Steps In Replacing the Apple Blade SSD Part in a Fusion Drive?

[Alvin777]

Hi. The SSD still fused with the 2TB Fusion Drive in the Late 2015 5K iMac seems to have failed and can no longer be detected by Disk Utility (w/ View All Devices) and Terminal (Diskutil List). What are the proper steps to take to replace the Apple Blade SSD part of this Fusion Drive? I understand just replacing the SSD won't make the Mac see it as a Fusion Drive as the hardisk is still tied or fused with the old Apple Blade SSD?

Thank you in advance. All data have been backed up a week before the Fusion's SSD failed (or appears to have failed).

God bless, Revelation 21:4

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Have a read of this and shoot over to ifixit.com for the actual replacement.

Upgrading an older iMac’s PCIe SSD: Third-party solutions that save you beaucoup bucks

Most 2013 and later iMacs ship with proprietary PCIe SSDs, many of which are old, slow, and small. Upgrading to an SSD not made by Apple, including common M.2 types, will save you tons of money while improving performance. In many cases, drastically.

www.macworld.com

 

[Alvin777]

Have a read of this and shoot over to ifixit.com for the actual replacement.

Upgrading an older iMac’s PCIe SSD: Third-party solutions that save you beaucoup bucks

Most 2013 and later iMacs ship with proprietary PCIe SSDs, many of which are old, slow, and small. Upgrading to an SSD not made by Apple, including common M.2 types, will save you tons of money while improving performance. In many cases, drastically.

www.macworld.com

Thanks. I'm familiar with iFixit thanks but mine is a different case. With iFixit, you replace both the Apple Blade SSD (it's version of the NVME) and the mechanical hardisk with the usual SSD but mine would just be replacing the Apple Blade SSD, retaining the hardisk which was still tied in software with the SSD. I know that if you just replace it, it won't see the new SSD:

SOLVED: Not seeing 128 gb SSD from Fusion Drive after upgrading HDD to SSD - Mac Mini Late 2012

The reason is the fusion drive’s SSD is still tied to the HDD you took out. So lets back wind things, put the HDD back in so you can then break the Fusion Drive set. Then you can plug in your replacement SSD back in. Once you break the fusion drive the Fusion drive’s SSD will now be visible...

www.ifixit.com

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View...+from+Fusion+Drive+after+upgrading+HDD+to+SSD

Thank you, in advance.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

So what is your purpose here?
Is there any data on the HDD part which you need to retrieve?

 

[Alvin777]

Hi. If indeed the SSD part of the Fusion Drive's dead even though it was still tied to the hardisk, I'd like to replace it. But the fear is if it's still tied to the hardisk, Fusion still can't happen coz' the hardisk will look for the old SSD.

There no more data that I hadn't backed up. It's alright to erase both, even if it has split but Disk Utility nor Terminal can't detect the Apple SSD.

But when I reinstalled macOS Big Sur then reinstalled Boot Camp, 4 windows app can see another disk, called Disk 1 but the app that destroyed the Fusion, EaseUS only sees the hardisk which is Disk 0. Could Disk 0 be the Apple SSD and it's really still alive but can only detected by Windows apps? Should I initialize it (I wonder if that'll destroy my macOS which I just that Time Machine just transferred all the files to- that's hours, 2 days almost troubleshooting, ways to detect Apple SSD on macOS after the fresh install a

nd 9 days trying to get restore Fusion Drive).

Thank you. God bless, Rev. 21:4

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Open the Imac.
Take out both SSD blade and HDD.
Install the new SSD.

Connect the HDD (via USB box) to another machine, and reformat it

Put it back to the iMac.

Now you have a working iMac, with no OS.

Do a Internet Recovery. Might need to format the SSD, or reconstruct the Fusion from the. Or simply keep it separated if your new SSD is big enough.

During the process, connect your Time Machine and restore from it.

 

[LewyLewister]

Hi. The SSD still fused with the 2TB Fusion Drive in the Late 2015 5K iMac seems to have failed and can no longer be detected by Disk Utility (w/ View All Devices) and Terminal (Diskutil List). What are the proper steps to take to replace the Apple Blade SSD part of this Fusion Drive? I understand just replacing the SSD won't make the Mac see it as a Fusion Drive as the hardisk is still tied or fused with the old Apple Blade SSD?

Thank you in advance. All data have been backed up a week before the Fusion's SSD failed (or appears to have failed).

God bless, Revelation 21:4

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement

If your iMac was configured with a solid state drive or Fusion Drive, it includes a blade SSD on the back of the logic board. Use this guide to...

www.ifixit.com

There's also a couple of YouTube videos (one from OWC I think) which show the replacement (I'm just about to do the same replacement of a failed blade SSD in my late 2015 model)