A list of successful iMac 27" (2012-2019) SSD upgrades

[martd]

it is working with no problem, just put sata cable and the ssd......like a normal windows pc.

but, if you want my opinion, you have the logic board apart. you have a dead blade ssd. why not replace that one which is faster than a sata ssd? especially considering you already have done the major work of taking logic board apart.....

ok, cool! Thanks for your input guys.

Are you able to recommend where to buy a 512GB or 1TB Blade replacement and the best adapter? (Presume we aren't talking about an actual Apple replacement)

 

[zeratul75]

how about windows? any of you guys installed it after the ssd blade update?
I did it and problems with sleep still persist......it is happening what was happening in mac os before recent bootrom upgrades fixed it.....sleep is working, but the system crashes after waking up from sleep.......
seems like the recent bootrom upgrades fixed the issue in macos only.......not in windows......
Am I the only one noticed it?

 

[giv-as-a-ciggy-kent]

Gday gents I'm looking to upgrade my 2014 5K iMac (430 boot rom) and there is a lot of disinformation online. From what I can see on this thread the best options for no-hassle, working sleep and hibernate blade upgrades are:

-Original Apple SSDs ($$$ and used)
-Intel 660p + adapter
-Intel 760p + adapter
-Non-NVME m.2 + adapter

Are there any others that work without changing terminal settings? Some interesting ones I've come across, does anyone know about them?

-Transcend Jetdrive 850 ($$ but no adapter needed... works?)
-Crucial MX500 M.2 (I think it's not NVME, could it be AHCI?)


Plan is to upgrade the blade with a 512 or 1tb model, and the HDD for a 1TB 970 evo.

Thanks!


760P latest firmware (660P also) has some very interesting changes. Could this indicate proper compatibility without any terminal commands/disabling suspend to ram?

 

[rabbarba]

I am interested in this too. I have an OWC Aura pro x2 1TB that I might want to put into my 2014 iMac 5k.

is there problems with windows?

does sleep and hibernate work?

 

[zeratul75]

I have a 970 evo 1TB, with big sur and windows 10. Also, a 860pro 500 gb sata. This is what happens with windows (I have done many tries...):

- Big sur and windows installed on nvme 970 evo, big sur is working perfectly, sleep/hibernate no issue at all. Windows 10 goes to sleep, but on wake it always crashes.

- Big sur on nvme 970 evo and windows 10 installed on the sata ssd. In this case windows 10 has no problem at all, it goes to sleep and wake without issue but there is a strange behaviuor. After waking up from sleep in windows, the nvme ssd totally disappears. Thats why when windows in installed on nvme drive it crashes!! Because that drive disappear on wake from sleep. To make it appear again the imac must be switched off and on; reboot is not enough.

So basically, I don't think it is a matter of drive firmware. The behavior suggests me it is something related to the imac efi/firmware that apple only can fix. Actually in the past, before catalina, this was exactly what happened even in mac os.
They fixed it from catalina, which brings a efi update, but for mac os only. The same identical problem stil persists, at least for me, in windows.

But I really would like you guys report your experiences, if using windows.......

 

[Yiveymacnod]

Another success! 👍

Device: iMac 27” 5K - Late 2015 - 17.1 - (3.2Ghz i5-6500, HDD only)
Location: Sweden, Europe
Blade upgrade: none -> 1TB OWC Aura Pro X2 PCIe NVMe SSD
HDD to SSD upgrade: 1TB original Seagate SATA HDD -> 1TB 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD
CPU upgrade: no upgrade
Speed test NVMe SSD: ~3000 MB/s read, ~2550 MB/s write
Speed test SATA SSD: ~510 MB/s read, ~400 MB/s write
OS before: Catalina 10.15.7
OS after: Big Sur 11.2.3
Adapter: No adapter needed with the OWC blade
Heatsink for blade: Glotrends NVMe heatsink
Mounting bracket 3.5” to 2.5”: Corsair Dual Solid-State Drive Mounting Bracket
Adhesive strips for the screen: iFixit
Temperature sensor: not required
Boot-ROM before upgrade: 428.x.x.x (never got stuck on 170.x.x.x most likely due to the iMac never being shipped with a blade SSD)
Boot-ROM after upgrade: 429.80.1.0.0
TRIM: Enabled by default for the OWC (didn't expect that..), but not for the SATA SSD (expected)


Issues during install:
1. Since the iMac wasn’t shipped with a blade from factory it had no screw to secure the blade. Naively I thought I would have one in my rather big stash of different bits and bobs - but no sir. Luckily I was able to source one similar locally, after calling around to at least 4 different shops that handle electronics. For anyone wondering, the original Apple Part Number is 923-0336. It’s a M2,5x3,0 (mm) with a big flat head.
2. I'd forgot that I needed a long T10 screwdriver to reach the one screw in the middle of the logic board. Had to go get one from work.
3. The 2.5” SSD had to be mounted in the top slot on the dual bracket due to cable management. Managed to route the SATA cable through the back of the adapter to line everything up.


Issues after installation:
None, sleep and everything works.


Thoughts and questions:
- I had originally planned on installing a 1TB WD Black SN750 with the Sintech ST-NGFF2013C, but I got a really really good deal on an OWC Aura Pro X2 so I changed my mind in the last minute. I’ll use the WD blade in an enclosure with my iPad Pro instead, or throw it in my unRAID server.

- Since the heatsink was bought with intent to use with the adapter (needed to be thin), perhaps it could’ve been larger. But I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Didn’t use the metal springs to attach the heatsink to the blade, only used the silicone bands. Felt like I would risk shorting the blade if I used the metal ones, time will tell if the silicone will hold up.

- The iMac 17.1 isn’t (!) one of the supported Macs for the OWC Aura Pro X2 according to OWC but from what I can understand that’s probably due to an EFI issue with these models. See this thread for more info:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...te-2015-efi-firmware-update-failures.2228324/ Since I have no issues with EFI I thought I’d give it a chance. So far no problem and I don’t expect any either. My theory is that OWC and others don’t want to risk problems with 17.1 and therefore skipped support for it. I’ve got the WD blade and the adapter if issues occur.

- I've found different sources saying different things about TRIM being enabled by default for NVMe blades.
Some say it's only automatically enabled for Apples own blades, some say its enabled for all NVMe by default, some say all 3rd party SSDs (NVMe and SATA) never have TRIM enabled by default..
Well, my OWC was enabled. Thats good. The SATA SSD wasn't, as expected, so I guess I still will have to run the trimforce command. Shouldn't affect the blade in any negative way, right?


How I did the cloning and install of macOS, for anyone unsure:
First, always take a backup!
I cloned the HDD to the 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD with Carbon Copy Cloner using a old external enclosure. Did the teardown and install of everything and put the screen back on without the adhesive strips.
Booted into the SATA drive first to see if everything was working and that the OWC blade was recognized.
Shut everything down and booted into Internet recovery mode (option+cmd+r).
The OWC blade was pre-formatted with HFS+ so I had to erase it in Disk Utility and change it to APFS instead.
Returned to Internet Recovery menu and chose to install a fresh Big Sur. After some steps I could choose between the internal drives and chose the OWC blade. Everything installed fine.
During the setup process for Big Sur I could choose to start fresh or recover data from a Time Machine backup, another Mac or a startup disk. Here I chose the 2.5” SATA SSD and transferred everything to the new install.
I could’ve used CCC again when booted into the 2.5” SATA SSD and cloned everything to the OWC blade, but since I was on Catalina to start with I thought I try this way first. If the Big Sur install wasn’t successful for some reason I could just wipe the OWC blade again and go the CCC route.
I’ll run it like this, keeping the 2.5” SATA SSD clone for a while, to test out Big Sur.


Now I’ll just have to figure out if it’s better/faster to run 32GB 1866MHz RAM, or 64GB 1600MHz RAM. I’ve got both... 🤷‍♂️😅 Any ideas?

 

[zeratul75]

I found trim enabled After installing Samsung 970 evo and was surprised like you. I run the famous command to enable for the sata ssd as well.....which was disabled of course. No problem at all. On the sata It was enabled After the reboot and It stayed enabled for the nvme like It was before.

PS: are you planning to install Windows as well?

 

[Yiveymacnod]

I found trim enabled After installing Samsung 970 evo and was surprised like you. I run the famous command to enable for the sata ssd as well.....which was disabled of course. No problem at all. On the sata It was enabled After the reboot and It stayed enabled for the nvme like It was before.

PS: are you planning to install Windows as well?

Ok, great to know!
No I don’t plan on installing windows. I can run that as a VM in my server if I need it.

 

[shugoshin]

Hello, just a new report for a successful upgrade

Device: Late 2013 - 14.2 - ME089LL/A (3.4Ghz i5, fusion drive)
HDD upgrade: 1 TB SATA HDD -> 500Go Crucial CT500MX500SSD1 SSD
Blade upgrade: 128GB blade -> 1To Crucial P1 CT1000P1SSD8
ROM: 430.0.0.0.0
SMC: 2.15f7
CPU upgrade: No
Trim: Forced-enabled
OS: Catalina 10.15.7 on blade and Big Sur 11.2 on SSD (Patched-Sur V0.2)
Speed test: 710 MB/s read, 770 MB/s write
Location: France, Europe
Temperature sensor: none
Adapter: Sintech ST-NGFF2013 (small one)
Issues after fresh OS install: No fan problem, sleep OK

Thank you for all the valuable infos I have found here.

 

[turbomacs]

Hi guys, a week after all is working perfectly (iMac late 2015 5k 27") but I realized I have backlight bleeding now, nothing terrible but it wasn't there before the upgrade and it really bothers me now. Do you think it could be solved by ungluing and reattaching the screen? The only reason I could think of is that maybe the screen is under uneven tensions, because I can move the glow around if I apply pressure with my finger. For the rest I handled the screen with great care, but gluing it back wasn't as easy as I expected.
In ay case, any help or idea will be greatly appreciated.

Usually this is caused by the cable. Try replacing the eDP/LVDS cable and see if it fixes it.

 

[tah18]

The OWC blade was pre-formatted with HFS+ so I had to erase it in Disk Utility and change it to APFS instead.
Returned to Internet Recovery menu and chose to install a fresh Big Sur. After some steps I could choose between the internal drives and chose the OWC blade. Everything installed fine.

Did you keep the two drives separate? Is there a way to recreate it as a fusion drive before restoring from Time Machine backup? Thanks

 

[Yiveymacnod]

Did you keep the two drives separate? Is there a way to recreate it as a fusion drive before restoring from Time Machine backup? Thanks

Yes, I kept them separate. There is no reason to combine them as one with Fusion Drive since that is going to give you MUCH slower performance. Fusion Drive is to combine a blade SSD with a mechanical HDD. If you combine a blade SSD with a SATA SSD you're going to get the SATA SSD's speed overall.

If you're installing a blade SSD, and a SATA SSD, that separately has less storage then your old HDD I would do a clean install on the blade and then use Migration Assistant to move the data from your Time Machine backup post install.

 

[searge]

For Late 2015 iMacs (disabling normal sleep) -> sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 standby 0
For Late 2012 until Mid 2015 iMacs (disabling hibernation) -> sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0
(for the models in blue, alternatively, instead of standby 0, you can leave the standby at 1, and use for example standbydelayhigh 2592000 which equals to one month in seconds)

Hello community, I just bought an iMac 17,1 late 2015 and I found this thread because I am thinking auf upgrading SSD Blade and maybe S-ATA SSD too. Likely I am going to face the problem concerning hibernation. I understand that the problem seems to be located in boot rom. I also own an iMac 2011 27'' upgraded with K3100M to get Big Sur working. A lot of patch works were done by OCLP. My iMac 27'' 2011 now thinks to be an iMac Pro and nearly all limitations/problems with Big Sur are gone. Maybe we can get some help from this project to get problems fixed until Apple is going to upgrade boot rooms for older models. What du you think? Could this solve this problem or am I completely wrong?

 

[Yiveymacnod]

Hello community, I just bought an iMac 17,1 late 2015 and I found this thread because I am thinking auf upgrading SSD Blade and maybe S-ATA SSD too. Likely I am going to face the problem concerning hibernation. I understand that the problem seems to be located in boot rom. I also own an iMac 2011 27'' upgraded with K3100M to get Big Sur working. A lot of patch works were done by OCLP. My iMac 27'' 2011 now thinks to be an iMac Pro and nearly all limitations/problems with Big Sur are gone. Maybe we can get some help from this project to get problems fixed until Apple is going to upgrade boot rooms for older models. What du you think? Could this solve this problem or am I completely wrong?

No problem with hibernation anymore with the newer boot rom. Read the last 5-10 pages in this thread or even better the whole thread. Unfortunately there hasn’t been any updates to the first post for a while and it’s somewhat out of date.

 

[Co10045]

Hi everybody i install some upgrade to my iMac 27 5k 2017.
After install ssd sata 1 tb, i mounted a 1 PCIe SAMSUNG evo 970 + Sintech NGFF M.2 updated 2B2QEXM7. After 3 monthes of use i’m not so satisfied as the writing speed test goes around 650/850. Now each parts is inside the iMac. Could you suggest me any test or way to follow for reach a better speed? Thank you

 

[kachijs]

Device: Late 2013 27" - (ME088LL/A - i5 - 4570, 1TB fusion)
CPU upgrade: i5-4570 -> i7-4771
Blade upgrade: Apple 128GB -> Intel 660p 1TB + Adapter HERE + Heatsink 3mm HERE
HDD upgrade: 1 TB HDD -> REMOVED
System Firmware Version: 431.0.0.0.0
Speed test: blade 760MB/s read, 720MB/write
OS: Catalina 10.15 (fresh install) + Upgrade to Big Sur 11.3.1 (Patched Sur HERE)
Location: Riga, Latvia
Issues after fresh OS install: none

 

[Christian20]

success! 👍

Device: iMac 27” 5K - Late 2015 - 17.1 - (3.2Ghz i5-6500, HDD only)
Location: Sweden, Europe
Blade upgrade: none -> 1TB OWC Aura Pro X2 PCIe NVMe SSD
HDD to SSD upgrade: 1TB original Seagate SATA HDD -> 1TB 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD
CPU upgrade: no upgrade
Speed test NVMe SSD: ~3000 MB/s read, ~2550 MB/s write
Speed test SATA SSD: ~510 MB/s read, ~400 MB/s write
OS before: Catalina 10.15.7
OS after: Big Sur 11.2.3
Adapter: No adapter needed with the OWC blade
Heatsink for blade: Glotrends NVMe heatsink
Mounting bracket 3.5” to 2.5”: Corsair Dual Solid-State Drive Mounting Bracket
Adhesive strips for the screen: iFixit
Temperature sensor: not required
Boot-ROM before upgrade: 428.x.x.x (never got stuck on 170.x.x.x most likely due to the iMac never being shipped with a blade SSD)
Boot-ROM after upgrade: 429.80.1.0.0
TRIM: Enabled by default for the OWC (didn't expect that..), but not for the SATA SSD (expected)


Issues during install:
1. Since the iMac wasn’t shipped with a blade from factory it had no screw to secure the blade. Naively I thought I would have one in my rather big stash of different bits and bobs - but no sir. Luckily I was able to source one similar locally, after calling around to at least 4 different shops that handle electronics. For anyone wondering, the original Apple Part Number is 923-0336. It’s a M2,5x3,0 (mm) with a big flat head.
2. I'd forgot that I needed a long T10 screwdriver to reach the one screw in the middle of the logic board. Had to go get one from work.
3. The 2.5” SSD had to be mounted in the top slot on the dual bracket due to cable management. Managed to route the SATA cable through the back of the adapter to line everything up.


Issues after installation:
None, sleep and everything works.


Thoughts and questions:
- I had originally planned on installing a 1TB WD Black SN750 with the Sintech ST-NGFF2013C, but I got a really really good deal on an OWC Aura Pro X2 so I changed my mind in the last minute. I’ll use the WD blade in an enclosure with my iPad Pro instead, or throw it in my unRAID server.

- Since the heatsink was bought with intent to use with the adapter (needed to be thin), perhaps it could’ve been larger. But I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Didn’t use the metal springs to attach the heatsink to the blade, only used the silicone bands. Felt like I would risk shorting the blade if I used the metal ones, time will tell if the silicone will hold up.
View attachment 1755715

- The iMac 17.1 isn’t (!) one of the supported Macs for the OWC Aura Pro X2 according to OWC but from what I can understand that’s probably due to an EFI issue with these models. See this thread for more info:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...te-2015-efi-firmware-update-failures.2228324/ Since I have no issues with EFI I thought I’d give it a chance. So far no problem and I don’t expect any either. My theory is that OWC and others don’t want to risk problems with 17.1 and therefore skipped support for it. I’ve got the WD blade and the adapter if issues occur.

- I've found different sources saying different things about TRIM being enabled by default for NVMe blades.
Some say it's only automatically enabled for Apples own blades, some say its enabled for all NVMe by default, some say all 3rd party SSDs (NVMe and SATA) never have TRIM enabled by default..
Well, my OWC was enabled. Thats good. The SATA SSD wasn't, as expected, so I guess I still will have to run the trimforce command. Shouldn't affect the blade in any negative way, right?


How I did the cloning and install of macOS, for anyone unsure:
First, always take a backup!
I cloned the HDD to the 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD with Carbon Copy Cloner using a old external enclosure. Did the teardown and install of everything and put the screen back on without the adhesive strips.
Booted into the SATA drive first to see if everything was working and that the OWC blade was recognized.
Shut everything down and booted into Internet recovery mode (option+cmd+r).
The OWC blade was pre-formatted with HFS+ so I had to erase it in Disk Utility and change it to APFS instead.
Returned to Internet Recovery menu and chose to install a fresh Big Sur. After some steps I could choose between the internal drives and chose the OWC blade. Everything installed fine.
During the setup process for Big Sur I could choose to start fresh or recover data from a Time Machine backup, another Mac or a startup disk. Here I chose the 2.5” SATA SSD and transferred everything to the new install.
I could’ve used CCC again when booted into the 2.5” SATA SSD and cloned everything to the OWC blade, but since I was on Catalina to start with I thought I try this way first. If the Big Sur install wasn’t successful for some reason I could just wipe the OWC blade again and go the CCC route.
I’ll run it like this, keeping the 2.5” SATA SSD clone for a while, to test out Big Sur.


Now I’ll just have to figure out if it’s better/faster to run 32GB 1866MHz RAM, or 64GB 1600MHz RAM. I’ve got both... 🤷‍♂️😅 Any

Another success! 👍

Device: iMac 27” 5K - Late 2015 - 17.1 - (3.2Ghz i5-6500, HDD only)
Location: Sweden, Europe
Blade upgrade: none -> 1TB OWC Aura Pro X2 PCIe NVMe SSD
HDD to SSD upgrade: 1TB original Seagate SATA HDD -> 1TB 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD
CPU upgrade: no upgrade
Speed test NVMe SSD: ~3000 MB/s read, ~2550 MB/s write
Speed test SATA SSD: ~510 MB/s read, ~400 MB/s write
OS before: Catalina 10.15.7
OS after: Big Sur 11.2.3
Adapter: No adapter needed with the OWC blade
Heatsink for blade: Glotrends NVMe heatsink
Mounting bracket 3.5” to 2.5”: Corsair Dual Solid-State Drive Mounting Bracket
Adhesive strips for the screen: iFixit
Temperature sensor: not required
Boot-ROM before upgrade: 428.x.x.x (never got stuck on 170.x.x.x most likely due to the iMac never being shipped with a blade SSD)
Boot-ROM after upgrade: 429.80.1.0.0
TRIM: Enabled by default for the OWC (didn't expect that..), but not for the SATA SSD (expected)


Issues during install:
1. Since the iMac wasn’t shipped with a blade from factory it had no screw to secure the blade. Naively I thought I would have one in my rather big stash of different bits and bobs - but no sir. Luckily I was able to source one similar locally, after calling around to at least 4 different shops that handle electronics. For anyone wondering, the original Apple Part Number is 923-0336. It’s a M2,5x3,0 (mm) with a big flat head.
2. I'd forgot that I needed a long T10 screwdriver to reach the one screw in the middle of the logic board. Had to go get one from work.
3. The 2.5” SSD had to be mounted in the top slot on the dual bracket due to cable management. Managed to route the SATA cable through the back of the adapter to line everything up.


Issues after installation:
None, sleep and everything works.


Thoughts and questions:
- I had originally planned on installing a 1TB WD Black SN750 with the Sintech ST-NGFF2013C, but I got a really really good deal on an OWC Aura Pro X2 so I changed my mind in the last minute. I’ll use the WD blade in an enclosure with my iPad Pro instead, or throw it in my unRAID server.

- Since the heatsink was bought with intent to use with the adapter (needed to be thin), perhaps it could’ve been larger. But I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Didn’t use the metal springs to attach the heatsink to the blade, only used the silicone bands. Felt like I would risk shorting the blade if I used the metal ones, time will tell if the silicone will hold up.
View attachment 1755715

- The iMac 17.1 isn’t (!) one of the supported Macs for the OWC Aura Pro X2 according to OWC but from what I can understand that’s probably due to an EFI issue with these models. See this thread for more info:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...te-2015-efi-firmware-update-failures.2228324/ Since I have no issues with EFI I thought I’d give it a chance. So far no problem and I don’t expect any either. My theory is that OWC and others don’t want to risk problems with 17.1 and therefore skipped support for it. I’ve got the WD blade and the adapter if issues occur.

- I've found different sources saying different things about TRIM being enabled by default for NVMe blades.
Some say it's only automatically enabled for Apples own blades, some say its enabled for all NVMe by default, some say all 3rd party SSDs (NVMe and SATA) never have TRIM enabled by default..
Well, my OWC was enabled. Thats good. The SATA SSD wasn't, as expected, so I guess I still will have to run the trimforce command. Shouldn't affect the blade in any negative way, right?


How I did the cloning and install of macOS, for anyone unsure:
First, always take a backup!
I cloned the HDD to the 2.5” WD Blue SATA SSD with Carbon Copy Cloner using a old external enclosure. Did the teardown and install of everything and put the screen back on without the adhesive strips.
Booted into the SATA drive first to see if everything was working and that the OWC blade was recognized.
Shut everything down and booted into Internet recovery mode (option+cmd+r).
The OWC blade was pre-formatted with HFS+ so I had to erase it in Disk Utility and change it to APFS instead.
Returned to Internet Recovery menu and chose to install a fresh Big Sur. After some steps I could choose between the internal drives and chose the OWC blade. Everything installed fine.
During the setup process for Big Sur I could choose to start fresh or recover data from a Time Machine backup, another Mac or a startup disk. Here I chose the 2.5” SATA SSD and transferred everything to the new install.
I could’ve used CCC again when booted into the 2.5” SATA SSD and cloned everything to the OWC blade, but since I was on Catalina to start with I thought I try this way first. If the Big Sur install wasn’t successful for some reason I could just wipe the OWC blade again and go the CCC route.
I’ll run it like this, keeping the 2.5” SATA SSD clone for a while, to test out Big Sur.


Now I’ll just have to figure out if it’s better/faster to run 32GB 1866MHz RAM, or 64GB 1600MHz RAM. I’ve got both... 🤷‍♂️😅 Any ideas?

Hello, i’ve installed 1TB aura pro x2 blade ssd nvme and samsung 860 ssd SATA.

SMART status on DISK UTILITY said not supported for both ssd nvme and ssd sata. But SMART status in SYSTEM REPORT said verified for them both.

Is this normal ? what do you think about this? Thanks so much before..

My Imac 27” 2017 model ID:18,3.

 

[mbosse]

Hi everybody i install some upgrade to my iMac 27 5k 2017.
After install ssd sata 1 tb, i mounted a 1 PCIe SAMSUNG evo 970 + Sintech NGFF M.2 updated 2B2QEXM7. After 3 monthes of use i’m not so satisfied as the writing speed test goes around 650/850. Now each parts is inside the iMac. Could you suggest me any test or way to follow for reach a better speed? Thank you

Without knowing the details, it sounds like the SSD is not properly seated in either the adapter or both in the PCIe port.

Was that the speed since upgrading or slowed it down later?

 

[Yiveymacnod]

Hello, i’ve installed 1TB aura pro x2 blade ssd nvme and samsung 860 ssd SATA.

SMART status on DISK UTILITY said not supported for both ssd nvme and ssd sata. But SMART status in SYSTEM REPORT said verified for them both.

Is this normal ? what do you think about this? Thanks so much before..

My Imac 27” 2017 model ID:18,3.

I think that's normal. I'd run 'sudo trimforce enable' in Terminal just to be sure though. I don't believe the SATA SSD has TRIM enabled by default, but NVMe blades seems to.

 

[Christian20]

I think that's normal. I'd run 'sudo trimforce enable' in Terminal just to be sure though. I don't believe the SATA SSD has TRIM enabled by default, but NVMe blades seems to.

Okay, thank you so much for this! 🙏

 

[tah18]

You don’t need it as the iMac can read the SSD temperature directly. It really makes no sense to install it, you’ll be spending money on thing that add nothing.

Best,
Magnus

Magnus - thanks in advance for your many informative posts on this topic.

How do you know the iMac can read SSD temp directly? Is this true for late 2015 5k 27" retina (17,1)? Is there some way to verify this in "About this mac/System Report" or elsewhere?

Thanks!
tah18

 

[mbosse]

Magnus - thanks in advance for your many informative posts on this topic.

How do you know the iMac can read SSD temp directly? Is this true for late 2015 5k 27" retina (17,1)? Is there some way to verify this in "About this mac/System Report" or elsewhere?

Thanks!
tah18

This actually verifies itself: install the SSD and if the fan behaves normal, then it reads the temperature. I cannot obviously vouch for any SSD on the market, but in my experience Sandisk, Crucial or Samsung show no issue whatsoever.

Magnus

 

[Yiveymacnod]

I second Magnus there and add WD to that list from my experience. Also, if you for some strange odd reason get a fan spinning out of control, just install Macs Fan Control. Save those $40 for the OWC Thermal Sensor, so many people in this thread have had success without it.

 

[mbosse]

I second Magnus there and add WD to that list from my experience. Also, if you for some strange odd reason get a fan spinning out of control, just install Macs Fan Control. Save those $40 for the OWC Thermal Sensor, so many people in this thread have had success without it.

WD = SanDisk ;-)

 

[Yiveymacnod]

WD = SanDisk ;-)

Hehe true..