Seriously thinking of converting to an external SSD as my main boot drive. Can anyone recommend a good 1Tb USB 3 SSD to go with? I have a late 2012 27” iMac.
Never thought about doing this. Great suggestion if I can get one fir a reasonable price I’ll go for it. Do they still do Thunderbolt 2 ssd’s?Your 2012 iMac has Thunderbolt 1 ports (supporting speeds of up to 10 Gbps) which is faster than SuperSpeed USB 3.0 (supporting speeds of up to 4.8 Gbps). Try and find an external SSD supporting Thunderbolt 1 or 2. If you decide to buy a Thunderbolt 2-based SSD, it will certainly work with your iMac but bear in mind it will only run at Thunderbolt 1 speeds on your particular machine.
Please note Thunderbolt 3 has a different connector design. You'll need to buy a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter or cable if you wish to connect Thunderbolt 3 devices to your iMac.
DO NOT buy a thunderbolt drive. This is bad advice.
They're NOT faster -- in some cases (tested by barefeats a while ago) a USB3 drive is faster than thunderbolt..
This is good advice. Always keep your system drive free of clutter. Downloads, music, photos, files, etc... put that on a separate drive. System drive should be OS, apps and necessary items only!You don't really need to spend extra for 1tb. 500gb will "do the job".
Just leave the large libraries of stuff (movies, music, pics) on the internal drive.
They don't require the speed of an SSD.
Indeed, you want to keep the external boot SSD "lean, clean and mean" so it will always be at its best.
Too scared to open up an iMac myself, would the extra cost of paying someone to install an internal SSD really be worth the outlay?Any external single drive is limited by SATA III, max 550mbs. USB 3 is a bit slower. TB is faster but cannot be faster than the drive. The only way to get faster is a RAID array.
Yes, TB is better but not because of speed. TRIM works over Thunderbolt but not USB even if you boot from it.
Why not do it right?
Get rid of the HHD inside your iMac. Around here, the labor charge averages $75 if you don't want to do it yourself. You can get a 2T SSD for less than $300; 1T for under $175. The adapter costs $12 and the heat sensor is $39. If you want to do it yourself, the tape kit is $22 and the right tools another $20. Might as well replace the 7 year old NV RAM battery while you're in there. A BR2032 is $7 for 1 or $8 for 3 on Amazon.
The spinner inside your iMac generates heat and draws power. The savings on your electric bill will pay for the upgrade over time. The reduced fan noise is an added bonus.
I don’t doubt that is true in your case, but his machine only has Thunderbolt 1. For him, Thunderbolt isn’t worth the expense.Once I moved them into a Thunderbolt enclosure, my output more than doubled.
I don’t doubt that is true in your case, but his machine only has Thunderbolt 1. For him, Thunderbolt isn’t worth the expense.
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Once I moved them into a Thunderbolt enclosure, my output more than doubled.
I don’t doubt that is true in your case, but his machine only has Thunderbolt 1. For him, Thunderbolt isn’t worth the expense.[/quite]
If you want to pay -- have one installed internally.
But... the fastest, cheapest, easiest, and safest way to "get the speed of an SSD" is to go the USB3 route. You'll get speeds about 85% of what you'd see from an internally-installed drive.
Will that 15% or so really make a difference, in light of the extra expense?
good point, is the samsung t5 usb-c or usb 3
Don't let it scare you. Do get the plastic pizza wheel to remove the screen safely—it's held together with double-stick foam tape. Watch the videos at OWC and the pictures at iFixIt.I just picked up a used iMac 27 2012 and have been also contemplating about upgrading the internal hdd to ssd. I did the upgrade on my 2010 27 iMac but somehow the slim iMac scares me a bit.
A 1TB internal ssd costs roughly £440 inc all parts and labour.For sure, changing the internal drive will give you better results overall.
However, if you decide to use external SSD, Samsung T5 would be good for the money. It is USB 3.1 Gen 2 over USB-C and comes with two cables: one with USB-C on both ends and another with USB-A on one end. I would not use it as a boot drive though. For me, it is an additional device to the internal SSD to store library & database of the software I am using.
A 1TB internal ssd costs roughly £440 inc all parts and labour.
An external 1Tb Samsung T5 will £220
Not sure if the extra £220 would be justified for the slight increase in speed? The law of diminishing returns.
Really?I found booting over an external drive a little uncomfortable though.
The iMac is over 5 years old so don’t want to spend too much on upgrading. Will buy a new machine in a few years time.
I think will go with this option.I used to have bootcamp partition on my previous external SSD (Samsung T3 500 GB). I used to get connection problems probably due to USB connection instability which always resulted in restarting. It didn't happen too often, but when it happened, it got really annoying.
Also, having to plug and unplug the device every time I open and close the computer was also getting annoying. Since your computer is desktop, this part is not applicable to you though.
It was an easy decision for me since I already had Samsung T3 at that time, so I tried and decided not to continue like that, but you should decide before you buy.
Would using a 256 GB internal drive + 1 TB external be uncomfortable for you? Do you think it is an option for your use case?
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I think the best solution for you to buy Samsung T5 1 TB now and try booting over it. Only if you decide it is not good enough, you could buy an internal 256 GB drive and use the external one additionally.
This way you wouldn't spend unnecessary money in advance and even after upgrading your computer in a few years, Samsung T5 will still be usable as an external drive.
Thanks fishermanOP:
I explained what you need to do, and what hardware you need in reply 5 above.
A USB3 SSD is "all you need", and I predict it will exceed your expectations.
You can spend more for thunderbolt, but the "user experience" will be no better.
There really isn't much more to say about it...