iMac 27" SSD Upgrade - Important Tip!

[cmosq]

Then just put everything back in reverse order and attach the thermal sensor wire with a little bit of tape to the SSD so it doesn't move around inside. Now properly placed the 3.5" adapter should be facing upwards so that you don't see the SSD. This way the SATA cables and such can be connected with ease and are the right way around.

Did you short the thermal sensor? If you didn't, is the fan real loud?

 

[Sensamic]

If you dont short the sensor then the fans will be really loud.

 

[Cockroach]

Has anyone confirmed if you can turn it down in software?

 

[Sensamic]

I think I read somewhere that it wasnt possible.

Where can I buy a jumper to short the temp sensor? Maybe I'll use a jumper instead of a cable.

 

[i7QuadCoreMania]

I think I read somewhere that it wasnt possible.

Where can I buy a jumper to short the temp sensor? Maybe I'll use a jumper instead of a cable.

I already did that, you need a really small jumper and header pins to match.

they work fine, no roaring fans here.

 

[Cockroach]

I wouldn't waste any money buying something a bit of wire or paperclip can do just as well.

 

[Muppetteer]

So I bought a new imac and the guy who installed the ssd didn't short the wire, even after I wrote a note telling him to. It sounds like a jet engine! aaagh

But instead of sending it back I worked out how to disable the fan in software.

1. Download smcFanControl and put it in applications (don't need to run it).
2. Open a terminal and type this:

/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k F1Mx -w 0000

Done. Save it as an app using Automator if you want and you can set it to run in your login items.

Credit to this thread which was my inspiration:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/468416/

 

[stevemr123]

I have installed a Kingston V+ 256Gb "upgrade kit". The pakcage came with a 3.5" converter and screws, which is a perfect fit for the iMac (i7 w/ 8Gb RAM).

I didn't have a small wire for shorting the thermal sensor cable, so I just removed the two wires from the black plastic connector, connected them, and used some insulating tape to make sure they don't cause any harm.

After assembling everything, the LCD had no screen (blood pressure up, scary thoughts etc.). Then I carefully disassembled and reassembled everything, and voila it worked. Probably that tricky LED sync cable got loose.

A boot video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezzpWLRPiIs

Here is a pic of my setup (the drive is upside-down).

 

[Sensamic]

So then it is possible to control the fans via software after the ssd installation? That's great news! Thanks for telling how to do it.

Yesterday I got my tools for opening the imac, so I opened it before buying the ssd to see how I would have to do everything later. The protector came out very easily, but Ive got to say it does look like a very very scary job. You have to be extremely careful not to break the protector, which I found to be very fragile. Then, the screws are very difficult to access. Plus, in just one second the screen got plenty of dust and it was extremely difficult to clean afterwards. A pain in the ass, really. I didnt opened the screen, just the protector.

I think it would be a safer bet to give the imac to a professional to install the ssd so I wont break anything. Anyways, I found it to be so scary that Im gonna think it through some more time before finally buying the ssd.

How the hell can you guys take all the dust from inside the screen? Maybe do it on a very clean room?

Im even scared that moving the internal display may cause dead pixels or something.

 

[stevemr123]

Muppetteer: I am not sure if it is a good idea to disable the HDD fan alltogether. I bet it's safer to limit it to the baseline 1000 RPM, if it is possible. The software hack is nice if you don't want to short the wires (but it will not help those with bootcamp, unless a hack for windows is also available).

Sensamic: about the screen, I didn't have suction cups to remove the glass, nor compressed air to clean the dust. As some others, I simply used some strong adhesive tape to remove the screen (a nice tip I read in this thread somewhere), and the cloth (which was supplied with the iMac) to remove the dust. As the glass can be removed very easily, if you see some unwanted speck after turning the unit on, you can always remove it, after a few tries, it should be ok.

 

[Cockroach]

I used a hair-dryer on cold-air mode. I found using a cloth introduced more dust than it removed.

 

[stevemr123]

I used a hair-dryer on cold-air mode. I found using a cloth introduced more dust than it removed.

Hmm, yeah hair dryer seems to be a better idea than a cloth. I'll try that, since I wasn't able to remove all dust with the cloth...

A tip: For those, who use SSD as the replacement of the main HDD, free space may be an important issue. I used the following tool to apply HFS+ compression to my files (the same compression which is used by Snow Leopard to compress the default applications). This saved approx. 40Gb on my 256Gb SSD, without speed degradation (the built-in on-fly decompression is highly optimized and multi-threaded, compression may actually improves performance, because the i7 processor has more than enough power for decompression, the real bottleneck may still be the SSD data transfer, and in case of HFS+ compressed files, less data must be transferred):

http://web.me.com/brkirch/brkirchs_Software/afsctool/afsctool.html

more on this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/780570/

 

[Sensamic]

Yesterday I began to consider again using the SSD with a caddy via firewire. If that way I can get the imac to be quiet, I'll go for it instead of opening the imac. Im still not so sure the internal hd of the imac will keep working while using the external SSD as the main hd for the OS. Maybe it is possible to disable the internal hd of the imac with some OS option? Like putting the hd to sleep or maybe deleting all of the data in it so it doesnt even work anymore...

 

[stevemr123]

Maybe it is possible to disable the internal hd of the imac with some OS option? Like putting the hd to sleep or maybe deleting all of the data in it so it doesnt even work anymore...

If you boot from external drive, then you can unmount ("eject") the internal HDD. When you "eject" it, it will be powered down and be completely silent (I tested this). However, if you do anything that may access the HDD for other reasons (like opening Disk Utility which queries the disk parameters), it will power up again (then you have to mount it and unmount it again).

Also note, that you'll have to eject the internal HDD everytime you login (you can make a script for this). If you completely erase the drive, you'll not be able to eject it and trigger the powerdown, but if the put hard disks to sleep option is set, then it will probably go to sleep after a while automatically (I didn't test this).

I think if you don't need the internal HDD at all, then it's probably better to replace it with an SSD. If you take it to an Apple service center, they'll hopefully do it for you (they may charge some money, and also you'll probably tell you that this is unsupportand, and you'll loose the warranty). Also, if you put your SSD drive into a FW enclosure, you'll loose some of the speed benefit.

 

[Sensamic]

Thanks for the help! I dont really care about the speed improvements of the SSDs. All I want is to be able to work as quietly as possible with the imac.

I think I'll try first using the SSD in an external enclosure. Then, as you say, I'll eject the internal hd (as if it were and external hd I suppose, right?) and work just with the SSD. If that way the internal hd wont make any noise, then I'm completely in. That's all I want.

I wont use the disk utility very often. Anything else I do like listening to music, working with Office or surfing the web wont make use of the internal hd, right? Therefore I will be able to work quietly.

Also, the SSD in an external enclosure wont make any noise, right?

 

[Cockroach]

The SSD in an external enclosure won't make any noise, unless the enclosure does its self (like if it has a fan in it).

It might be worth spinning up the internal drive every now and then to do a backup incase your SSD breaks.

 

[Sensamic]

Ok. I always backup all my personal files very often in another external drive, so it doesnt worry me if the SSD fails sometime. Get it repaired and continue working. I wont lose my files.

I found some good external cases which are powered by USB. This would work too, right? It doesnt really matter if it is firewire 800 or usb 2.0, right?

 

[stevemr123]

I found some good external cases which are powered by USB. This would work too, right? It doesnt really matter if it is firewire 800 or usb 2.0, right?

Yeah, USB2 will work, but will be even slower than FW, it will actually be slower than the internal HDD. An USB2 encolusre (the better ones) will give you a 25-30MB/s effective transfer rate at best. Compare this to the typical 150-200MB/s sequential transfer rate of an SSD. Performancewise you'll not see much speed difference between an external 2,5" USB hard drive and an SSD in a USB2 encolsure.

It may be a better idea, and more cost effective to buy an external USB2 HDD. I have white Samsung S2 portable for example, which is a really neat little drive with 500Gb capacity, much much cheaper than an SSD drive, and still it is extremely quiet, especially compared to the internal HDD of the iMac. It's white design goes well with Mac products. Buy a backpack for it, and it's gonna be perfect.

 

[Sensamic]

Thanks for the advice! I was looking into traditional hard drives that are very quiet, since it is more cheap than buying an SSD. Someone on this thread said that the most quiet hd in the world was a Samsung one, echogreen or something like that. Thats still an option, but I still think the SSD is a great option since there is no doubt it will be completely quiet. Maybe a traditional hd would make a little noise. Anyways, I still have a lot of thinking to do.

 

[Muppetteer]

Muppetteer: I am not sure if it is a good idea to disable the HDD fan alltogether. I bet it's safer to limit it to the baseline 1000 RPM, if it is possible. The software hack is nice if you don't want to short the wires (but it will not help those with bootcamp, unless a hack for windows is also available)

True you can adjust the fan speed value (use the thread I linked for reference). I don't use bootcamp so I didn't even think of that. But there are a lot of fan and temperature utilities for OCD windows tweakers/overclockers, who knows there might be one that works.

 

[Sensamic]

Anyone knows some good external case to use with the Intel X-25M 160GB? I cant find one that suits good. Im looking for firewire 800 and no fans.

Can the SSD power up by firewire just like by usb? Ow would I need an external case that has usb too to use it to power the usb?

 

[Cockroach]

TBH, if you can only find one with a fan, just disconnect it. FireWire has plenty enough power for an SSD.

 

[Sensamic]

I think this one is good:

http://www.conceptronic.net/site/de...index=1&tabid=232&cid=30&gid=3010&pid=CHD2MUW

Plus the Intel 160GB.

This one seems even better:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Has firewire, bus powered, etc.

 

[stevemr123]

I think this one is good:

http://www.conceptronic.net/site/de...index=1&tabid=232&cid=30&gid=3010&pid=CHD2MUW

Plus the Intel 160GB.

This one seems even better:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Has firewire, bus powered, etc.

Yeah, the second one seems nice. I would not recommend Intel 160Gb, since you won't be able to utilize its performance thorugh FW, a cheaper one will give you the same experience. But of course it's up to you. You can get a 128Gb Kingston V (not the newer V+) for half the price. But an 5400RPM 2,5" HDD may be sufficently silent as well.

 

[Cockroach]

The point of SSDs is the quick random IO which is ~35MB/s on the Intel (I think). That's way under the 100MB/s FW800 goes up to. The SSDs that aren't that good, and degrade more than the Intel may have a higher sequential read/write than 100MB/s but that's the least important thing to consider when looking for a SSD.