Change the SSD in an iMac

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Geektastic

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# 251290 17-Jun-2019 17:58

my late 2015 iMac 17,1 has a 500GB SSD in.

It's not big enough and I wanted to get it upgraded to at least 1Tb so I approached a company that does warranty work for Apple on the assumption that their work must be up to the correct tech standards etc as required by Apple.

They quoted me (you may want to sit down for this bit) $2,333 PLUS GST to do it. Yes, more than the cost of a new Macbook Air...for a hard drive swap.

I've sent them a 'Please Explain', as OWC sell a 2Tb DIY upgrade kit that costs only US$500 or so, which is a great deal less. Obviously there is labour etc but surely no more than a couple of hours if you know what you are doing?

This was the exact response I got, in case it contains relevant information that I can't spot but someone here can:

"This is a Configure to Order Model in Apples system but if you advised it has a 512GB SSD in there then there is an option to go to a 1TB version, however this is extremely expensive.

For the 1TB SSD and the labor to fit this it will cost $2,333.00+GST."

Surely the CTO aspect has no relevance in the fittings/size etc of the SSD? This is what the system says is installed:

Macintosh HD:

Available: 20.06 GB (20,061,249,536 bytes)
Capacity: 500.07 GB (500,068,036,608 bytes)
Mount Point: /
File System: APFS
Writable: Yes
Ignore Ownership: No
BSD Name: disk1s1
Volume UUID: 102F7604-AFA0-3F58-8F69-D1F886C085BC
Physical Drive:
Device Name: APPLE SSD SM0512G
Media Name: AppleAPFSMedia
Medium Type: SSD
Protocol: PCI
Internal: Yes
Partition Map Type: Unknown
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

If it truly would cost that much to change it, then I may as well just sell this one and replace it with a newer system. It does seem a ridiculously large sum though. Anyone have any suggestions or thoughts?

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# 2259659 17-Jun-2019 18:14

Better option by a base model synology nas move your files to it, now you win win win as you get back your disk space and have a nice networked storage solution too boot.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NASSYN02186/Synology-DiskStation-DS218-2-Bay-NAS-Server-Dual-C

or slightly cheaper

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NASSYN02182/Synology-DiskStation-DS218-2-Bay-NAS-Server-Realte

And a couple of these in mirror.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/HDDWD1922/WD-1TB-Red-35-SATA3-5400RPM-64M-Hard-Drive-Designe

Cyril

RunningMan

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# 2259661 17-Jun-2019 18:20

That price is almost certainly for genuine Apple, and the drive bought as a spare part. It will never be competitive.

OWC have a 2TB that's even cheaper if you scroll further down their page. Alternatively, have a read of this - you might be able to drop a 2.5" SATA SSD in there.

stocksp

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# 2259667 17-Jun-2019 18:26

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I ended up just attaching a SSD as an external drive and making it the boot device

mmlakeman

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# 2259673 17-Jun-2019 18:47

What about attaching a Thunderbolt 2 External drive? - from Google "Thunderbolt 2 has max throughput of 20 Gbps"

The internal SSD if it is SATA3 top's out at 6Gbps.

Geektastic

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# 2259678 17-Jun-2019 19:00

I'll email OWC perhaps.

Anyone recommend a sanely priced Mac tech who could do this?

timmmay

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# 2259689 17-Jun-2019 19:44

Curious why you need to replace the existing disk rather than adding another disk?

I have something like 5 disks in my computer - SSD OS boot, SSD for some data I want fast, two hard drives in RAID for my bulk data, and another hard drive for media. Sure you might not be able to put another disk in the case with the iMac.

An external disk will be much, much cheaper. Thunderbolt or USB are plenty fast for most things, just store data you don't use often or don't need as fast on the spinning disk. I keep all my images on spinning disks, they're never the bottleneck, my older i7 2600K CPU usually is.

RunningMan

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# 2259690 17-Jun-2019 19:49

Perhaps @cyabro might be able to help as well.

Peppery

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# 2259693 17-Jun-2019 19:55

Where are you located? There is some element of risk on the tech as the screen is glued on and needs to be carefully removed. In saying that, i’ve done a number of these without issue.

Also, if your machine was configured as SSD only, then you’ll have an empty SATA drive bay inside. You could potentially get away with a cheaper 1TB SATA SSD in there along with your 500gb one.

Geektastic

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# 2259701 17-Jun-2019 20:04

timmmay:
Curious why you need to replace the existing disk rather than adding another disk?

I have something like 5 disks in my computer - SSD OS boot, SSD for some data I want fast, two hard drives in RAID for my bulk data, and another hard drive for media. Sure you might not be able to put another disk in the case with the iMac.

An external disk will be much, much cheaper. Thunderbolt or USB are plenty fast for most things, just store data you don't use often or don't need as fast on the spinning disk. I keep all my images on spinning disks, they're never the bottleneck, my older i7 2600K CPU usually is.

It doesn't really have enough ports that are not in use for things already, mainly.

Geektastic

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# 2259704 17-Jun-2019 20:07

Peppery: Where are you located? There is some element of risk on the tech as the screen is glued on and needs to be carefully removed. In saying that, i’ve done a number of these without issue.

Also, if your machine was configured as SSD only, then you’ll have an empty SATA drive bay inside. You could potentially get away with a cheaper 1TB SATA SSD in there along with your 500gb one.

It was configured with the drive it currently has.

I did add more RAM later.

Geektastic

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# 2259705 17-Jun-2019 20:07

Peppery: Where are you located? There is some element of risk on the tech as the screen is glued on and needs to be carefully removed. In saying that, i’ve done a number of these without issue.

Also, if your machine was configured as SSD only, then you’ll have an empty SATA drive bay inside. You could potentially get away with a cheaper 1TB SATA SSD in there along with your 500gb one.

It was configured with the drive it currently has.

I did add more RAM later.

Peppery

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# 2259708 17-Jun-2019 20:11

Geektastic:
Peppery: Where are you located? There is some element of risk on the tech as the screen is glued on and needs to be carefully removed. In saying that, i’ve done a number of these without issue.

Also, if your machine was configured as SSD only, then you’ll have an empty SATA drive bay inside. You could potentially get away with a cheaper 1TB SATA SSD in there along with your 500gb one.

It was configured with the drive it currently has.

I did add more RAM later.

Your drive should be the proprietary SSD then, so you should have the empty bay and could add a SATA SSD while keeping your current drive. Slightly more cost effective as you can use any drive and all you need is the power cable.

I’m in central Auckland if you do need install assistance at all (Ex-Mac tech of 8 years)

timmmay

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# 2259717 17-Jun-2019 20:22

Geektastic: It doesn't really have enough ports that are not in use for things already, mainly.

I have a USB thingy I plug in, it has three USB ports and one ethernet port, works great. I expect you can do similar with thunderbolt? Put the high bandwidth stuff directly into the computer, and the extra stuff like mice into the thingy. USB hub I think they're called. I must be tired if I can't think of that. This one, Anker, works very well.

CYaBro

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# 2259739 17-Jun-2019 21:00

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Unfortunately Apple Authorised Service Providers are only allowed to use genuine Apple supplied spare parts.

Believe me, us (when we were an AASP) and many of the other AASPs had great arguments with Apple on this, because it even includes RAM!

Why would someone buy from us a RAM upgrade for their Apple Mac when they could go down the road and get the exact same thing for less than half the price?!
Apple wouldn't budge.

Apple also provide two prices to the AASP, a stock price and an exchange price.
To get the exchange price for a spare part the AASP would have to send back to Apple the equivalent part that is removed from your Mac.
This is usually what happens in out of warranty repairs with faulty parts that need to be replaced with the same part.

In your case you want to upgrade so your 512GB SSD doesn't qualify for the exchange price on a 1TB SSD, so they would have to quote the full stock price of an Apple 1TB SSD, hence the insane price.
Even the exchange price on an Apple 1TB SSD would be expensive.

As others have already said, with your iMac having the Apple SSD, it will be in the slot on the main logic board and there will still be a space for where a normal hard drive could fit.
So you could get a 2.5" SATA SSD and fit it in that space but unsure as to what you'd need to make it work. EG: SATA and power cables.
And you also still need someone who has opened those iMacs in the past, as they can be tricky, and you also need replacement adhesive strips to stick the display back on.

Geektastic

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# 2260025 18-Jun-2019 10:09

timmmay:
Geektastic: It doesn't really have enough ports that are not in use for things already, mainly.

I have a USB thingy I plug in, it has three USB ports and one ethernet port, works great. I expect you can do similar with thunderbolt? Put the high bandwidth stuff directly into the computer, and the extra stuff like mice into the thingy. USB hub I think they're called. I must be tired if I can't think of that. This one, Anker, works very well.

At present it has

1 Thunderbolt spinning disk raid
1 spinning disk backup drive
1 spinning disk backup drive
1 Samsung SSD
1 USB hub

So the only unused Port is one of the Thunderbolt ports.

It does seem that changing the internal drive is just going to be a PITA. However, the number of easily available Thunderbolt 2 equipped SSD drives is low and expensive also.

Given that even with a late 2015 era 4Ghz i7 and 32Gb of RAM, image export (for example) is slow for large miners of big files perhaps either more RAM or a new computer with 4 year newer architecture etc is the proper answer?

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