What hard drive does the iMac use ?

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Level 1

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What hard drive does the iMac use ?

I have a 17 inch iMac with intel Core Duo with 80GB hard drive. The screen is damaged because of vertical lines and i am replacing it myself and i thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the hard drive while i am at it.

Am i correct in assuming that the hard drive is a SATA 2.5" laptop drive ?

I found a cheap Hitachi 200GB 2.5 inch 3 gb/sec 5400 RPM, 8MB Cache, 12MS SATA II drive. Is this suitable ?

Will any 2.5 inch SATA drive, be it SATA, SATA II, SATA III etc. work fine ?

iMac Core Duo 17 Inch-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on May 28, 2012 11:31 AM

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Answer 1

paulenn

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May 28, 2012 1:11 PM in response to Dougal222

What's your iMac's model number?

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 9

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May 28, 2012 2:10 PM in response to Dougal222

Are you sure, the 17" Early Core Duo iMac's came with a 160GB Hard Drive.

see > iMac (Early 2006) - Technical Specifications

No, the 17" Early Core Duo iMac uses a 3.5 SATA Drive.

Personally I have upgraded the Hard Drive in several Early Core Duo's using both 320GB and 500GB WD Cavair Blue's.

see > WD Caviar Blue

Also see > iMac Intel 17" Repair Manual - iFixit

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Answer 3

Dougal222 Author

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May 28, 2012 3:19 PM in response to den.thed

Yes, mine is the later 2006 model which has the intel GMA graphics chipset, 80GB HD and cd-writer / DVD combo (not DVD / DVD writer super drive).

But i did look up the model number of its current HD which is a WD. It says it is also Apple branded and that it is 3.5 inch SATA.

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Answer 4

den.thed

Level 9

77,176 points

May 28, 2012 6:27 PM in response to Dougal222

Are you sure, all the Late 2006 Core 2 Duo's came with 160GB Hard Drives.

see > iMac (Late 2006) - Technical Specifications

I think that you have a 2004 - 05 17" iMac PowerPC G5 and not a 2006 Intel iMac.

see > iMac G5 - Technical Specifications

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Answer 5

Dougal222 Author

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10 points

May 28, 2012 10:20 PM in response to den.thed

Nope its def not a G5. Apple and "about this mac" confirms that it is an Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz with 2GB DDR2 667Mhz RAM. Even Google Chrome runs on it perfectly and i have Windows XP on bootcamp. These do not run on my wifes 1.67Ghz PPC Power Book.

This is the model i have:

http://mactoids.com/imac-history/imac-intel-core-duo-17-inch-ig-ma406ll/

So any spec SATA HD 3.5 inch should work fine ?

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Answer 6

den.thed

Level 9

77,176 points

May 29, 2012 1:55 AM in response to Dougal222

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't realize that the educational model only had an 80GB Hard Drives.

Yes, however some 6Gb/s Hard Drives may need to be jumpered down to 3Gb/s to work with the iMac's 1.5Gb/s SATA Controller.

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