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SSD drive in 24' imac alu?

K

kucyk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 24, 2007
103
15
Hi all

In the near future I would like to buy SSD drive for iMac 24” but I'd like to make sure that this drive will be compatible with this model of Mac before I place an order. It will be 2,5". I'm just wondering if 2,5" SATA connectors are the same as in 3,5" SATA drives?

Is there anyone who has SSD already installed in iMac?
 
you know you'd be sacrificing like a 250-500GB hard drive for like a 32-64GB SSD, right? You'd lose more disk space than you'd gain. In this case, moving to an SSD would be a disadvantage imho.
 
I know, I've got 1TB storage connected to FW so that's not big problem.
I need this drive only for operating system. So I'm waiting for some tests of new SSD drives from OCZ V2 and confirmation that I will be able to fit this drive.
Otherwise I will buy VelociRaptor ;)
 
I really wouldn't suggest this mod, seems like it's more hassle than its worth, by a long shot... Stick it out with your hard drive, once SSD's get really cheap, then go for it, or once your warranty expires.
 
excellent idea actually - fixes the imac's only real flaw

.... which is that you have a big honking 3.5" drive spinning about 15" from your face. . The sound level is OK if you live in a city and work in the day, but in a quiet environment at night it's fairly irritating - and that's just the noise level - vibration is just one more thing. Oh', and the extra heat generation. I like to warm my hands over the imac on cool days, but that's not really what it should be good for.

The SSD is the answer. (I know you were asking for details - but just wanted to support your quest.) You could also swap the drive out for a slow RPM drive, but why not go whole hog.
 
I am considering exactly the same thing. I have an old iMac G4. It's old and slow, but since I just use it for web browsing it's really fast enough. my only complaint is the 3.5" hard drive is too noisy. It's an ancient 40GB.

Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.

I am not an uber techie, I'd just like it to be quieter and even slightly fast would be cool too.

OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive
Core series SSD drives deliver incredible 120-143 MB/s 80-93 MB/s read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, making the Core series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis and up to 40% faster on a R/W basis that the best performing 2.5" HDDs on the market, all while consuming 50% less power.
 
I would love if future iMac's offered an SSD. The programs would load amazingly fast. Apple could also offer a media drive (500gig, 750gig, 1tb) as a second one in place of the optical slot (and people could simply add on the Macbook Air superdrive if so desired).

With this push to HD now, the media takes up so much space that a media drive is necessary, albeit it internal or external. The Drobo is really amazing and will my next one personally.
 
phoobo said:
.... which is that you have a big honking 3.5" drive spinning about 15" from your face. . The sound level is OK if you live in a city and work in the day, but in a quiet environment at night it's fairly irritating - and that's just the noise level - vibration is just one more thing..
Click to expand...

Is your drive going bad? I am on my iMac at night when my house is EXTREMELY quiet, and I can't say that I have EVER heard the hard drive. It's so quiet compared to my old Dell PC's....
 
Fonzijr1964 said:
Why?
Click to expand...
Because he's a nerd, of course! :) So am I.. I love such little risky projects. Could be interresting to try it. But I agree with most of you, it's probably not worth it. At least wait until the capacity is bigger, and the price is lower. And of course, it might not be 100% compatible..
 
Thrash911 said:
Because he's a nerd, of course! :) So am I.. I love such little risky projects. Could be interresting to try it. But I agree with most of you, it's probably not worth it. At least wait until the capacity is bigger, and the price is lower. And of course, it might not be 100% compatible..
Click to expand...

but u gain nothing
 
Fonzijr1964 said:
but u gain nothing
Click to expand...
As things are now, you gain nothing. Except the experience itself.

In the future, when the SSD drives get bigger and cheaper, it's another story. If the original drive is dying, and the SSD drives are cheaper, it's an obvious choice! If you don't decide to get a whole new Mac instead.. ;)
 
Mike in Kansas said:
I am on my iMac at night when my house is EXTREMELY quiet, and I can't say that I have EVER heard the hard drive. It's so quiet compared to my old Dell PC's....
Click to expand...


Can't you tell the difference when you turn off the machine? *That's* practically what an SSD machine would sound like - most of the vibration is coming from the HDD.

The silent computing movement might not have come to Apple yet, but it will, and then people will wonder why they put up with the noise and vibration when trying to think.

Put those spinning parts in the basement! Remnants of the industrial age. They have no business in a computer. Remote storage makes more sense anyway, particularly if you have more than one machine. Or more than one room.
 
Mike in Kansas said:
No, I can't. And with the quiet fans in the iMac (except when it's been doing a lot of video work) I can't hear them either. There is no way for me to even know it's on, except the display being on! No sound, no vibration.
Click to expand...

Then it seems like someone has listened to some music too loud for too long at some point in their lives :confused:

It is audible, not loud, but it'd be great if it were practically silent.
 
kucyk,

It would be nice to see how big the performance gain for a SSD is compared to a HD, especially with the latest generation of solid state disks. Maybw you could run some benchmarks, like XBench before and after the swap? I am especially interested in "real world" comparisons, like boot time, video recoding or compile time for a larger project.
 
PaulexPC said:
I am considering exactly the same thing. I have an old iMac G4. It's old and slow, but since I just use it for web browsing it's really fast enough. my only complaint is the 3.5" hard drive is too noisy. It's an ancient 40GB.

Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.

I am not an uber techie, I'd just like it to be quieter and even slightly fast would be cool too.

OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive
Core series SSD drives deliver incredible 120-143 MB/s 80-93 MB/s read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, making the Core series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis and up to 40% faster on a R/W basis that the best performing 2.5" HDDs on the market, all while consuming 50% less power.
Click to expand...

Sorry, your iMac can't use SATA drives.
 
Have you guys even ever used SSDs? Not worth it at all in my opinion. There are several people where I work who ran out and bought em and really there is not a huge performance gain like everyone thinks. Not one person I work with thought it was worth it after buying and installing it (this is out of 7 people), and from what I used of them I dont think its worth the price either.

Make sure if you get one its from a place you can return it just incase its not everything you thought it would be.
 
kucyk said:
I'm just wondering if 2,5" SATA connectors are the same as in 3,5" SATA drives?
Click to expand...

yes, the connectors are the same. you will need a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket adapter to physically mount the drive in the same location. or, just buy the 3.5" version to start with!

PaulexPC said:
Tigerdirect sells a solid state OCZ 32GB for $112.
Click to expand...

as already noted, you need the IDE version. tiger has a couple of transcend drives listed with the IDE interface, but they (tiger) are always high on price.

Berlepsch said:
It would be nice to see how big the performance gain for a SSD is compared to a standard HD, especially with the latest generation of solid state disks.
Click to expand...

benchmark HERE that has the SSD compared to a velociraptor, and leading on most of the tests. for a seat of the pants benchmark, everything feels about twice as fast for everyday use. and the silence is amazing, even to an older guy who listened to way to much loud music!

edit: knew i had seen a better comparison, at the same site no less... HERE and compares 4 of the current SSD to a velociraptor. good read for catching up on SSD tech.
 
4JNA said:
benchmark HERE that has the SSD compared to a velociraptor, and leading on most of the tests. for a seat of the pants benchmark, everything feels about twice as fast for everyday use. and the silence is amazing, even to an older guy who listened to way to much loud music!

edit: knew i had seen a better comparison, at the same site no less... HERE and compares 4 of the current SSD to a velociraptor. good read for catching up on SSD tech.
Click to expand...

That looks promising. Still, would be nice to see the effect in an iMac under MacOS.
 
When my 1 year is up on the warranty (Jan 09), I plan to put an SSD into my iMac.

1) It will be geeky.
2) Intel's 3.5" SSD should be down in price a little by then.
3) I'm migrating all my media to external drives anyway.

If you're not squeamish, you're willing to take a bit of risk, and you're good with lots of parts, it could totally be worth it. The anandtech review is exciting.

As it is, the 320GB drive in my iMac is too small to hold all my media anyway, so rather than have it sit in there only to boot and hold my applications, it makes perfect sense to try out the SSD internally and keep all my media on easily-growable external drives.

--Chris
 
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