SSD upgrade imac 2010

gad-westy

gad-westy

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Hi folks. I have an 2010 21.5" imac. It's starting to struggle a bit particularly with light room, Photoshop and iMovie and so I'm pondering an upgrade to SSD.

There seems to be two approaches here. I could pay a lot (£300+) and get a 1tb SSD drive to replace the current 2tb mechanical drive and move everything on to that (music and films can go on an external drive so 1tb should be plenty). I guess this option is probably the ultimate in performance terms but is expensive.

The other options seems to be to keep the 2tb mechanical drive and put another smaller SSD in there as well in place of the DVD drive (which never gets used anyway). This would cost about £100 for 250gb capacity so would be sufficient to install programs and OS on but little else. What I'm wondering though is whether I'll see the full benefit of an SSD in performance terms if my photos are still being accessed on the mechanical drive?

Any thoughts?
 
Cheers gents. I'm happy with the how and what though appreciate the ebuyer link, hadn't spotted those. The question is more about whether I'll get value for money going the expensive route of moving everything to a big SSD or whether I'll get a significant performance boost by just moving software to a smaller cheaper SSD.
 
The 21" mid 2010 was originally available with 500GB, 1TB or 2TB hard drive. Unlike the 27" machines, there was no SSD option, so the additional connector is missing from the Logic Board. On the 27" machines, adding or replacing an SSD requires the Logic Board to be removed.

Replacing the hard drive with an SSD is relatively easy. You will need a suitable hard drive temperature sensor cable to prevent the fans constantly running at full speed. UTA: some people simply short out the sensor pins - this was the official way to do it on the 27" SSD only models.

You can get detailed instructions on ifixit.com. Note that the LCD connector is quite easy to break if you don't take care with it.
 
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gad-westy said:
Cheers gents. I'm happy with the how and what though appreciate the ebuyer link, hadn't spotted those. The question is more about whether I'll get value for money going the expensive route of moving everything to a big SSD or whether I'll get a significant performance boost by just moving software to a smaller cheaper SSD.
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I found that when I put an SSD into my MPB it just transformed the speed ...... a lot quicker as well worth the upgrade ......... I put a 500GB thing in - I think that it was £150 from Crucial .. I replaced the optical drive
 
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I have a 2012 27" with a 1TB internal drive. What I did was buy an external 256Mb SSD and use it as a boot drive. Mostly as I was too scared of opening up the iMac.

It works just fine and boots in a few seconds. All the data and stuff says on the internal drive. My logic was that if all else failed I'd have an external drive.

My logic board (I think) died a couple of days ago. Appointment in Apple on Sunday. Hopefully cheaper than replacing.
 
Problem is being solved the even more expensive way. New iMac on the way....

I weighed up all of the options and my backup requirements and realised I was going to be spending a few hundred quid that would be better placed going towards a new machine so that is what is happening. :)
 
gad-westy said:
I ordered the 960gb version of that SSD for £150. Probably more than I need but seemed worth the extra for a little future proofing.
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Great deal, I paid £230 in July last year :)
 
Did you get some of with the SSD code?
 
gad-westy said:
I ordered the 960gb version of that SSD for £150. Probably more than I need but seemed worth the extra for a little future proofing.
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Can't find it, got a link?
 
Ex display on ebay. However there are many on there at £175. Not sure how dodgy or otherwise.

Sorry, just realised my original post made it sound like I got it from ebuyer. I think they're still the best price for less risky source.
 
I updated my IMac 27 inch late 2011 ( the last one with integral Superdrive) to a 1 TB SSD and it flies its cost about £300 including fitting from memory. Im told that the larger the SSD the quicker they are, all I know is the boot times are fraction of the previous time and it rips through a 20gb Itune library and a large photo library. I cant see £300 even scratching the surface compared to the cost of a new IMac, but then its horses for course I suppose. I cant justify the price of a new Mac as the equivalent new machine now is knocking on £2k. I think I'll save my money til this one slows down ! To anyone else contemplating upgrading to SSD its well worth doing
 
Overexposed said:
I updated my IMac 27 inch late 2011 ( the last one with integral Superdrive) to a 1 TB SSD and it flies its cost about £300 including fitting from memory. Im told that the larger the SSD the quicker they are, all I know is the boot times are fraction of the previous time and it rips through a 20gb Itune library and a large photo library. I cant see £300 even scratching the surface compared to the cost of a new IMac, but then its horses for course I suppose. I cant justify the price of a new Mac as the equivalent new machine now is knocking on £2k. I think I'll save my money til this one slows down ! To anyone else contemplating upgrading to SSD its well worth doing
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This is pretty much my approach. The current imac is 2010 21.5" i3. I'm moving to a late 2011 27" quad core i7. Will top the ram up to 32gb, 1tb SSD and 3tb HDD. It should be a big upgrade in performance terms but once I've sold the old imac, should cost less than £500 or so. A new machine with that sort of spec would be horrendously expensive though I do like the 5k retina screens!

Ideally I'd have looked to put a later graphics card in there too but that seems a less well trodden path.
 
gad-westy said:
This is pretty much my approach. The current imac is 2010 21.5" i3. I'm moving to a late 2011 27" quad core i7. Will top the ram up to 32gb, 1tb SSD and 3tb HDD. It should be a big upgrade in performance terms but once I've sold the old imac, should cost less than £500 or so. A new machine with that sort of spec would be horrendously expensive though I do like the 5k retina screens!

Ideally I'd have looked to put a later graphics card in there too but that seems a less well trodden path.
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I know what you mean about shiny shiny new ones, BUT they come at a cost - the £300 i've spent should keep mine current for a good few years I also increased my Ram to 24GB with crucial Ram, ive not looked at the Graphics card but by then it'll probably be time to change anyway.
 
I would use the SSD for apps, OS and current photos you are working on. Use the spindle drive as archive. You will notice a difference in file access times when opening an image from an SSD and a traditional mechanical drive. Also when your zoomed into an image at 100% crop (if it's a big raw file), sometimes it will lag when moving around the image on a mechanical (depending on which editing software you use). Keep a folder on the SSD for for you working store of pictures.
 
Tulipone said:
I have a 2012 27" with a 1TB internal drive. What I did was buy an external 256Mb SSD and use it as a boot drive. Mostly as I was too scared of opening up the iMac.

It works just fine and boots in a few seconds. All the data and stuff says on the internal drive. My logic was that if all else failed I'd have an external drive.

My logic board (I think) died a couple of days ago. Appointment in Apple on Sunday. Hopefully cheaper than replacing.
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Hi was this using usb 2 on your mac?
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Hi was this using usb 2 on your mac?
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I think the 2012 has USB 3.

I went from a USB 2 2011 iMac to a USB 3 2015 one recently and the difference in speed in the USB ports is ridiculous.

On the 2011 you could also use the firewire port to connect up an external disk but the choices seemed limited and, just like the OP, in the end I simply bought a new computer...
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
Hi was this using usb 2 on your mac?
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I got a LaCie rugged drive that came with thunderbolt.

Still working great and no regrets. Actually the logic board fail turned out to be a known fault with the graphics card. Apple swapped it out free of charge and happy days!
 
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