27' late 2009 iMac ssd upgrade

[Giuanniello]

Hi everybody,

since my MBPro15" with a traditional spinning HD is collecting dust as too slow (I am in the process to upgrade it with an SSD) I got a late 2009 27" iMac to whom I had the HD upgraded to a 500GB SSD (had an Apple repair to do that and at the time I didn't go for the 1TB solution as it was way too expensive) and now it has become a bit tight even tho I have most of my photo library on an external RAID drive so I was thinking to swap the 500GB to be installed into the MBPro (easy to do) and put a 1TB into the iMac but I wonder how hard is to disassemble the iMac to access the drive bay, if too tough I'd rather leave things as they are and move extra stuff on external hard drives.

Grazie

 

[Fishrrman]

Use an external drive -- cheaper and easier.

 

[Giuanniello]

Oh well, call it karma but the iMac suddenly passed away, so far it seems video board being gone, on startup either stripes or dots polluting the screen and no load of OS, I guess I will have to tear it apart to recover data off the SSD and try and cook the video board to try and resurrect it, time to refresh the old MBPro to have a working machine...

 

[Jsassu27]

Hi everybody,

since my MBPro15" with a traditional spinning HD is collecting dust as too slow (I am in the process to upgrade it with an SSD) I got a late 2009 27" iMac to whom I had the HD upgraded to a 500GB SSD (had an Apple repair to do that and at the time I didn't go for the 1TB solution as it was way too expensive) and now it has become a bit tight even tho I have most of my photo library on an external RAID drive so I was thinking to swap the 500GB to be installed into the MBPro (easy to do) and put a 1TB into the iMac but I wonder how hard is to disassemble the iMac to access the drive bay, if too tough I'd rather leave things as they are and move extra stuff on external hard drives.

Grazie

You need 2 suction cups and a spudger. Look on ifixit.com for your model and look at the tear down instructions to figure out where the cables that connect the lcd to the motherboard are located. Use the cups to pull the front glass towards you by placing them on the upper corners of both sides of the glass and then pull gently until the glass separates from the magnets which hold it in place. pull gently and then up and out exposing the LCD. Put the glass in a safe place.

Remove the screws in the iFixit guide for the lcd and then pull that gently towards you so you can see behind it and use your spudger to unhook the cables connecting the lcd to the MB. Then place the lcd in a safe place and do not touch the screen with your fingers or you'll be able to see the marks when you put everything back. Then once you remove those two things you'll have full access to the Hard Drive which isn't hidden and is ver easy to remove and replace with an SSD.

You may need a thermal cable after replacing the HDD with an SSD otherwise your fan will run at top speed or you can use software called Mac Fan Control to set the fan speed and make sure its set to open automatically at login. Then you won't NEED the thermal cable. You just set it to run based on the ambient temp. The SSD will be much cooler than the HDD and thus you won't have to worry about anything. Either option works fine but the cable costs 40 bucks and the software is free both have the same results.

Then just reinstall your LCD in reverse order and put the glass back on. Make sure you buy compressed air cleaner and before closing the glass all the way you close it about 80% and take the long straw attachment on the air can and blow ar on the screen to remove any dust that got on the lcd during the process then quickly close the glass so no other dust get in. Once the glass is closed you won't be able to wipe and dust that got on the lcd unless you open the glass and if you're like me it will annoy you to see it.