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New iMac Purchase - Hard Drive Help Needed

N

nfrs2000nyc

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 21, 2015
4
0
Hey guys, Im a bit over my head here, so I turn to you for some help. Some up until today, I had a 2009 i7 27" imac running a Samsung 1TB SSD with 32GB of ram. More than enough processing power for me and it has served me well. Sadly, it seems the logic board or video card are toast. Apple no longer repairs machines that old, and I'm not going to dump $1200 to replace the logic board a machine that old, so, I may have to bite the bullet and buy a new imac altogether....so, my question....

Apple has a habit of charging insane amounts of money for stuff, ram and storage being the main culprits. In my current Imac, I have a 3 month old Samsung evo850 1TB drive....and I'd LOVE to not have to pay apple $900 for a 1TB PCI SSD...so, here is my question(s)


1) Can I buy a Fusion drive imac and drop in my 1TB samsung SSD for the non-ssd part of the fusion without issue?
2) What happens to the fusion part of the drive?
3) Will the apple 1TB drive have superior performance and reliability vs my samsung setup (if possible?)

If you were buying a new imac today, what would you do in my shoes? Thanks for any and all help!
 
Is your SSD in the 2009 PCI SSD? I think the drive technologies has changed between 2009 and 2015 making the drive incompatible.

Edit:I could be wrong but googling the specifications, it seems both the 2009 and 2015 use serial-ATA, so maybe it will work
 
I would not crack a my brand new iMac open to replace the SSD card. in the 2015 model, it faces the back of the unit and requires removal of the logic board. You will have to disassemble most of the system to get at it. This would void the warranty, no doubt.

If it is possible, I would go with a smaller stock SSD configuration and put the 1TB you currently have in a USB 3.0 enclosure. I don't know what you budget is or what you use the system for. So, not much to go on for specifics.
 
Replacing the SATA drive is much easier, as it is right there once you have the display off. I am sure taking the display off would void warranty, though. 27" requires a special mounting bracket. The internal drive is 3.5". Not sure what your 2009 has inside.

I have a Fusion drive in my 2015. When warranty expires, I plan on replacing the internal spinning drive with an SSD, creating an SSD/SSD Fusion. Removing the display does not look that complex, but anything can happen along the way.

It is my understanding that any drive type or even number of drives can be "fused".
 
My apologies, I must have asked the question in a slightly unclear manner.

So, on my current not working 2009 iMac, I replaced the regular 3.5" spinner with a Samsung 2.5" (not a pci, regular sata) 850evo ssd. Since my iMac may be dead, I am considering buying a new one and am now weighing my options, which are, to pay apple $900 for their 1tb SSD drive, or to take the "base" fusion drive, and replace the spinner (old school) drive with my current Samsung 850 from my old computer and leave the small 128gb pci SSD part of the fusion drive alone (and use it just for the OS or something.)
 
nfrs2000nyc said:
My apologies, I must have asked the question in a slightly unclear manner.

So, on my current not working 2009 iMac, I replaced the regular 3.5" spinner with a Samsung 2.5" (not a pci, regular sata) 850evo ssd. Since my iMac may be dead, I am considering buying a new one and am now weighing my options, which are, to pay apple $900 for their 1tb SSD drive, or to take the "base" fusion drive, and replace the spinner (old school) drive with my current Samsung 850 from my old computer and leave the small 128gb pci SSD part of the fusion drive alone (and use it just for the OS or something.)
Click to expand...

That's my fault. I reread and made second post.

That should work, but it most likely means voiding the warranty.
 
bent christian said:
That's my fault. I reread and made second post.

That should work, but it most likely means voiding the warranty.
Click to expand...
Yea that's definitely something to consider. Is there a speed advantage of the pci SSD vs something like my Samsung evo??
 
In terms of ease of use and price/performance, get the 2TB Fusion. I suspect it will run really well. Then, use the 1TB SSD (as recommended) in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Later on, as prices come down and capacities go up, you can replace the spinning portion of the fusion drive with some sort of solid state drive.

If you get pure flash drive to start, from what I understand it is difficult if not impossible to get all of the hardware necessary to put in an internal SSD. So, in sum, 2Tb fusion, USB 3.0 enclosure = done with minimal hassle and great performance all around.
 
PCI speeds are reported to be much, much faster in the 2015 models. Like 1000MB/s+, I have heard?

My SSD/HDD Fusion peaks around 325MB/s. That's fast enough for my needs.
 
Sirmausalot said:
If you get pure flash drive to start, from what I understand it is difficult if not impossible to get all of the hardware necessary to put in an internal SSD
Click to expand...

Depending on the enclosure, external USB 3.0 speeds should be relatively equivalent to internal SATA speeds, right? The only difference would be a lack of TRIM support. That might change in the future.
 
bent christian said:
Depending on the enclosure, external USB 3.0 speeds should be relatively equivalent to internal SATA speeds, right? The only difference would be a lack of TRIM support. That might change in the future.
Click to expand...

El capitan supports TRIM on third party drives as far as I know...
 
Consider finding a used 2011 iMac, as that was the last one that was easily upgraded. You can pop in your old SSD as a secondary drive, and if you find the 3.4Ghz i7 model, you'll get speeds that are somewhat close to a 2015 model, for a fraction of the price.
 
What I would do in your situation is to get the 512GB SSD from Apple and then put the 1TB SSD in an enclosure. You can either choose USB3 or Thunderbolt. The speed will be roughly the same buy it is only through Thunderbolt that you will get TRIM.

If my memory is correct I think that the current SSD will give you somewhere between 300-600 MB/s. The SSD from Apple will give you are 1600 MB/s in read/write. I hope that gives you an idea of the performance benefits. If it is worth that much money is something only you can decide.
 
I would select the stock storage option (1TB HDD) and then replace the HDD with the 1TB 850 EVO. A PCIe SSD is faster for sure, but in everyday usage the difference is mostly negligible, so you would have to be doing something IO intensive to get any noticeable benefit from the PCIe drive. If you need more than 1TB of storage, you can always use an external HDD or NAS.
 
You'll void the warranty if you open up the brand-new iMac and start fooling with the drives. Whether you wish to do this or not is up to you, but I'd leave it "closed"...

Alternative course of action:
Take the Samsung SSD out of the old iMac, and (at least for now) put it into an EXTERNAL USB3 enclosure (that supports UASP). Connect it that way. It will be quite fast (probably within 80% of the speed of the internal SATA bus), and your warranty will remain intact...
 
Im actually considering scooping up a 2011 imac on ebay. I thought that was a great suggestion. If I do decide to get a new one, I will probably just get a fusion drive and live with the noise of the spinner until the warranty runs out.
 
nfrs2000nyc said:
Im actually considering scooping up a 2011 imac on ebay. I thought that was a great suggestion. If I do decide to get a new one, I will probably just get a fusion drive and live with the noise of the spinner until the warranty runs out.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't the warranty have already been long gone? Apple does a single year, plus 2 more if you have Apple Care. That puts the 2011 iMac in the 2014 (maybe early 2015).
 
maflynn said:
Wouldn't the warranty have already been long gone? Apple does a single year, plus 2 more if you have Apple Care. That puts the 2011 iMac in the 2014 (maybe early 2015).
Click to expand...

Unless it's from a refurbisher and has their warranty...
 
maflynn said:
Wouldn't the warranty have already been long gone? Apple does a single year, plus 2 more if you have Apple Care. That puts the 2011 iMac in the 2014 (maybe early 2015).
Click to expand...
He wrote "If I do decide to get a new one" before that statement. So OP was talking about two different computers :)
 
nfrs2000nyc said:
Im actually considering scooping up a 2011 imac on ebay. I thought that was a great suggestion. If I do decide to get a new one, I will probably just get a fusion drive and live with the noise of the spinner until the warranty runs out.
Click to expand...
There have been significant upgrades to the system data bus since my late 2012 27" iMac with its 3 TB Fusion drive. Still, I have NEVER heard the spinning Seagate, not before, and not after it was replaced. While I have never run my iMac in an acoustic chamber and measured noise levels being emitted from it while running, as far as I'm concerned, it is silent.

You may certainly do as you wish, my personal judgement would never involve opening a brand new iMac and messing with the innards. I would much rather spend the money and get the beast as I wanted it straight out of the gate. But that's just me.
 
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