SSD for Late 2010 iMac - 27"

I am not sure you can replace the HDD with an SSD on an iMac that never originally had the additions for a SSD. The reason is iMac's use a temperature sensor which is stuck to the HDD, Since SSD run relatively cool compared to HDD's I think you will end up with the iMacs fan running at a high speed. End result would be just the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish (i.e., lots of noise).

Update:

I did a google search for "replace hdd with ssd on imac" and found lots of hits whiich I recommend you look through and research this before attempting the replacement. Here's one of those hits:

How do you upgrade the hard drive in the "Late 2009," "Mid-2010," "Mid-2011" and "Late 2011" (21.5-Inch and 27-Inch) Aluminum iMac models? What type of storage do they support? Is it even possible to upgrade these models?

Think I might use a Data Doubler kit and put the SSD in the optical bay.

Search Results for data doubler at MacSales.com

Not sure what you mean it has a SSD slot. You won't see anything from the outside. The imac doesn't ship with the additional mounting hardware for the ssd if you don't originally order the ssd with it. That's why that link you refer to requires getting the additional hardware. If the part numbers are correct, and you can buy the parts, then yes, of course you could add the ssd. But this thread started out as you wanting to replace the HDD by just popping it out and popping in a SSD replacement. So that was the context of my first reply.

There is no such thing as a totally "silent" HDD either. You have 7200 rpm motor spinning one or more platters being read by a bunch of read heads moving rapidly back and forth under control of some electromagnets. There's a limit on just how quiet it can be. But in general, unless a drive is failing, the motor sound and head movement is relatively "soft". Personally I like the reassuring "pitter pattar" of the heads. It gives me a little feedback sometimes when I expect disk operations. To each his own I guess.

My favorite HDDs are Western Digital blacks (1TB and 2TB). I don't find them that loud. Problem is that what one person consider's "noise" may not be the opinion of another person.

I've tried to record it with my iPhone, obviously it's louder than the recording, but you get the picture. The loud single clicks are the clicking of my trackpad to open programs. Here's the recording: http://goo.gl/DS3xs

I listened to that recording. After your countdown I hear what I referred to earlier as the gentle "pitter patter" of the heads all through the rest of the recoding. What doesn't sound proper are the 5 click I hear after the countdown on top of the "pitter patter". They stop about 3/4 through the recoding and the rest sounds like normal head sound. So were those additional 5 clicks coming from you or the drive? If from the drive, although it doesn't quite sound like any of the recording on this page, that doesn't sound "normal".

As for "quiet" WDs. I would say they sound sort of like that "pitter patter" sound in your recording (without those 5 clicks of course). I am not sure about replacing the drive and reattaching it's temp sensor. There was a post here recently where someone attempted that and his fans went up to full and was getting a sensor errror report from Apple Hardware Test. But I think there was another temp sensor problem as well so I don't know what the outcome of that was. I think he's in the process of ordering replacement HDD and LCD sensors.

Well then if the "pitter patter" I hear is the sound you hear (even if it is louder) I suspect you won't be any happier with a different drive, even WDs. This may well indeed be one of those situations I mentioned where one person considers it a "noise" and another doesn't.

Good luck.

I have replaced HDs with SSDs in all of my laptops. When it came to iMac all options changed. Besides power cable and data cable Apple in its ultimate wisdom added 3rd connection for as thermal cable and added apple logo to WD 1 TB Drive. Now when I try to replace the drive I find a few things that baffle me.

1. Apple HD is regular drive with thermal cable added.

2. OWC sells something that can eliminate need for this thermal cable connection on SSD.

3. I am told to short thermal cable so as to not let it run fan a muck.

Are there other options?....so far shorting is the best option

ratan

I replaced the optical drive in my 2010 iMac recently with an OWC drive and the "data doubler" and booting from that drive is now insanely fast.

I also, simultaneously, replaced the 2TB drive with a 5TB HGST drive, only to learn the hard way that the NAS-class drive I bought has a slow spin-up time which makes the drive disappear in warm reboots (community discovered this about a month after I bought it). This new drive and most third party drives lack the Apple temperature sensor pins, but the Apple Service Manual says to short the sensor out by connecting a small insulated wire and that will stop the fan from spinning wildly. You can also buy a $20 thermal kit from OWC if you like.

Also note: you can break the DisplayPort pins off your logic board in a split second if you aren't unbelievably careful when you take off the (heavy) display on this beast of an iMac. I have done dozens of repairs on every kind of mac and iMac but had to buy a replacement logic board after I made this mistake on the surgery I described above. The angle of the screen on the iFixIt video fails to indicate whether the monitor housing is angled vertically or leaning, so if you let the screen down thinking that you've matched their angle, there is a good chance you'll overshoot and hear "ping ping ping" as golden pins are ripped off your logic board. Were it not for that super-challenging aspect, this surgery is actually pretty easy.

Ratan, when you put your ssd in your iMac you had to use a bracket made for that. What bracket did you use?