Installing SSD in 24" iMac (early 2009)

I've been thinking about replacing my hard drive (I posted previously about this) and by looking around have noticed that SSDs have now come down in price a lot. Here in the UK there is a SanDisk 480GB Extreme SSD for 270GBP. I've heard that SSDs can make a huge difference in performance and this drive isn't far off my current storage. I also have a 4TB NAS and 1TB FW drive so I'm Ok for space.

I've had a look at a few Youtube videos and it seems straightforward to swap, once I have a 2.5" to 3.5" bay converter.

My question is are there any compatibility issues with SSDs and my iMac (24" early 2009 2.93Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo)? I understand SATA III is SATA II compatible. I also believe that my iMac model has the external heat sensor so this shouldn't be a problem.

Also if anyine has any experience of a 2.5" to 3.5" bay converter that fits well, it would be great to know.

Thanks

Posted on Apr 24, 2013 1:59 AM

Top-ranking reply

binkstech

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Oct 13, 2017 6:59 PM

Hi, just to report a successful swap of HDD to SSD inside iMac Early 2009 model.

I just replaced Apple HDD Hitachi 640Gb with Samsung 840 Evo 250GB.

Couple of remarks:

- Following iFixit manual - they don't mention you have to unscrew the memory bay cover at the bottom to release the whole bezel part while opening the iMac.

- I didn't have to buy additional thermal part, as I could simply re-attach external one attached to HDD, where I placed it very close to SATA connectors - the fan runs at minimal speed after the replacement (I bought 2.5" --> 3.5" drive tray)

- I used cloning software (SuperDuper!) to copy the whole drive (with bootable option checked) connected to one of USB ports

-- with very low transfer over USB of course, around 75GB copied over 2 hours

-- it did boot from USB connected SSD after the clone copy was finished

and then after I swapped drives it did boot nicely.

The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test benchmark reports:

Write: 198MB/s

Read: 269MB/s

View in context

48 replies

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Jan 31, 2015 12:17 AM in response to iconsam

great, happy computing.🙂

Feb 25, 2015 2:16 PM in response to Lexiepex

Without native OS trim support on a SSD, I will submit that in the short term the average user will not really notice much of a difference. But I would suggest revisiting once you have experienced multiple read/write cycles such as what comes with frequent rewrites of disk space with addition/removal/relocation of media files etc. over a few years.

OS native Trim support will never be rivaled by any thrid party GC, especially on a proprietary OS - the third party is simply hazarding a "guess" whereas the OS "knows" definitively.

Quite frankly, I feel disabling native trim support for non-Apple SSDs should actually come under the purview of antitrust/monopoly legalese.

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Feb 26, 2015 12:26 AM in response to !cultOfApple

I use SSD already for 5 years in many computers, no slowdown, and as far as I can tell no wear. They all run still at the same speed (sata2 or sata3) depending on the system.

You do not have to disable "native Trim": it does not do anything to a non-apple SSD. Nothing to do with antitrust, use trim when you want to.

My point is that it is more critical in the latest OSX: it "disrobes" a system wide security layer, and I strongly suggest that trim is not worth that.

Trim is just an info sent from the OS to the disk controller. Nothing else. OS does not care if it is used or not.

As long as there is enough overprovisioning there will not be a slowdown: the (modern) SSD does continuous wear-levelling and garbage-control at the same time, trim or not. Theoretically the garbage-control can be a bit faster with trim but I have never been able to measure a difference. In the time of "crude" SSD controllers I used to install Trim, the older OSX were not very critical about manipulating kexts and the SSD controller could be helped. Since Crucial and others cam with the Marvell controller, I did not do it anymore, and now even the Sandforce based SSD controllers do not really need it anymore.

When I see need for many disk operations in heavily used systems I use the Pro SSDs that have more overprovisioning, or I leave about 20GB unformatted on the non-pro SSDs.

Lex

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Installing SSD in 24" iMac (early 2009)