iMac 2012 conversion from HDD to SSD

[Colin Farrugia]

Hi, I'm thinking about switching my iMac HDD to an SSD. Recently I saw a video where you can attach an external SSD to the iMac with USB 3 and make MacOS boot from it. Now, if I open the iMac, I was going to upgrade the ram from 8 to 16Gb while in the process.

My question: What is the best solution, open the iMac and upgrade the drive and ram from inside or should I just upgrade the SSD from an external device?

Thanks in advance

 

[||\||]

If you can live with write speeds in the 200-300 MB/sec range, go USB. That’ll be much faster than you are used to and might be sufficient.

Opening the iMac for internal SATA replacement is not difficult. You just need the right tools, an $8 tape/pizza wheel cutter set and a torx 10 driver. I swapped mine out in about 1/2 hour going slowly. An internal drive will be about 500 MB/sec read and write.

 

[Colin Farrugia]

If you can live with write speeds in the 200-300 MB/sec range, go USB. That’ll be much faster than you are used to and might be sufficient.

Opening the iMac for internal SATA replacement is not difficult. You just need the right tools, an $8 tape/pizza wheel cutter set and a torx 10 driver. I swapped mine out in about 1/2 hour going slowly. An internal drive will be about 500 MB/sec read and write.

Great, thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

There are 2 ways to get the benefit of the SSD:

First way:
Open up the iMac and install it internally.
You will get slightly faster speed than by using USB (although the difference won't really be that much at all).
BUT... there are hazards in opening an iMac in that it's easy to break something inside -- then "the fix" becomes more expensive!

Second way:
Get an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, and set that up to become the boot drive.
This is VERY VERY easy to do. And no risk of breaking anything inside.

You didn't tell us how large the internal drive is on the iMac.
If it's 1tb, you could get a 1tb SSD, and use CarbonCopyCloner to "clone over" the contents of the internal drive to the new SSD.
Then, set the startup disk preference pane to make the SSD "the boot drive".
Then, reboot.
CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days, so doing this would cost you nothing.

That's really about all there is to it.

An external USB3 SSD will give reads in the 430MBps range, and writes around 330-370MBps (depends on make, model, size of the drive).
A very nice improvement over an internal platter-based hard drive.

One thing:
Not all "2012" iMacs have USB3.
I believe the "early" 2012 iMacs have only USB2.
"Late" 2012 iMacs got upgraded with USB3.
Which do you have?

 

[Colin Farrugia]

There are 2 ways to get the benefit of the SSD:

First way:
Open up the iMac and install it internally.
You will get slightly faster speed than by using USB (although the difference won't really be that much at all).
BUT... there are hazards in opening an iMac in that it's easy to break something inside -- then "the fix" becomes more expensive!

Second way:
Get an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, and set that up to become the boot drive.
This is VERY VERY easy to do. And no risk of breaking anything inside.

You didn't tell us how large the internal drive is on the iMac.
If it's 1tb, you could get a 1tb SSD, and use CarbonCopyCloner to "clone over" the contents of the internal drive to the new SSD.
Then, set the startup disk preference pane to make the SSD "the boot drive".
Then, reboot.
CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days, so doing this would cost you nothing.

That's really about all there is to it.

An external USB3 SSD will give reads in the 430MBps range, and writes around 330-370MBps (depends on make, model, size of the drive).
A very nice improvement over an internal platter-based hard drive.

One thing:
Not all "2012" iMacs have USB3.
I believe the "early" 2012 iMacs have only USB2.
"Late" 2012 iMacs got upgraded with USB3.
Which do you have?

Mine is the Late 2012 model 21.5". My internal HDD is 1Tb and I would like to have a 1Tb SSD again.

 

[weaztek]

Mine is the Late 2012 model 21.5". My internal HDD is 1Tb and I would like to have a 1Tb SSD again.

There may be more to it than it seems.

Specifically, as first discovered via teardowns from iFixit and [URL='https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1507713/[/URL], if the 21.5-Inch "Late 2012" or "Early 2013" iMac models were configured with an SSD or a "Fusion Drive" at the time of purchase, the SSD module is connected via a dedicated PCIe connector and another SSD can be installed in its place. Unfortunately, if the system only was configured with a hard drive, the needed connector is not present on the motherboard and there is not a way to add a PCIe-based "blade" SSD afterwards.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...grade-imac-hard-drive-aluminum-2012-2013.html

Having cracked open several iMacs in my time, I'd go the external route. Or actually, I'd sell the iMac while it's still worth something and replace it with a current iMac or Mac Mini with a fast SSD.