2010 iMac SSD recommendations?

[jeff3f]

I'm considering extending the life of my mid 2010 27" iMac with an SSD, will replace the existing drive with an SSD. 2 questions:

1) anyone here done this? is shorting the temperature cable the best way to avoid spinny fans? does this work with bootcamp (both the SSD and the spinny fans)

2) what's a good SSD to use? I'm probably going to need 1tb size--this is my desktop and I don't like playing the space management game on it. This mac is limited to SATA 2 speeds, but newer SSDs may still have better non-saturated performance (i.e. seek times, housecleaning management)??

I did SSD once before, with a 2008 macbook and it was a nice upgrade (intel 320 160gb nearly 3 years ago). My current macbook has flash storage which makes this older iMac nearly intolerable. But it's otherwise a high specced machine (for what I use it for) so I'd like to keep on using it.

 

[Eug]

I'm in the same boat with my 2010 iMac 27", but I won't bother swapping the drive out. It's a royal PITA. The 2008 MacBook is easy as pie in comparison.

Plus there is no USB 3 or Thunderbolt in the 2010 either.

I'm just going to use this for a while longer and then upgrade.

 

[jeff3f]

I can see that, and putting the $$ of an SSD in may not be a great idea on a 3.5 year old PC...but the machine is so high specced (or is that misleading?). high specced or not, there is an obvious, fixable bottleneck. and the iMac I'd *like* would cost even more than this one did because of my new, expensive taste for flash storage!

 

[saratoga172]

To me adding an SSD to a machine from the past 2-3 years makes it nearly like a new machine. Almost no one uses more than 4gb of ram and an Intel proc from the past 3-4 years is still plenty strong for most people.

I think an SSD upgrade is a great upgrade for you. I'd go with an M500 960GB (I own and use one as my primary drive) or the Samsung 840 Evo. Should be some good deals on the Crucial M500 right now though since they just released the drive that replaces them.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'm in the same boat with my 2010 iMac 27", but I won't bother swapping the drive out. It's a royal PITA. The 2008 MacBook is easy as pie in comparison.

Plus there is no USB 3 or Thunderbolt in the 2010 either.

But there is FireWire.

Instead of opening it up, could OP try tossing the SSD into a FW800 external and booting from that? FW 800 will likely be at least as fast as whatever spinner is in there in sequential read/writes, and in random reads/writes where the SSD really makes the biggest difference, neither a spinner nor an SSD will be bottle-necked by FW.

 

[mike5757]

I know some of the iMacs can have their optical drive taken out and replaced with an SSD on a custom tray. Check out IFixIt for the model number of your iMac. You could put in an SSD, leave the HDD, and make a fusion drive so you don't have to worry about managing which drive files go to. http://benscheirman.com/2013/11/creating-a-fusion-drive/

 

[jeff3f]

wow thanks! great idea. If I make a fusion drive, I can retain my current win7 partition on the HDD, and I can use a smaller/cheaper SSD (which solves the whole "do I want to spend $500 bucks on a 3.5 year old computer" conundrum).

questions:

I see m500 drives are cheaper than comparable m550 and samsung 840...between m550 and 840 EVO which seems better? I'm leaning toward Samsung. But the m500 is a good deal...and I'm not looking for cutting edge just a shot in the arm.

If I'm generally happy with the amount of storage I have, a 250GB size SSD would that be adequate?

Has anybody here done DIY fusion? I have practical questions. The link posted was helpful but I have a bootcamp partition I'd like to keep.

Is it possible to re-adjust bootcamp partition size without cloning and moving the windows partition off and then on again? (my win partition is cramped while my iMac one is not--it is not my primary mac).

Is it possible to do DIY fusion without disturbing a windows partition on the spinny disk?

(I'll try goggling around, but if folks don't mind sharing here this thread may also help others with the same issue--thanks!)


With regard to placement--I do use my optical drive...it is the only PC with an optical drive left in the house, ha ha. It is daunting but I think I will need to do the "add a second hard drive" iFixit, which is more difficult than merely swapping out the HDD or replacing the optical drive. I'm probably OK to do this, though I have concerns that I'll get dust/dirt inside the display (will wear gloves and would use spray air, but still)...and I have concerns that I'll lose track of which cable/plug goes with what (even with an ifixit guide). Plus I could beef it with the screws (mix them up or something). In short this would require a hyper-organized Me (maybe a set of containers for each step's screws, labels on similar appearing cables, I don't know. I'm handy and have taken all manner of laptops and PCs apart, I've installed my own car's replacement head unit (stereo), etc. I'm still nervous but will try because the worst thing that can happen is that I have to buy a shiny new mac ha ha ha.

I have the mac backed up; time machine for the OSX side and crashplan for both OSX and Win7 partitions. crashplan is really only meant for disaster recovery though--is there a "bare metal" restore for windows, or am I better off reinstalling (if necessary) then restoring the missing files. the games are all from services like steam, amazon download, or whatever...I'm not averse to re-downloading but I do want to keep the savegame data.

wow, what a long post. this is my first foray into the anandtech forums--you all are very helpful, thank you.

 

[h9826790]

To me adding an SSD to a machine from the past 2-3 years makes it nearly like a new machine. Almost no one uses more than 4gb of ram and an Intel proc from the past 3-4 years is still plenty strong for most people.

Agree that the SSD is good upgrade, it (Samsung 840 Evo 1T) makes my 5 years old Mac like a new one, super fast booting and very responsive. SATA 2 or SATA 3 is no big deal. I have both SATA 2 and 3 in my Mac Pro. I'd try both and can't feel any difference. The main advantage of using an SSD for OS (or Apps) is the high IOPS, not the sequential read / write performance. SATA 2 is good enough for that.

However, I don't know why you think that there is almost no one use more than 4G of RAM. My machine constantly use 16G of RAM, and able to use all 32G of RAM for photoshop / video rendering. Especially in Mavericks, this OS really use RAM aggressively to speed up the system. Of course it can run with less than 4G. However, from my observation, the OS itself demands 8G of RAM for optimum performance. So, more RAM still an advantage for the current OSX.

 

[jeff3f]

Any more input? At this point I'm leaning toward a 250gb m500 ssd ($105 on the 'zon), and will also get winclone ($30). I'll move an image of my bootcamp partition to my synology, will make an OSX sd card booter, then will nuke/repave the hdd and add into a fusion drive. I will then use bootcamp assistant to create a slightly larger than before windows partition, which I'll reconstitute from my winclone image.

I may wait a couple weeks to do this. My biggest fear is losing data followed by getting schmutz into the glass/display!

 

[Essence_of_War]

Any more input? At this point I'm leaning toward a 250gb m500 ssd
...
followed by getting schmutz into the glass/display!

I'll re-iterate my support for a FW800 external SSD, only because I don't see a lot of added value from opening up the imac.

Crucial m500 is a fine SSD, and is doubly fine at that price point.

 

[jeff3f]

I ordered a 250GB M500 and an owc install kit from amazon. Plan is to install as a second drive then make it a fusion drive with the original. This is shaky because the the original imac drive is now 3.5 years old...but the plan is to keep things backed up and the most important files (photos) on a NAS. So should be ok.

I'll post back details as I can. Next step is to clone my win7 bootcamp partition!

 

[jeff3f]

Just some follow up, perhaps prematurely. I appear to have successfully added the M500 (250GB) SSD to my 2010 iMac. this is a long post, but I post it in case folks are afraid to crack open their iMac. I would do it again, though I pray that I will not have to.

the parts I was most nervous about, the glass removal and display removal, were easy. I wore gloves through this stage to reduce risk of fingerprints, and a light dusting with canned air before re-assembly was great. I used a combo of iFixit's directions and OWC's directions. OWC just has a video, but it's very helpful and provides good visual advice how to store the glass and display inside of the iMac's box. they differ on where to place the drive, and I'm unsure I did the right thing (I placed it under the DVD drive as shown in iFixit). OWC recommended putting it closer to the existing HDD. OWC's way makes sense from an airflow point of view--I think I may be partially blocking the graphics heatsink with the drive and its cables.

I used an OWC installation tool and parts kit (bought from amazon), and it was excellent. the forceps in particular were a godsend when dealing with the display screws (magnets and stuff made that hard), and forceps were also great when dealing with small connector wires.

I think the very hardest part of the install was after I had everything disassembled, and it was time to route cables. The OWC cables were perhaps too bulky, and I wasn't sure I did a good job--air flow may be impacted. I include the part where one puts the main board back in as cable routing, because things were loosey goosey until I was able to get that fastened back in (cable bulk made it difficult to get the graphics heatsink to drop back in. there was a too-small cutout in the wall between where the SSD was and where the HDD is (the iMac has sealed off areas for air flow, so that the graphics's gets all the airflow from the right sided fan I think). the DVD drive at first didn't fit nicely with the SSD cables, but it eventually did (I think I was just doing it wrong, rather than smushing the new cables down and out of the way).

surprisingly, it was easy to get the connectors back into place except for the wifi card cable--it is flat, fabric covered, and has a 90 bend and is exactly the right length it needed to be, pre-SSD. the extra power cabling from the OWC kit was bulky and the SATA cable for the new drive was routed through the same area. It made the wifi card cable a tighter stretch than I would have liked. but ultimately it came together and I'm posting this from the iMac, on wifi. (I usually have this mac on ethernet anyway, in case the wifi cable comes out later--it's a loose connection held on by tape, tape that I tore/weakened).

about 4 hours to do it (yikes). half hour to get all the tools lined up and to get my area ready, an hour and a half to take everything apart, another hour and a half with the cable arranging and first re-assembly steps (cable routing as main board being put back, getting that board back OK, getting that airport card cable plugged back in, and another half hour for the remainder of the reassembly.

so in a nutshell, that was my SSD installation. I purchased winclone a few days ago, and made an image of my windows 7 bootcamp partition, saved to the desktop (in a folder that's not time machined--I don't want to fill up my time machine with this file). this image was backed up to crashplan so I'm not total reckless. As I understand, my next step is to make a bootable USB flash drive with mavericks, so I can go do the DIY fusion drive instructions. I'll do this another day. for me, the big barrier was cracking open the iMac.

on a side note--has anyone done this install and then had thermal problems, like can the power/SATA cables melt from the heatsink (this mac can get HOT when running a game or something that needs graphics.

thanks! I'll post back impressions after I do the fusion drive stuff.