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Increasing internal iMac HD memory- add a second internal HD for iMac9,1?

I have an iMac9,1, with Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz processor and only 150GB HD memory. I have a 1TB external HD but want to increase internal memory- is this possible to do myself? In system profiler, it looks like there is a second "Serial-ATA"... Thanks!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 7, 2013 12:01 PM

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11 replies

Mar 7, 2013 1:22 PM in response to gmarusov

Well, there are two questions here.


1) Can you replace the internal drive with a larger-capacity internal drive? Yes - Almost any 9.5mm high 2.5" drive will work. Look for 7200rpm drives, avoid any "green" models as they're slow. You can also replace it with an SSD if it's in your budget


2) Can you ADD a second hard drive, keeping your existing drive as is? Yes, but as mende1 linked, it has to go in the optical drive location, so you lose your CD/DVD capability unless you have an external burner. There's no other "extra space" in the iMac's enclosure to place a second HDD.


Matt

Mar 7, 2013 1:46 PM in response to Matt Clifton

Thanks to both of you. I just saw there were two SATA devices and one is my maxed out hard drive:

WDC WD1600AAJS-40H3A0:

Capacity: 149.05 GB

Volumes:

Macintosh HD

Capacity: 148.73 GB

Available: 2.32 GB


I see now that the 2nd SATA space is occupied by the CD/DVD reader:

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA11N


I don't think I want to replace that with a harddrive at this time.


I am concerned because my hard drive has gotten completely full (0 KB remaining) a few times, interrupting whatever I am working on, and I can hear faint clicking/grinding noise while it is running (sometimes it is louder than others). I have deleted files to clear 1-2 GB at a time, but I keep filling it back up, and I am guessing it is not good to continue operating at 99% capacity. It also recently made a horrifically loud noise when burning a CD or DVD that was very concerning to me... I was hoping to add a second internal drive so I wouldn't have to backup and reinstall my current one, as I have a number of costly software applications (eg Office 2008, Adobe CD4, Prism, etc) that were just copied from an older harddrive and I have no software installation discs, or codes or licenses to reinstall those...


As a quick fix, I do have the 1 TB Lacie backup drive, so I'm wondering if I maybe I could just change my iTunes music folder location to the backup drive or something to clear an additional 40GB of HD space for now?

Mar 7, 2013 1:50 PM in response to gmarusov

As you're aware, you're flying VERY close to the sun with that little HD space left. You should have no less than 5-10% of your HD as free space. It's used by the system to swap out data from RAM when needed, among other things, so you are liable to crash on a very regular basis unless you immediately clear more room. And it sounds like the HD is on the way out anyway.


How much space is remaining on your 1TB drive? Can you create a partition on it of around 200-300GB? If so, I would do that, and clone the current system to that new partition using Carbon Copy Cloner. Then boot from the external drive until you have a larger drive installed in the iMac. You can clone the system back across when you have it installed.


Matt

Mar 7, 2013 2:13 PM in response to Matt Clifton

Do you say that the HD is on the way out because it makes a faintly audible noise? Or because of the loud noise when burning discs? That is a huge concern to me!


I have about 230 GB available on the Lacie 1TB drive, but it is already partitioned into a (900 GB "Lacie" drive for Mac stuff) and a 31 GB MS-DOS (Fat32) formatted "Exchange" drive (with only 1.5 GB available) containing critical original files in case the iMac fails (I did that in 2010, I think so they can be read by a PC?).


I suppose my best bet for an immediate quick/cheap fix is to buy an additional external drive then. I really don't want to have to buy CCC for $40 and another drive if I don't have to. Someone else recommended

SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/. This appears to have a free download trial option I could use to create a bootable clone for backup. Are you familiar with that? Or is there a free CCC option?


Thanks again!

Mar 7, 2013 2:42 PM in response to mende1

Thanks to you both! Mende1, I appreciate the link to the step-by-step instructions for the Disc Utility Restore function. Would such a back-up/clone created through the Disc Utility then be a "bootable clone" that I could use as my start-up disc? (In the event that my current HD bites the dust, or to use to then reinstall on a new, larger internal HD). Or should I use CCC or SuperDuper instead? Is there any reason to use one of those two instead of Disc Utility's Restore function?


As you may be able to guess, I am kind of a novice here... one more quick question- if I clone the HD in such a manner, will any of my current software applications be affected when running from a different volume or upon reinstallation into a new HDD? I am pretty sure that normal files stored on a back-up drive will be fine, but I am most concerned about the specific software applications that I "borrowed" from an older iMac (eg MS Office, Adobe CS4, etc), as I do not have installation discs, passcodes, licenses, etc...


I have wanted to upgrade my Mac OS X 10.5.8 to 10.6 Snow Leopard and received an installation disc to do so when I bought this iMac but I never got around to it (in part because I was afraid I'd lose those applications and now I don't have the required free memory to do so). I guess now would be good time to finally do so (once I've cloned my current HDD)?

Increasing internal iMac HD memory- add a second internal HD for iMac9,1?

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