Hi all,
I am Arun from India, i am planning to replace my IMac late 2009 21.5" Internal HDD 500GB to 512GB SSD. My Question is its possible to replace or not? If its possible how to Replace, whether i will be getting any help from Apple Service center or i need to do in my own risk?
Which Brand SSD suites for Apple for long time use?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.3.x)
I installed an SSD in the optical bay and put the optical drive in an external case. I left my 1TB hard drive in place for storage. I used an SSD from OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/ and instructions from iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_21.5%22_EMC_2308
I used to own that exact model iMac and installed an OWC SSD into it like Mike did above, however I chose to replace the HDD, as I still had a use for the optical drive.
To do this I purchased a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch drive adapter like this to mount the drive on.
Also there is a propietary Temperature Sensor attched to the old HDD, and if it is disconnected/not connected to anything it will cause the iMac's fans to speed up to top speed (about 4000RPM!).
There are a couple of ways to solve this problem
1) Buy another Sensor similiar to the one already there such as this or this.
(This is the method I used)
2) Purchase/Download software to control and monitor these fan speeds.
A free one is found here: http://exirion.net/ssdfanctrl/
You can also short out the original sensor, but only do this if you know what you are doing.
Here is a guide you may want to check out if considering doing it yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2308+Hard+Drive+Replacemen t/1766
Any SSD will do the job, however with the new OSX Yosemite making enabling TRIM not exactly possible, you might want to consider a SSD built specifically for Macs-such as the ones from OWC.
Hope this helps🙂
Well I still have use for the optical drive too, that''s whyI put it in a slick little external case that looks just like Apples! Doing it that way served two purposes, it got the fragile optical away from the heat and mounted it horizontally, both suspected causes of super drive failures, and I got an SSD boot drive without having to fumble with temp sensor problems.
Actually I was considering putting mine in place of the superdrive, however I couldn't bring myself to have even more external devices than I needed.
Now that that old iMac is gone, I got another one (21.5 2011) that I have an SSD mounted under the optical drive-achieving what I originally wanted, a Mac with a HDD for media, an Optical Drive for the DVD's I occasionally play and a speedy SSD for fast boots and application loading, all in the same case - despite the high temps😉
It is really up to what the user would rather more 🙂
HDD to SSD in IMac late 2009 21.5"
