27" iMac gets an SSD, process is not for the faint-hearted
There comes a time in a boy's life when his latest toy no longer thrills him as it did when it was shiny and new. Engadget blogger Richard Lai found that his Core i7 27" iMac was slowing down as it neared its first birthday, so he decided to liven things up by popping a 240GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD into the box.
Watching Richard tear apart his baby was a bit unnerving to me. I recall opening an iMac G5 about five years ago to swap out a noisy power supply and fan assembly, and I still shudder to think about that.
Richard was armed with the proper tools: a set of Torx screwdrivers, tweezers, a pair of suction cups for removing the glass screen and the restore disc for Mac OS X. He also had a handy tool nearby in the form of an iFixit teardown guide for the iMac displayed on his iPad.
Richard noted that boot times are almost three times as fast for the iMac after the heart transplant, and the video (after the break) shows it launching in just over 20 seconds. That's still not enough to make me take apart my iMac. Enjoy the video, if you can stand to watch that beautiful iMac being dissected.
Share
Categories
There comes a time in a boy's life when his latest toy no longer thrills him as it did when it was shiny and new. Engadget blogger Richard...
Add a Comment
"iMac was slowing down as it neared its first birthday",
Yet, one of the dozens of over exaggerated, untrue, ridiculous reasons mac users state they use them is because it was windows that slowed down and not the macs, lol. There was NOTHING easier about what this guy did. In fact it looked like an annoyance.
... But as Richard struggled with his screw driver to get in the shiny new SSD, he suddenly remembered that Mac OSX doesn't support TRIM. Now what? But surely macs are the future of technology. Richard then scratched his chin and realized that he had an i7 in his mac, a FULL YEAR later than when they were introduced on PC's. This thrilled him to no end because being a mac user, he was so uninformed he thought it was a new gadget from Mr. Job's himself. In fact he was pretty much drooling over the fact that he paid more than $1200 more because Apple simply over charged for that $2000 imac with i7 at stock speed. He drooled because he figured Apple hardware (from Intel and China/Korea) was simply better since Steve probably polished the CPU as it made it's way out of the apple factory.
But what will he do on that slow hardware? Will it even ocur to him that faster PC's are available for around $700-$900? Thankfully Richard has no clue about the fact that even OCZ had to slow their drives down and make an apple version -
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/4/9/ocz-had-to-slow-down-its-ssds-because-mac-osx-cant-handle-the-speed.aspx
Richard will remain happy, because with all that gleaming plastic and perhaps uni-body design, it's a fashion statement! OMG!
How does he have a white iphone 4?
December 01 2010 at 4:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyExcellent upgrade for anyone with the cash to spare, just wish SSDs came in larger capacities.
P.S. excellent music
I got the local authorized dealer to do this for me. We have no official Apple stores here in New Zealand.
I purchased an iMac 27 i7 and got my friend who was visiting from the USA to bring me an OWC SSD 100Gb. Once I paid for the drive and the install, it was still much cheaper than Apples Official drive and it is a sandforce drive, unlike the one Apple offer. It may be smaller than the Apple drive, but it's my boot drive so I could probably have got away with an even smaller one. Why don't Apple offer 40 or 60GB drives?! It would really bring down the cost.
Didn't the 27" model have room for a second drive ?
In Apple store there are options for 2 drives setup: a big HD and a fast SSD.
I just did this on the weekend to a core i5. I put a 240GB OWC in and I went from an xbench of 130 to one of 300. Stellar and worth the 600 bucks to upgrade. Ill get 2 more years out of this machine now easily. For all media etc including itunes i picked up a drobo with 2 2TB drives again about 560 all in.
Genius. The OWC kills the intel x-25 gen 2 i have in my macbook.
I thought there were issues with SSDs and osx...were they just overblown concerns or has a fix been introduced?
November 29 2010 at 8:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI'm having SSDs in my notebooks for well over a year now. Not a single problem. Just that OS X doesn't support trim but if you don't completely fill your SSD that's fine.
November 30 2010 at 6:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWouldn't it just be easier to get an iMac with an SSD installed already directly from Apple?
November 29 2010 at 7:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis install is really not difficult once you have the right tools...
and... where on Earth did he get a white iPhone 4?
Jeez..it's just a computer, opening up an iMac (once you get past the removal of the LCD) should really be no more nerve wracking than opening up any other computer.
Same stuff inside...different layout. Not the end of the world!
Deals of the Day
more deals- Apple iPod nano Multi-Touch 8GB MP3 Player for $100 + $8 s&h
- Cases for New iPad at HandHeldItems: Extra 20% off, $2 credit, from $3 + $3 s&h
- $15 Apple iTunes Gift Card for $8 for new Saveology customers
- Retro 80's Case for iPhone for $11 + $2 s&h
- HHI 360 Dual-View Stand Case for new iPad w/ $2 credit for $12 + $3 s&h
- HHI ReElegant Smart Cover Companion Case for new iPad from $5 + $3 s&h
26 Comments