Install an SSD in 2010 iMac?

[--g-]

i have a 2010 I7 27" iMac with a dead internal drive. I installed a bootable external SATA drive to hold me out until the October announcements but with the lack of new models I'm not sure what to do and am thinking of dropping in an SSD to extend its life for a year.

I photograph weddings part time (now off season) and end up with about 2000 images per wedding to cull and process. I shoot RAW so the files are pretty big. Most processing is done in Lightroom with only portraits brought into Photoshop for retouching. I also do a small amount of video work.

I tried the 2015 I5 iMac and a 6 core mac pro out and performance in Lightroom was about the same, didn't get a chance to try Photoshop on either.

I was thinking of going with either the I7 iMac or the 6 Core Pro, both with 1TB SSD and 16 gigs of ram but couldn't pull the trigger because of the don't buy recommendations here and honestly couldn't make up my mind anyway.

Would putting in the SSD speed things up enough to make it through next years season or should I just use that money on upgrading the whole desktop?

 

[Velin]

On a 2010, if you can do it yourself and keep the costs way down, maybe it makes sense. But I wouldn't spend a lot to do it.

Can you do it yourself? I ask because we usually pay third-party specialists to upgrade the SSDs in our iMacs, and they get everything correct with the kits and cables, watts, etc. I remember a few years ago some of the SSD installs were damn tricky due to grounding issues.

Would we pay to upgrade a 2010? No. The i3/i5 is getting old. Firewire port, worthless. I think the rest are USB 2.0 on the 2010 machines. You're in that period where you want the new iMacs to be announced, because even now you have to pay a lot to upgrade to i7 in the 27-inch machine (ripoff). Plus if it were me, I want a better GPU than the R9.

 

[--g-]

Would we pay to upgrade a 2010? No. The i3/i5 is getting old. Firewire port, worthless. I think the rest are USB 2.0 on the 2010 machines. You're in that period where you want the new iMacs to be announced, because even now you have to pay a lot to upgrade to i7 in the 27-inch machine (ripoff). Plus if it were me, I want a better GPU than the R9.

It is an i7.

I agree that I needed a new announcement. Would you get a new iMac or go Mac Pro?

 

[Sirmausalot]

You can do it yourself. I did, fantastic upgrade. however, you can ft away with an externAl ssd boot to get by before the next update. probably spring

i have a 2010 I7 27" iMac with a dead internal drive. I installed a bootable external SATA drive to hold me out until the October announcements but with the lack of new models I'm not sure what to do and am thinking of dropping in an SSD to extend its life for a year.

I photograph weddings part time (now off season) and end up with about 2000 images per wedding to cull and process. I shoot RAW so the files are pretty big. Most processing is done in Lightroom with only portraits brought into Photoshop for retouching. I also do a small amount of video work.

I tried the 2015 I5 iMac and a 6 core mac pro out and performance in Lightroom was about the same, didn't get a chance to try Photoshop on either.

I was thinking of going with either the I7 iMac or the 6 Core Pro, both with 1TB SSD and 16 gigs of ram but couldn't pull the trigger because of the don't buy recommendations here and honestly couldn't make up my mind anyway.

Would putting in the SSD speed things up enough to make it through next years season or should I just use that money on upgrading the whole desktop?