Is Firewire 800 + SSD an upgrade for me?

[Nuke61]

I didn't read through all the replies, so what I write may have already been addressed. While an internal SSD is preferable to an external FireWire SSD, an external, in my experience, is still well worth the price. The principal advantage of an SSD is not in the very fast sequential transfer speeds but the insanely fast seek speeds. Transfer speeds for a good HDD is ~100MB/sec, while good SSD speeds are ~400MB/sec. So an SSD is ~4 times faster than an HDD. What about seek times? Well, average seek time for a good HDD is ~9ms, while typical seek time for an SSD is 0.1ms -- that's about 90 times faster!

Now, from personal experience, I can say that an OWC SSD via FireWire on my 2010 iMac made it roughly as "snappy" as my MBP with an internal SSD. Was it as fast in absolute terms? No, but it was close enough that I considered not bothering to get a 2012 iMac. In the end I sold my 27" iMac to my brother dirt cheap and got another 27" with the Fusion drive because I really wanted USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt.

 

[gilby101]

I agree with Nuke61. I have just added a firewire SSD as boot drive to my Late 2009 iMac. Much snappier. An internal SSD is, no doubt, "better" but this was a simple upgrade with no need to open the case.

 

[stekay]

imac2007 ssd

I may be a bit late on this post, but having done this upgrade on the same machine not one month ago ,I would like to reassure you on the benefits.
a couple of points; My 20" imac(last white one) only has firewire 400 ports it is the 27 inch that has 800.The max ram is only 3gb but 4gb has been known to work but it won't show up in system preferences or activity monitor so don't waste your money on more.With this limited ram I am sticking with snow leopard(lion is greedier)
you will need a sata to usb cable or even preferably an external sata dock to format ssd and clone over all your data from hd( using super duper or carbon copy). it's better to clone before installing and booting from external to test it:then if when you do put the ssd in it doesn't work you know the problem is elsewhere.Upon restart the ssd is immediately recognized as start up drive.
There are videos on you tube showing the proceedure, a bit fiddly but not difficult.Don't forget the 3,5 to 2,5 drive bay enclosure; I got mine with the crucial 512.This imac is only sata 1,5 so you can't get lightning speeds;read and write around 135 but progams open faster, browsing is zippier and booting up in 30 secs.
Lastly don't forget to enable trim with program surprisingly named "trim enabler".
good luck

 

[itickings]

My 20" imac(last white one) only has firewire 400 ports it is the 27 inch that has 800.The max ram is only 3gb but 4gb has been known to work but it won't show up in system preferences or activity monitor so don't waste your money on more.

You mean the 24", right?

While using 2+1GiB and 2+2GiB memory results in the same amount of usable RAM (3GiB), 2+2GiB is in theory faster (dual-channel). Probably not detectable for normal use, but anyways.

 

[Sandrugo]

You mean the 24", right?

While using 2+1GiB and 2+2GiB memory results in the same amount of usable RAM (3GiB), 2+2GiB is in theory faster (dual-channel). Probably not detectable for normal use, but anyways.

Sorry for pushing up this thread after so long. Is there still anyone who would like to help someone with the will to use an external ssd via firewire 800 for an old iMac 27 mid 2010?
In case let me know and I'll show the questions.

Thank you in advance to everyone