What hard drive can I use to upgrade my iMac Mid 2010 to 2TB compatible with OS X El Capitan?

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Level 1

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What hard drive can I use to upgrade my iMac Mid 2010 to 2TB compatible with OS X El Capitan?

My hard drive currently is showing errors that won't allow me to upgrade to the newest OS X, but I don't want to purchase a new computer. I'm stuck as I just upgraded my kids' iPhones and can't access their backups because I can't upgrade iTunes past 12.2.2. I'm currently stuck at OS X 10.7.5 Lion. If I swap out the drive I would need at least 2TB, or would 1TB work with me accessing other media files from an external 1TB drive? I have a ton of music, photos and video I constantly access. Thanks!

Posted on Jun 11, 2016 7:42 AM

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Answer 1

padams35

Level 4

3,613 points

Jun 11, 2016 10:17 AM in response to burbankjones

Any.

The only requirement is that the drive has a GUID partition map and a partition with OSX Extended format file system. This should be standard for any drive advertised as formatted for Mac, but you can reformat easily enough with Disk Utility. It is also recommended that you go with either an SSD or an 7200RPM HDD for any boot volume. (5400RPM drives are slower than many prefer)

Please note that some Macs have temperature sensors on the internal drive that can produce undesirable fan behavior if improperly connected, so if you are attempting an Internal drive swap yourself make sure you find an installation guide specific to your mac. Also make sure you have an up to date backup before messing with the internal drive.

External drives can be used as boot volumes or for supplemental storage, but for either purpose get one with at least a Firewire-800 connection, preferably USB 3.0. Thunderbolt is overkill unless you are using a RAID array or an external SSD while USB 2.0 will impose a significant performance bottleneck.

... by the way, what errors?

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