Upgrade SSD in iMac late 2012 Fusion Drive

[sergiobaschi]

I got the 1 TB fusion drive for my late 2012 iMac (full spec in sig.). Instead of pulling the trigger for a new retina iMac (can't really justify the cost yet...) I'm curious about the possibilities to upgrade my iMac.

Is it possible to replace the 128 GB SSD that comes with the fusion drive to another SSD, let's say a 512 GB version? And still use the 1 TB HDD, so that I would have a 1.5 TB Fusion Drive?

Thank you for your response.

 

[hfg]

Is it possible? ... yes ... but what is it you hope to gain by doing so? I suspect you wouldn't even notice the difference in performance, and the disk space gained is minimal given the amount of work and risk involved in doing so. The 2012 iMac is quite difficult to open and reseal due to the method used of taping it together, plus you would need to obtain a compatible SSD to replace the existing one, and there is a high degree of risk in taking it apart without damaging the fragile cables and connectors being used. Once all the hardware modifications are done, you would then recreate the Fusion drive with the new SSD and reload your OS X installation from your backup.

If you simply need more space, why not add a bus-powered external SSD or hard disk and simply velcro it to the back of the iMac stand ... out of sight and out of mind. You can boot from the external drive if desired and enjoy all the speed of a larger SSD. If you also boot Windows, you could un-fuse the internal Fusion drive into separate 128GB SSD and 1TB hard disk, and use the internal SSD for Windows boot, while using the 1TB hard disk for backup, data, archive, etc.

 

[MadDane]

My parents also have a late 2012 iMac that came with a Fusion Drive. The HDD failed last summer so I replaced it with an SSD. So now they have 1TB + 128GB SSD in their machine. It is a bit difficult (mainly the resealing of the machine and making it look good), but it is possible. What I do not understand is why you want to replace the SSD and not the HDD? You can get up to 2TB SSD's now, so that would give you even more space if you wanted.

 

[Hexley]

My parents also have a late 2012 iMac that came with a Fusion Drive. The HDD failed last summer so I replaced it with an SSD. So now they have 1TB + 128GB SSD in their machine. It is a bit difficult (mainly the resealing of the machine and making it look good), but it is possible. What I do not understand is why you want to replace the SSD and not the HDD? You can get up to 2TB SSD's now, so that would give you even more space if you wanted.

Did you combine the two SSDs into a single Fusion Drive?

 

[MadDane]

Did you combine the two SSDs into a single Fusion Drive?

I put them in RAID so they function as one drive.

 

[Hexley]

I put them in RAID so they function as one drive.

How is the performance? I may do the same when the drive starts giving me problems.

 

[MadDane]

How is the performance? I may do the same when the drive starts giving me problems.

It is very good. It is pure SSD in RAID so it performs very well I haven't tested the read/write speed but it is fast enough for their needs.