Switching to external SSD

[mikehalloran]

Buy a SATA SSD. Have it installed inside the 2012.

Not only is it faster but it gets the spinner out of there, too. Faster, cooler, quieter. Much, much better IMO.

 

[ravinder08]

Buy a SATA SSD. Have it installed inside the 2012.

Not only is it faster but it gets the spinner out of there, too. Faster, cooler, quieter. Much, much better IMO.

Can the spinner just be disabled and stick with external ssd?

 

[mikehalloran]

Yes but you have to open it up to do so and then put it back together when done. Once you're inside and have gotten that far, it's just a few minutes more to install the SSD.

Do you really need the $12 bracket? No—you can install with double-stick foam tape. The bracket improves cooling and just snaps in.

What about the $39 OWC temp sensor? There are ways around that including shorting the lead. I would not do that to a client's machine but, with that spinning heat pump gone, I don't see the harm. Removing it is a bad idea because you have to now control your fans manually (there are freeware apps) instead of automatically and there's the joy of listening to your fans go nuts at full speed during the boot process till the app loads—no thanks.

I know guys who use rolls of double-stick foam and not the pre-cut kits to put these back together. If doing one only, get the kit.

If you're a guitar player, you don't really need the plastic pizza wheel. Wedge guitar picks in between the screen and case starting with the thinnest ones you have. Be patient and work slowly so as not to crack the glass.

 

[ravinder08]

just seen this a 1TB SSD for £139 from amazon
Seagate 1 TB BarraCuda SSD 2.5 Inch SATA 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive
Would I need an enclosure to use it externally and if so what would you recommend?

 

[mikehalloran]

You need a dock or enclosure to boot externally from that drive.

Any USB-3 or Thunderbolt dock or housing will work. USB-3 will be slower; TB will be faster but more expensive. It can't go faster than the 6G theoretical limit of SATA III, however, and that's slower than TB1.

This USB-3 dock runs $22.95. I've got one holding an SSD I use for testing. Works fine.
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...id=1540244823&sr=1-7&keywords=USB+3+2.5"+dock

This is a popular TB dock but I don't recommend it. Why? For $140, you can have that SSD mounted inside your 2012.
https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Du...0244965&sr=1-4&keywords=Thunderbolt+2.5"+dock

The ideal solution is to have the SSD mounted inside your iMac. Send the spinner to recycling.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Go with a USB3 externally.

I use a TB enclosure and a USB3 enclosure on my pair of Kingston now 300 SSDs for external backups using SuperDuper SmartBackup on a weekly basis. The drives do the same job within one second of each other on a regular basis so in real world terms USB3 is the same as TB, particularly as your iMac has TB version 1.

 

[mikehalloran]

Go with a USB3 externally.

I use a TB enclosure and a USB3 enclosure on my pair of Kingston now 300 SSDs for external backups using SuperDuper SmartBackup on a weekly basis. The drives do the same job within one second of each other on a regular basis so in real world terms USB3 is the same as TB, particularly as your iMac has TB version 1.

Not if you are booting from an external as he is proposing. TB is noticeably faster but not quite as fast as mounting the SSD internally on the SATA bus. The reason is that booting from a USB-3 dock is slower. Theoretically, there should be no difference between TB and SATA but, in the real world there is.

In any case, TB3 (40G) s no faster than TB 1 (10G) in this instance. The SSD is SATA III and much slower than either at 6G — that's your bottleneck.

Why in the world use Superduper instead of Time Machine for normal backups? Yuck. Life is too short.

 

[Hater]

Open it up and do it properly so you don't have an external HDD chewing up a USB port, desk space and potentially a power plug.

 

[ravinder08]

Open it up and do it properly so you don't have an external HDD chewing up a USB port, desk space and potentially a power plug.

I can save over £200 by going external internal is double the price. The law of diminishing returns comes in to it.

 

[mikehalloran]

Nonsense.

£200 labor to install an SSD into a 2012 iMac? Whoa — I live in the wrong country. The job takes an hour unless the tech is experienced—then it takes less time.

 

[Fishrrman]

What some posters forget is that many people lack both the skills and self-confidence to pry open an iMac and do the job right. I've read numerous reports here from folks who -thought- they could do the job, then opened up the iMac (or Mini), and... broke something inside.

Then it's gonna cost 'em a lot more.

A USB3 drive will yield read speeds around 430mbps and writes 300-350mbps. That's enough to make a significant difference in any Mac with only a platter-based internal drive.

And it's why I recommend doing so as the fastest, easiest, cheapest -- and SAFEST -- pathway to "get more speed" from an older Mac.

 

[ondert]

Does it worth doing on an iMac 5k 2017 with 2tb fusion drive? I might buy a Samsung T5 1tb in this case? Also, during the usage of external drive, does the internal hdd still spin?

 

[Fishrrman]

ondert asked:
"does the internal hdd still spin?"

Yes, the internal drive still spins when you boot from an external drive.

BUT... WHY would you want to do this?
The 128gb SSD portion of your 2tb fusion drive is far FAR FAR faster than ANY external SSD you could connect.

 

[ondert]

ondert asked:

Yes, the internal drive still spins when you boot from an external drive.

BUT... WHY would you want to do this?
The 128gb SSD portion of your 2tb fusion drive is far FAR FAR faster than ANY external SSD you could connect.

I passed to the iMac from 2016 15” MBP and maybe for this reason, I feel quite well the slowness of fusion drive. I don’t complain about it though, just was wondering if putting an external ssd worth it.

 

[EugW]

If you have a 2 TB Fusion drive, you can just split the drive into a 128 GB boot SSD and a 2 TB data drive, and run them independently.

ie. If you have a Fusion drive, you don't have to run it in Fusion mode.