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Hard Drive Upgrade advice?

I

iamdamienl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 15, 2011
4
0
Hey,

I've owned my mac for some time now and my Hard Disk space is running out, I was thinking of upgrading my Hard Disk Drive. I phoned apple store (2 hours away) they said they don't have the right hard drive. So I've took it upon myself to perhaps install a hard drive. My spec is below:

2.93GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, 24" iMac

I'm pretty sure I can run 1TB... but could I run this 2TB or would the machine overheat?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Shouldn't overheat. The main concern would be the temperature sensor to not be compatible with the hard drive you're trying to install.
 
What you can do if the temp sensor is not compatible with the hard drive is short the temp sensors with a metal clip. This is a must in the late 2009 and 2010 models as the fans would spin at a very high rpm and thus making a racket. I am not sure about your model if this is required.

I don't know what your needs are but IMHO I would not mess around inside the iMac to upgrade the storage space but instead connect an external hard drive. It seems you are not particularly interested in speed (5400rpm HDD) so an external HDD should suffice. I would personally mess around inside the iMac to upgrade the stock HDD to an SSD otherwise I would leave it alone.
 
24" iMac is really easy to get into.

there are videos on youtube showing the steps, most are pretty clear -- although I have never found it necessary to remove the entire screen.

newer and larger drives probably run cooler than the drive you currently have in the iMac now. Updated my 24" with a WD Black, no issues, took about 15 minutes.

Since yours is an early 2009, the temp sensor isnt an issue. Just tape it back on where the old drive was before.
 
I had to do this on my 2.4 Ghz C2D 24" when my original HD bought the farm. It wasn't very difficult at all, except when it came to the hard drive bracket. ifixit.com lets you know that it takes some force to get that thing loose, and I ended up using pliers cushioned with some cloth to keep from damaging the bracket.

Other than that, the only problem I had was the temp sensor, and I used double-sided, heat resistant sticky tape to re-secure the sensor onto the new drive.

The new drive is a 1TB Hitachi, and it's quiet, fast and has plenty of room. No overheating problems whatsoever.

Good luck and have fun. Let us know what happens.
 
I wouldn't open it yourself without knowing what you're doing. Just in case its out of warranty and you're deciding to do the work yourself. Any SATA Hard drive will work. I would say a 1 TB HD is a good size for an internal drive, stay away from some of the "Green" HD's as they spin at a low RPM and therefore are slower then regular hard drives. Be careful when handling the LCD and touching ANYTHING inside without being properly grounded.

If it's not in warranty, and you don't want to do the work yourself, and are worried about damaging it you can take it to any Apple Certified Repair Center (doesn't have to be the Apple Store), and they will do a good job upgrading your computer.
 
I contacted Apple about upgrading my HDD and they said I can't do it as it voids the warranty the nearest Apple store from me is about 2 hours away and they don't even stock the hard drive that my iMac would need... :(
 
TMRaven said:
Well you really souldn't have expected anything more from apple.
Click to expand...

In that respect, do you think it is worth upgrading the hard drive from 1TB to 2TB through Apple if you purchase a new iMac? I know there is always the option of an external hard drive however I would really like my internal hard drive to be as large as possible before resorting to an external solution.
 
I wouldn't, but that's more about your opinion than mine. If I were to upgrade anything inside the iMac, it'd be a 250gig ssd.
 
Doesn't your mac have Firewire 800? That has pretty fast data transfer rate so why not buy an external Firewire 800 Hard drive that's 2 TB? It may not be as fast as the internal bus but it's good for any video or audio playback.

Heres my recommendation to you and it keeps you in warranty :)

http://www.rocstor.com/Products/rocpro-850.html
 
It would only void your warranty if you still have one.

adding an external isnt a bad idea, plenty fine for data storage.

no idea what country you are in, but Ive never see rocstor drives in the US.
 
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