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iMac 27" SSD Upgrade - Important Tip!

more pics of how you unistalled the normal hdd and especially how you put together the temperature sensor will be more than welcome!
 
knewsom said:
If you have an external optical drive, skip to option B.

Option A:
1. check to make sure you don't have TRIM firmware installed on the SSD.

2. use a USB or FW enclosure to reformat your SSD.

2. install SL on the SSD.

3. Install the SSD in your optical bay.

4. Boot up your computer holding the option key on the keyboard.

5. Select the SSD install and boot.

6. Wipe the HDD clean with Disk Utility, and use it for whatever you want!

Option B:
1. check to make sure you don't have TRIM firmware installed on the SSD.

2. install the SSD.

3. boot from the SL DVD via your external optical drive, and install onto the SSD. Wipe the HD clean and do whatcha gotta do to put the /Users folder on it, if you like.

4. Enjoy.


Welcome to Macintosh!
Click to expand...

Hi,
I read the whole thread but got a little lost with all the TRIM talk. I just bought this drive:
SSDSA2MH160G2C1

How can I tell if TRIM is installed? From the discussion I'm not really sure how to get rid of it or even if I can. Are people getting rid of TRIM or just leaving it? If I leave it will I take a big performance hit?
 
Or, you could make a clone of the install disc on to one of those $13 8GB usb sticks and install from there.
 
kb27973 said:
Hi,
I read the whole thread but got a little lost with all the TRIM talk. I just bought this drive:
SSDSA2MH160G2C1

How can I tell if TRIM is installed? From the discussion I'm not really sure how to get rid of it or even if I can. Are people getting rid of TRIM or just leaving it? If I leave it will I take a big performance hit?
Click to expand...

I would guess that you should use the included utilities to check the firmware version currently on the drive, and then google that firmware version, or look it up on their website.

If you have the TRIM enabled firmware, I believe it can cause you some degradation and speed loss, since the OS doesn't support TRIM, and that ver. of the firmware DOES disable the "voodoo" that's already on the drive.
 
knewsom said:
I would guess that you should use the included utilities to check the firmware version currently on the drive, and then google that firmware version, or look it up on their website.

If you have the TRIM enabled firmware, I believe it can cause you some degradation and speed loss, since the OS doesn't support TRIM, and that ver. of the firmware DOES disable the "voodoo" that's already on the drive.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. In the description of the drive it says:

The Intel X25-M SATA Solid State Drive features the Intel SSD Toolbox with Intel SSD Optimizer, which manages the health and boosts the performance of your drive.

Sounds to me like it has the "voodoo" disabling firmware. Maybe I'm making to big of a deal about it and it will run fine as is?
 
Reao said:
Looking at the DVD drive in the iMac this might be an option also. http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/
Click to expand...

$99 is a bit steep, but it looks like it will work and it includes a USB case for the optical.

From: arnie@mcetech.com
Subject: Re: MCE OptiBay
Date: December 9, 2009 12:33:02 AM MST
Hi,

Thank you for your inquiry...

Yes, the OptiBay will work inside the iMac as with the Mac mini and can be used to replace the superdrive with an SSD. It would also include and enclosure so that you will still be able to use your SuperDrive externally via USB.

The CD slot does not need to be plugged since CDs and DVDs enter in less than an inch before they contact the solid OptiBay and will not go any further. There is no way to jam them in.

Please let me know if you have anymore questions or need any additional information or would like to order a unit for your iMac.

Best Regards,


Arnie Ramirez
MCE Technologies, LLC
http://www.mcetech.com
714-674-0800
714-674-0832 fax
 
kb27973 said:
Hi,
I read the whole thread but got a little lost with all the TRIM talk. I just bought this drive:
SSDSA2MH160G2C1

How can I tell if TRIM is installed? From the discussion I'm not really sure how to get rid of it or even if I can. Are people getting rid of TRIM or just leaving it? If I leave it will I take a big performance hit?
Click to expand...

You want the 02G9 firmware. This is the pre-TRIM-enabled firmware. As to how to check, I am not totally sure, maybe someone else can shed some light on that? I would assume if you use Intel's SSD tools they will say somewhere, but I believe they only run in windows so you will have to use boot camp or parallels for that I think.

In terms of performance, the pre TRIM Intel G2 drives have about 36MB/s for small file random writes both used and new. Once the TRIM firmware is installed, the drive assumes you are using TRIM which is not supported in OS X, so after moderate use your performance of small file size random writes will drop down from about 38MB/s new to around 17MB/s used. This is still much much faster than any HDD and most SSDs in fact, but obviously you want to get as much performance out of it as possible. If you do have the TRIM firmware, the only workaround I know of is to run the intel SSD tools periodically while using windows 7 in boot camp and wipe the drive clean using TRIM. Then restore from your OS X backup.

However, I have not heard any reports yet of people receiving drives with the new firmware already installed, so I would say chances are pretty good that you will have the original firmware on your drive still.

I actually picked on up yesterday even though I will prob not be getting my iMac until January because I really wanted to get the old firmware. I managed to find a store that had a drive that was packaged on Oct 8, so I'm confident it will not have the new firmware. Best of luck to you.

If anyone knows specifically how to check the firmware version of the Intel drives via software or any other means please, do tell.
 
andyOSX said:
You want the 02G9 firmware. This is the pre-TRIM-enabled firmware. As to how to check, I am not totally sure, maybe someone else can shed some light on that? I would assume if you use Intel's SSD tools they will say somewhere, but I believe they only run in windows so you will have to use boot camp or parallels for that I think.

In terms of performance, the pre TRIM Intel G2 drives have about 36MB/s for small file random writes both used and new. Once the TRIM firmware is installed, the drive assumes you are using TRIM which is not supported in OS X, so after moderate use your performance of small file size random writes will drop down from about 38MB/s new to around 17MB/s used. This is still much much faster than any HDD and most SSDs in fact, but obviously you want to get as much performance out of it as possible. If you do have the TRIM firmware, the only workaround I know of is to run the intel SSD tools periodically while using windows 7 in boot camp and wipe the drive clean using TRIM. Then restore from your OS X backup.

However, I have not heard any reports yet of people receiving drives with the new firmware already installed, so I would say chances are pretty good that you will have the original firmware on your drive still.

I actually picked on up yesterday even though I will prob not be getting my iMac until January because I really wanted to get the old firmware. I managed to find a store that had a drive that was packaged on Oct 8, so I'm confident it will not have the new firmware. Best of luck to you.

If anyone knows specifically how to check the firmware version of the Intel drives via software or any other means please, do tell.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I will post back here after I get mine and take a look at it. Should be here today. I'm almost tempted not to do the switch. My i7 27" is working perfectly. Not a single flicker, quiet as a mouse and no yellow tinge. :)
 
The firmware version is printed on the label.

If you already installed it, you can check the S.M.A.R.T. info. Mine reports 2CV102G9, though on the label it just says 02G9.
 
Cool. It says FW: 02G9. So I guess I'm good to go. Will be ripping my Mac apart tonight....
 
andyOSX said:
Hmmm, that should be very interesting. However there are many different measures of speed and different drives perform better or worse in these various categories. While sequential/random sustained read and write are cool, for those of us using SSDs as our boot volume it's all about small random 4K and 256K reads/writes. Speeding up these operations is arguably the most notable change to the user. This is where the Intel drives REALLY smoke the competition.

Also, as Mac users, the G2s' (pre-TRIM firmware) strong resistance to the performance degradation issue means that that they will keep close to top speed while other drives slow to only a fraction of what they once were capable of after moderate use.

It will be interesting to see how these new drives fair in that arena. I wish they had given us some more concrete numbers in addition to the video.
Click to expand...

Micron just posted 4KB Random IOPS numbers, guess what? its ahead of Intel's enterprise SSD by 10 percent on SATA 3 GBs, and 33 percent on SATA 6GBs.

http://www.micronblogs.com/2009/12/you-asked-for-it-realssd-c300-random-iops

This card is turning to be real Intel killer. Note that Micron is the company that makes nand chips for Intel SSDs, and yes, they made the nand chips in the G2 drives :)

Now if only they post random 4kb reads and writes :)
 
knewsom said:
If you have an external optical drive, skip to option B.

Option A:
1. check to make sure you don't have TRIM firmware installed on the SSD.

2. use a USB or FW enclosure to reformat your SSD.

2. install SL on the SSD.

3. Install the SSD in your optical bay.

4. Boot up your computer holding the option key on the keyboard.

5. Select the SSD install and boot.

6. Wipe the HDD clean with Disk Utility, and use it for whatever you want!

Option B:
1. check to make sure you don't have TRIM firmware installed on the SSD.

2. install the SSD.

3. boot from the SL DVD via your external optical drive, and install onto the SSD. Wipe the HD clean and do whatcha gotta do to put the /Users folder on it, if you like.

4. Enjoy.


Welcome to Macintosh!
Click to expand...

I've also heard ppl say that you should change a few of the settings on the Mac. eg:-
dissable sudden motion sensor
enable don't sleep, no safe sleep
apply noatime
disable spotlight
don't defragment

Any others??

Also, I'm not sure if it will work OK but once I get my SSD I was thinking of placing my Music, Pictures, and Movies folders on an external HDD. I was possibly considering doing this for the Desktop folder as well. Then make an alias of them and place these in the Users folder on the SSD replacing the original folders. Hopefully the OS will treat them the same.
 
bajee said:
This card is turning to be real Intel killer. Note that Micron is the company that makes nand chips for Intel SSDs, and yes, they made the nand chips in the G2 drives :)
Click to expand...

1st gen micron controller were very bad, and degraded quickly. I'm not sure if the speeds you are reading about are sustainable. For a quick chart on SSDs http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736

andyOSX said:
However, I have not heard any reports yet of people receiving drives with the new firmware already installed, so I would say chances are pretty good that you will have the original firmware on your drive still.
Click to expand...

The G2s are in short supply and new inventory will probably have the new firmware.

Sounds like Vertex on a mac is probably a better longterm performer than the Intel G2s? :confused:
 
also, regarding the 2 pint jumper for the 3.5" drive spot...

the factory installed drive has modified firmware that reports to these imacs. while replacing my superdrive with a SSD, I also upgraded my 1TB Apple drive to a 1.5TB drive that I already had. even with the temp sensor connected properly, just as it was with the original drive, i still got 3,500rpm + fan speeds for the HDD. so I swapped out the 1.5 and put the original 1TB drive back in and my fan speeds went back down.
 
jacobzking said:
also, regarding the 2 pint jumper for the 3.5" drive spot...

the factory installed drive has modified firmware that reports to these imacs. while replacing my superdrive with a SSD, I also upgraded my 1TB Apple drive to a 1.5TB drive that I already had. even with the temp sensor connected properly, just as it was with the original drive, i still got 3,500rpm + fan speeds for the HDD. so I swapped out the 1.5 and put the original 1TB drive back in and my fan speeds went back down.
Click to expand...

Balls! That sucks! I REALLY should've gotten the 2TB drive. Dangitall. Why'd Apple have to go and do that?
 
justit said:
1st gen micron controller were very bad, and degraded quickly. I'm not sure if the speeds you are reading about are sustainable. For a quick chart on SSDs http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736
Click to expand...


I think you meant JMicron company who made that controller. I'm taking to the makers of the NAND Chips (the actual memory that Intel is using (80GB, 160GB) not the controller. It was made by the company Micron. They didn't made that ******* controller.

=================

Guys, I'm sorry if I'm hyping this up, but this is a very promising SSD, Intel has been dethroned in the random 4kb write.

Basically Intel lacks sequential write speed, which is roughly around 70mb and 100mb/sec in 160gb variant, as compared to the competitors' 200 mb/sec ++. But low and behold an SSD which has sequential read 260MB and 204 mb/sec sequential write, and around 60MB/sec 4k random write speed :)

sources here:
http://www.micronblogs.com/2009/12/as-benchmarks-for-realssd-c300/

the benchmark (AS SSD Benchmark) is being used by legit reviews, for comparison with Intel X25-M G2:

Intel X25-M G2
ss20091211130208.png

sources from legitreviews.com

Micron RealSSD C300
ss20091211130104.png


sources from micronblogs.com


http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1022/11/

http://forums.legitreviews.com/about21729.html

here's hoping the independent reviewers like pcper and anand could get the hands of this new gem.

I noticed that the one used in LegitReviews is an older version, now I welcome anyone who has the Intel G2 drive can download the benchmark and post the results.
 
bajee said:
I think you meant JMicron company who made that controller. I'm taking to the makers of the NAND Chips (the actual memory that Intel is using (80GB, 160GB) not the controller. It was made by the company Micron. They didn't made that ******* controller.
Click to expand...

ah.. :eek:... ok, explicatives aside, let's all be more objective than just dumping information from a company PR website.

Now, show and tell hour, how do you plan to install their card in an imac? :rolleyes:
 
well the same as you install an Intel-x25m g2 SSD :)

I'm just saying we finally have a SSD contender to Intel's random reads/write and is king when comes to sequential reads and writes too.
 
Jaspa said:
My plan is to replace the ODD with my intel g2 SSD and use the optical as external.

I guess I would go this way http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=31_32&products_id=201 if I had time and patience or could find a store in Europe that sells these..

Until then.. duct tape it! (at least for me) :D
Click to expand...

I ordered a similar product from a french vendor: http://www.macway.com/fr/product/14...port-disque-dur-macbookmacbook-pro-unibo.html

It took only a few days to ship this to Germany. MacBidouille has a review of it too: http://www.macbidouille.com/news/20...our-remplacer-un-superdrive-par-un-disque-dur

(TIP: Use google translator if your french is as rusty as mine)

Unfortunately I'm still waiting for my iMac to ship, will be another week or two until I can finally use the Intel SSD.
 
a very cheap method is following:

Additional to this post, please have a look on my last post with many other pictures:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8927668/




yesterday i opened my i5 again and tested following adapter (SLIM-SATA --> SATA), appr. 10 Euro / 14 USD


14b21fcd3c9d22.jpg
14b21fcd3e2a28.jpg


14b21fcd406a86.jpg
14b21fcd41f1a0.jpg


14b21fcd437679.jpg
14b21fcd44f9bc.jpg



If you didn´t move or pull your imac, you can fix the ssd with tape, but it´s not recommended.


With new and cheap adapter everything works perfect.

Silent and fast system

:)​
 
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