256GB Crucial M4 for 300euro (sic!) where on crucial.eu it's 200e... but if I provide my drive it will cost around 100e with all the cables etc. I still have an applecare plan till mid 2015 so I prefer them to do it.

So my question now is which drive would you recommend ?

cheerio!

I thought Applecare takes you up to 3 years warranty. Did u somehow get 4?

I upgraded my 2010 iMac and used a SanDisk SSD drive. Getting about 250-300MB r/w.

I'm keeping both drives. I might even replace teh 1TB with bigger for storage.

You might want to consider backing up your machine then configuring the drives as a fusion drive.

Can mid-2011 macs use SATA3 or SATA2 only ?

Worst case, sata 3 drives are backward compatible with sata 2 so it will work regardless.