Upgrading old late 2012 iMac to SSD

[gauzah]

I have an old iMac that I never used for quite a while and have recently been using it quite a bit more throughout my countries 'lockdown' period.

I wanted to upgrade it to a new OS (Catalina) as it's currently running OSX Yosemite. After reading online about performance (I have an old 5400rpm SATA drive), I think upgrading will kill the mac due to lack of SSD.

It's the 2.7GHz late 2012 iMac and apparently I can't do an upgrade on the internal hard drive to SSD in the same way you can do with other models. Thus, I have to resort to an external SSD.

On Amazon, the Samsung T5 evo seems to be the go to, my question is I only have Thunderbolt 2 // USB 3.1 Gen 1 and the current ones you can buy are for USB 3.1 Gen 2, will these ones work for my iMac?

 

[velocityg4]

They'll work but not at full speed. Due to USB 3.1 Gen 1 limitations.

You can upgrade your iMac internally with a SATA SSD. OWC (macsales.com) carries SSD and kit for it. Although it isn't easy. If you were to do this. I'd also max out the RAM while you are at it. Maybe replace the CPU too. One post I found someone put an i7-3770s in their 2.7.

Note that the SSD blade kits are only for 2.9Ghz models and up.

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[gauzah]

They'll work but not at full speed.

You can upgrade your iMac internally with a SATA SSD. OWC (macsales.com) carries SSD and kit for it. Although it isn't easy. If you were to do this. I'd also max out the RAM while you are at it. Maybe replace the CPU too.

SSD Upgrade Kits For 21.5 Inch iMac 2012 - 2013

Get everything you need to upgrade your 2012 - 2013 21.5 inch iMac for a total system performance and capacity boost. Backed by a lifetime warranty.

eshop.macsales.com

How much of a slow down are we talking? I have seen to whole 10GBPs vs 5GBPs comparison of the two.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

About 15%.

I used a Thunderbolt external SSD when I had a 2011 iMac and it worked just great. The only real slow down with an external, via USB3 will be in the boot time

 

[glenthompson]

That 15% is just barely in the user noticeable range. Running Catalina on a SSD will be faster than any macOS version on the spinning drive. You don’t mention whether you have a 27” or 21.5” iMac. The hard drive swap on the 21.5” is slightly easier than the 27”.

 

[Nismo73]

That 15% is just barely in the user noticeable range. Running Catalina on a SSD will be faster than any macOS version on the spinning drive. You don’t mention whether you have a 27” or 21.5” iMac. The hard drive swap on the 21.5” is slightly easier than the 27”.

The 5400rpm drives were in the 21”

 

[gauzah]

That 15% is just barely in the user noticeable range. Running Catalina on a SSD will be faster than any macOS version on the spinning drive. You don’t mention whether you have a 27” or 21.5” iMac. The hard drive swap on the 21.5” is slightly easier than the 27”.

I have the 21.5 iMac, 2.7GHz i5, 8GB Ram.
I was under the impression that this specific model it was not possible to install and SSD in the same way that you'd do it in say the 2.9GHz model.
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They'll work but not at full speed. Due to USB 3.1 Gen 1 limitations.

You can upgrade your iMac internally with a SATA SSD. OWC (macsales.com) carries SSD and kit for it. Although it isn't easy. If you were to do this. I'd also max out the RAM while you are at it. Maybe replace the CPU too. One post I found someone put an i7-3770s in their 2.7.

Note that the SSD blade kits are only for 2.9Ghz models and up.

SSD Upgrade Kits For 21.5 Inch iMac 2012 - 2013

Get everything you need to upgrade your 2012 - 2013 21.5 inch iMac for a total system performance and capacity boost. Backed by a lifetime warranty.

eshop.macsales.com

This video says that the SSD upgrade isn't for the 2.7ghz version?

 

[redfirebird08]

How much of a slow down are we talking? I have seen to whole 10GBPs vs 5GBPs comparison of the two.

Even with 5 Gigabits per second, you are talking very fast speed. That is equivalent to 625 megabytes per second. Your real world speed will be around 400 megabytes per second. Still very fast. The 5400 rpm spinning hard drive in your machine right now is likely running under 80 megabytes per second.

So the Samsung T5 external drive (or another one similar to it) should deliver a solid 5x faster experience for you in your Read/Write speeds compared to the old internal spinning drive. Where you will really notice the difference is with opening apps and copying data. With the Samsung T5 being SSD, you also have more consistency and you're far less likely to see it die.

 

[gauzah]

Even with 5 Gigabits per second, you are talking very fast speed. That is equivalent to 625 megabytes per second. Your real world speed will be around 400 megabytes per second. Still very fast. The 5400 rpm spinning hard drive in your machine right now is likely running under 80 megabytes per second.

So the Samsung T5 external drive (or another one similar to it) should deliver a solid 5x faster experience for you in your Read/Write speeds compared to the old internal spinning drive. Where you will really notice the difference is with opening apps and copying data. With it being SSD, you also have more consistency and you're far less likely to see it die.

I don't know if I want to go through the effort of taking it apart so it might be worth going with this option.

 

[redfirebird08]

I don't know if I want to go through the effort of taking it apart so it might be worth going with this option.

Done it myself and it's a great experience compared to any spinning drive. Very easy to do as well. Carbon Copy Cloner makes it super easy to create an external boot drive with an exact copy of all data currently on the internal spinning drive. Then change "Startup Disk" in Mac OS System Preferences to the external drive after all the data is copied to it. Restart machine and BOOM. Good to go. Very, very easy...and a great experience in the operating system with any SSD compared to those old spinning drives.

 

[gauzah]

They'll work but not at full speed. Due to USB 3.1 Gen 1 limitations.

You can upgrade your iMac internally with a SATA SSD. OWC (macsales.com) carries SSD and kit for it. Although it isn't easy. If you were to do this. I'd also max out the RAM while you are at it. Maybe replace the CPU too. One post I found someone put an i7-3770s in their 2.7.

Note that the SSD blade kits are only for 2.9Ghz models and up.

SSD Upgrade Kits For 21.5 Inch iMac 2012 - 2013

Get everything you need to upgrade your 2012 - 2013 21.5 inch iMac for a total system performance and capacity boost. Backed by a lifetime warranty.

eshop.macsales.com

Any chance you could link some other guides?

 

[mbosse]

I have an old iMac that I never used for quite a while and have recently been using it quite a bit more throughout my countries 'lockdown' period.

I wanted to upgrade it to a new OS (Catalina) as it's currently running OSX Yosemite. After reading online about performance (I have an old 5400rpm SATA drive), I think upgrading will kill the mac due to lack of SSD.

It's the 2.7GHz late 2012 iMac and apparently I can't do an upgrade on the internal hard drive to SSD in the same way you can do with other models. Thus, I have to resort to an external SSD.

On Amazon, the Samsung T5 evo seems to be the go to, my question is I only have Thunderbolt 2 // USB 3.1 Gen 1 and the current ones you can buy are for USB 3.1 Gen 2, will these ones work for my iMac?

You could replace the internal HDD with a 2.5" SATA SSD - it would have the same speed as the Apple blade SSD. Use a quality brand like Samsung or Crucial.

Here's the guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Hard+Drive+Replacement/16729

Note that in all likeliness you won't need the thermal sensor cable - the iMac can read the temperature ex the SSD.

Magnus