I currently have the 1TB fusion version. I can get a 500gb SSD put in at an apple authorized retailer who does fantastic work for $300 including labor. How many more years of support can I expect out of this machine? Trying to figure out if its worth it or not or if I should just buy a new iMac. Thanks in advance!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is it worth putting a SSD in my 2017 27" iMac?
- Thread starter Jacoblee23
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Personally, I think its a great idea. The labour cost seems to be quite high, however, if you're happy with paying that rather than DIYing it, then I'd say upgrade the SSD.
One thing I will say is that SATA 3.0 has theoretical speeds of up to 6Gb/s, and I'm presuming you want to upgrade the SATA drive. I'd personally recommend buying an NVME M.2 drive and sticking it in the M.2 slot on the motherboard (I'm calling it M.2 because idk what its actually called). You'd need an adapter that can be found fairly cheaply on eBay, and it wouldn't be branded, but you would see far better speeds than you would with a SATA SSD. I'm talking 2400 Megabytes per second rather than 600 Megabytes per second (or 6Gb/s), as I believe the slot is limited to 2400 or something like that.
This would also allow you to keep the Hard Drive in there as some mass storage that you could offload files to if you wanted.
If speed matters to you, or you would like to keep the SATA hard drive, I'd recommend going for this option instead, as you get the far faster speeds, but remember: YOU WILL NEED THE ADAPTER
I believe its just called an Apple Blade SSD to M.2 drive, and from there you should be able to use an M.2 drive normally. Luke Miani has a video on upgrading a 2013 iMac (different year but I believe it should have the same slot), and that gives you a rundown of how this kind of process is carried out. Just be careful, as there might be adapters for the 2012 Retina MacBook Pros (and in turn the 2012 iMac 27"), which uses a different slot (some form of mSATA I think). The slot in the 2017 uses the same slot as the Late 2013-Mid 2015 MacBook Pros, except the 2017 runs it at a faster speed.
Hope this helps
P.S sorry if you already were meaning doing the Blade SSD swap because if you were I've just wasted both of our times
One thing I will say is that SATA 3.0 has theoretical speeds of up to 6Gb/s, and I'm presuming you want to upgrade the SATA drive. I'd personally recommend buying an NVME M.2 drive and sticking it in the M.2 slot on the motherboard (I'm calling it M.2 because idk what its actually called). You'd need an adapter that can be found fairly cheaply on eBay, and it wouldn't be branded, but you would see far better speeds than you would with a SATA SSD. I'm talking 2400 Megabytes per second rather than 600 Megabytes per second (or 6Gb/s), as I believe the slot is limited to 2400 or something like that.
This would also allow you to keep the Hard Drive in there as some mass storage that you could offload files to if you wanted.
If speed matters to you, or you would like to keep the SATA hard drive, I'd recommend going for this option instead, as you get the far faster speeds, but remember: YOU WILL NEED THE ADAPTER
I believe its just called an Apple Blade SSD to M.2 drive, and from there you should be able to use an M.2 drive normally. Luke Miani has a video on upgrading a 2013 iMac (different year but I believe it should have the same slot), and that gives you a rundown of how this kind of process is carried out. Just be careful, as there might be adapters for the 2012 Retina MacBook Pros (and in turn the 2012 iMac 27"), which uses a different slot (some form of mSATA I think). The slot in the 2017 uses the same slot as the Late 2013-Mid 2015 MacBook Pros, except the 2017 runs it at a faster speed.
Hope this helps
P.S sorry if you already were meaning doing the Blade SSD swap because if you were I've just wasted both of our times
Are you having trouble with the Fusion drive? If not, I would keep it as is. Keep programs on the SSD part and other non essential on the other part. You could also connect an external SSD which would be cheaper than $300.
I wouldn't open it up.
Instead, I'd go either of these ways:
One way:
Get an nvme blade drive, 500gb or 1tb.
Get a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (numerous ones available).
Now you have an external drive that will give reads around 800MBps or so.
The other way:
Get a thunderbolt3 SSD (such as the Samsung X5).
Or... get an nvme blade (same as above).
Get a thunderbolt 3 enclosure (harder to find).
Now you have an external drive that will give reads in the 2,000MBps range.
The first way is cheaper.
The other way is considerably more $$$, and these drives can run pretty hot under heavy write loads.
Your choice.
Instead, I'd go either of these ways:
One way:
Get an nvme blade drive, 500gb or 1tb.
Get a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (numerous ones available).
Now you have an external drive that will give reads around 800MBps or so.
The other way:
Get a thunderbolt3 SSD (such as the Samsung X5).
Or... get an nvme blade (same as above).
Get a thunderbolt 3 enclosure (harder to find).
Now you have an external drive that will give reads in the 2,000MBps range.
The first way is cheaper.
The other way is considerably more $$$, and these drives can run pretty hot under heavy write loads.
Your choice.