I did this on my wife's 2012 iMac, which has a magnet-based mounting system for the display panel. The SSD was an enormous performance boost from spinning disk and without exaggeration felt like a whole new computer.
Fun fact: I checked your iMac S/N that you showed at the beginning in Apples Service platform. The previous owner already had an issue with the iMac not booting up in September 2018 and created a support ticket.
@@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862 I repair phones and computers for a living and our company takes part in Apple’s IRP (independent repair provider) program. As such we have access to Apple’s service platforms like GSX. Unfortunately there is no way for a normal person to check things like that, even though it could be very helpful (repair history, configuration the device came with, etc.).
Have the 27” GPU model of the 2013 iMac in my studio and it’s a beast. Got real slow a few years ago but I swapped an SSD in last summer and it’s flying now
If possible, you should also investigate putting an NVMe SSD in there. AFAIK all 27-inch iMacs of that time period should come with the internal card-style PCIe SSD slot even if you did not order it with Fusion Drive option, and that slot can accept an NVMe drive through an adapter. Those can be at least 5x faster than SATA, so even just a 256GB one for building a Fusion Drive with your SATA SSD can be beneficial.
@@hikaru-live I always thought the Fusion drives were one piece like those Hybrid stand-alone HDDs, great to know there’s an actual PCI connector for real SSDs
I do a lot of these! For the adhesive along the bottom chin, there is a vertical tab at each side you can grab to release the adhesive. To get more access to the SATA plug, undo the 2x screws for the speaker and it can be tilted to the left to give you more room to plug in the new drive. Oh and for 27" 2012 and on models you don't need a software patch or plug in thermal sensor if upgrading to SSD, you do if replacing HDD with HDD.
Great information! I have a question, I have a 3TB fusion drive in a 27” 2014 iMac that I would like to upgrade to a full SSD, would the process be the same?
@@ronkemperful Similar. But you can’t have a Fusion of two SSDs so you’d end up with your new SSD and the smaller Fusion SSD as two separate drives. Still worth doing 👍
This reminds me of working tech support for my university and having to service 3rd and 4th gen iMacs from time to time. While the “pizza cutter” tool helped with the adhesive, I still preferred to work on the older ones.
Colin, I remember buying a 2017 inch iMac at Best Buy back in the day. The sales rep wasn't too pleased with having to go into the back with the forklift to move that massive 168 foot display. But to be honest, the hardest part for Best Buy was arranging the right delivery truck that could fit such a mammoth display inside. That and also having to take out part of a side wall to move the Mac in! 😅
@@mr702s if you look at 17:50. The left side of tape 4L and right side of 4R are the two pull tabs of when you remove the display. This way you don't need to cut it like mentioned in the video.
I bought my 27" IMAC in 2012. It looks and runs like new. I added additional storage and plug in two external HD for use for general storage and Time machine. To those people who doubt Apple products you are delusional. To get best part of 10 years out a desktop and still purring along nicely I call that a quality product.
You can easily get 10+ years out of a half-decent PC as well... and you'll pay 10% of the price up-front. Apple's hardware is good quality, sure -- but so is standard PC hardware. My machine from 10 years ago is still running fine.
Great video! I used to work at an AASP, and this is pretty much exactly how I was taught to do this. The only thing I want to say is that I heavily discourage using generic VHB when replacing the display. The iMac adhesive (including the iFixIt stuff, which looks identical to what Apple gave us) is designed to split in the middle when you use a plastic cutting tool, whereas normal VHB is not. You can still split it with a box cutter, etc. but you'll greatly increase the risk of damaging internal components.
Holding down the power button while it's unplugged is how you reset the PMU, and resetting the PMU is achieved by completely discharging the PSU. SOOOOOO it stands to reason that the advice is sound.
+1, do this. The caps in those PSUs are pretty fat, you would absolutely not want to get zapped by them. And they absolutely hold charge for quite a while.
Had this done to my 2012 i-Mac adding 16 gigs of Ram, as well as a New 1 Tb SSD. It served me well and is now with my daughter still working as her daily driver. It cost me just under $200.00 to add the SSD and Ram and so far my daughter says it's running well for its age. Adding the Ram also boosted the speed on the i-Mac too!
I have a late 2009 21.5" that is still my daily driver. Upgraded to an SSD a year ago and it still works fine for everything I do. It's hard to believe that a computer that now 12 years old is still my main machine. Granted Apple stopped support for it a few years ago, but I think it's safe to say that I have definitely gotten my money's worth from this machine. Great video Colin!
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I have a 2009 24” that is still my daily driver also but it still has a mechanical hard drive inside and it’s getting way too slow; I was thinking about swapping it with a SSD but i don’t know if it is worth the trouble…
As a 2017 21.5" 4K iMac user myself, I remember vividly when High Sierra took 1:30 and Bootcamp 3min to boot straight outta the box! I did the SSD swap myself and I can confirm no thermal sensor was needed. Only the HDD in the fusion drive model requires it and mine's the stock 1TB. I need to warn you that the new adhesive strips aren't as sticky as the original, as mine started to peel off 2 years after the upgrade. I did order new ones, but I'm thinking of also performing a ram upgrade while I'm at it, as it's such a pain to pop open the screen again.
Nerd debate time! Holding the power button to discharge caps is mostly effective from my experience. Especially on higher quality units with large filtering caps it's important to do.
high quality power supplies should have a discharge resistor on those big capacitors, so they will be discharged after couple seconds/minutes. But as you said, holding power button is also a thing i recommend.
I do it while working on macs and PCs, and haven't got 'bitten' since I started doing that before stabbing power supplies (as one does) during upgrades/repairs.
This week upgraded the SSD of my 2011 MacBook Air for an new Aura pro 250gb SSD, and the result it’s simply amazing, it’s faster than when it was brand new back 10 years a go. I can’t be happier for that. All macs are so well made than can last for decades specially new ones, and this kind of simple and inexpensive upgrades can give a new life to an excellent machine
I had a similar problem with my 2012 Mac Mini, the hard drive did the same thing like the iMac. Sometimes it worked just fine while other times it would just freeze on startup. Every time the hard drive did that, I restored it with my Time Machine backup until I finally got a 2 TB SSD. Combined with the upgraded 16 GB of RAM I installed, it feels like a completely different machine! Definitely worth it to upgrade these older machines!
Completely usable system for a large portion of users out there, myself included. All signs point to Monterrey working just as well as Big Sur does.. so there's more life to squeeze out of this hardware yet!
My late 2013 27" 3.2 GHz i5 running 10.14.6 with a 1TB SSD and 24 GB of RAM runs great. I still earn my living on it as a designer, photographer, AE, and Motion designer.
I was gifted a 2011 27" i5 imac once. It had a dead hard drive, so i swapped in a new 2TB one. Installed that HDD fan control software and it worked just fine. Later downgraded to a 2011 Mini, since I only have space for one screen, shared between my PC (fun and games) and my Mac (fun and productivity, still running Aperture in 2021!)
Thank you for your video! I watched it in parallel with the ifixit guide and now my imac became very snappy. I also recommend to remove the fan since it is on only 3 screws, and cleaning the dust that can build up on the radiator.
This literally just happened to me last week and I'm reliving the horror of the onset of the problem, and so so so happy you have such a clear and well-explained resolution to this problem. Time to get cracking! Thanks!
Screen attaching TIP! Peel off long strip of blue painter's tape. Position the bottom of screen on lip, line up edges, Apply strip along bottom between screen and metal bottom, run the length of the screen. This will keep screen in place as you tilt and jiggle to get it in exact placement. Remember to always peel off bottom strips FIRST before you attach 2 cables! ALSO be sure you are lined up perfectly before removing bottom strips!!
on the 27" (at least 2013 & 2017 I have worked on) the last adhesive strip on the bottom of the screen has a pull tab on the outsides that you can pull off the adhesive strip rather than cutting that last one. Be glad this didn't have the SSD on the backside of the board, that was a complete pain to get to.
The best way to install a new drive is to lay the iMac on its back, unscrew the speaker enclosure and move ir aside and remove the tape from the nearby fan and move it away. You can remove the drive tray and it’s a hell of a lot easier. Laying the Mac down also solves your drop problem because the screen won’t fall foreword and smash on the floor. Also you’re right, don’t buy third party tape. I had a friend who used 3m high bond tape which unbeknownst to him had hardened over a couple of years. When he went to do another upgrade he couldn’t cut the tape and the screen broke in half. I’ve done three of these, a 21.5 and 2 27s. They all work fine.
Why wouldn´t Apple just use the standard way to read the current drive temperature? I mean almost all sata drives support reporting it´s temperature as a part of S.M.A.R.T which can even be read over USB nowadays (and ofc PATA and SATA) No need for external sensors or custom firmware on the drive. It´s all there already... Just another Apple thing?
I upgraded one of these as well - it's amazing how usable these iMacs become when they're not hindered by the absolute trash-tier drives Apple put in them from the factory. It boggles the mind why Apple continued to do it for so long, but it also makes used examples of these excellent values for light-use machines with a little upgrade work.
@@edwardtan1354 at the time, and for a few years after that, iMacs were the only Mac that sill shipped with HDDs. If you wanted a stock SSD you had to buy a MBP. It boggles the mind
@@alvareo92 My mid range dell's all had them from 2011 onwards. And the hp I got for my gf in 2013 did. I only saw slower on low end, or the basic bad value spec companies try and sell those who don't research.
Just worked on a client's late 2013 27" MBP. It'd hard lock and fail D recovery as well as failed upgrading and hard locking from Mojave to Catalina, twice. Rolled it back and it's working again but incredibly, sluggishly, slow. >5 min boot times. Ran some diagnostics and it has massive sector failures on the HDD, sadly. Client is not choosing to upgrade to SSD or risk the cutting-it-open HDD swap, oh well. Great video sir!
Also I wanted to add I would love see you tinker with Linux on a MAC, and document all the issues you have, as Linux can help extend the life of these machines even further.
Seconded! Only reason I’d buy a Mac or MacBook at all is to run Linux on it, personally. That, and compiling Mac versions of my software if I decided to, I guess. I used to _really_ want a MacBook Air to run Linux on. Amazingly portable, decently durable, and with Linux on, perfect for writing code wherever I needed to. Never got around to getting one since I could never find a used one at a sane price, what with comparably priced alternatives being typically more powerful. Just wasn’t viable for me at the time.
@@archgirl What about a ThinkPad with Linux? Mac and Linux doesn't sound like a good financial decision, as Macs were justified for its orignal OS. Then again, not anymore, as people began to install MacOS on PCs through Linux virtual machines.
@@jockeyjeon9532 I personally think Mac’s have never been justified at their price point, regardless of the OS you run on them. ThinkPad is a solid option, if you get the right one, but I don’t trust Lenovo worth a damn, so they’re not getting a penny from me. They’ve been known to install phishing software as part of the bloatware bundled with their systems. Not that it affects me, since I’d be wiping the drive and installing Linux anyway, but it’s the principle. I’d have to go secondhand, which wouldn’t be a problem if I was still in the market for a laptop, but I’m not. Don’t need one anymore. Thanks, though.
Linux on a Mac is great - but you need to know *first* if you have a 32-bit EFI or a later 64-bit EFI bootloader (despite both being real 64-bit Mac OS X operating systems once they load). Not so many desirable, modern Linux distros still work with 32-bit EFI. For example, Linux Mint stops at version 19.3 (LTS to 2023, I think), for 32-bit EFI, sadly. 64-bit EFI and, theoretically, you’re good to go for years.
@@stevearkwright It’s not too difficult to implement a workaround for 32-bit EFI. I remember having to look into it for an obscure netbook owned by a friend a while back. Add a bootia32 efi file to the EFI/BOOT directory of the installation medium, and it’ll boot on machines using a 32-bit EFI implementation just fine for installation. Custom grub2 config can be used for implementing the mode switch to 64-bit after the bootloader, instructions and templates for which can be found online. It’s getting harder and harder to find distros which still carry a 32-bit version, yes, but booting a 64-bit distro with a 32-bit bootloader is still doable. It’s not so heavily documented given that there aren’t all that many machines out there with 64-bit CPUs using 32-bit EFI, but there are discussions about it and solutions for it. Secondary to all of this is that I don’t believe any Mac produced after mid 2010 actually uses a 32-bit EFI anymore anyways. They switched over to a 64-bit EFI long ago. Before this, they were restricting 64-bit capable Macs to 32-bit mode because of kernel extension compatibility issues at the time. This is no longer a concern, and all modern Macs boot and run in 64-bit mode now, and appear to have done so for roughly a decade.
Dude i opened one of this about two months ago. At reassembly replaced the entire double sided tape on it...And the screen felt about a week later. BY MIRACLE it doesn't crash, and since that i put simple translucent tape from the outside. Better to have to stand the bad look, than trust in some unknown tape manufacturer...
Dude, thank you so much for this video! 9:40 helped me SO MUCH! I was stuck trying to figure out how all these people were taking off that one cord with the metal bits, none of the people I saw did a close up, couldn’t see a single thing. I have a 2019 iMac, but the cord came out all the same. Thanks!!! :D
Thanks for this video, I was able to upgrade my iMac (same one as yours in the video) to an SSD. Super helpful and clear tutorial, thanks for the tips! I did struggle with holding the screen up while trying to re-plug in the two ribbon cables, and the screen fell out of place causing a tiny, couple centimers only, shatter on the bottom. Thankfully it's only in the bevel area, so it doesn't affect performance or visuals at all. afterwards, I realized I could lay the iMac on it's back to plug in the cables (shown in iFixit instruction), and that was a lot easier. I'm glad to have an iMac running at a decent speed again, thanks again for the help!
Super helpful! I need to do a screen replacement for my 2014 iMac and this gives me more confidence to do it. I didn't know about the little pizza cutter tool! Great suggestion :D
Your instruction for slicing open the display is wrong. The bottom edge adhesive has two pull tabs on the left and right edge. Pull the tabs to remove the bottom strips. You don’t have to try and slice the bottom edge. It is easy to slice open the display. The fused display to the glass prevents any dust getting between the glass and display like the older models.
We had one of those that had a stick of RAM that'd died! Not seen many dead sticks but we confirmed with testing. Ended up swapping out both sticks for 2 x 8GB, and replacing the NVMe and HDD with an SSD. Installed Windows 10. Apart from seeming to do nothing on boot for 30 seconds before suddenly kicking into gear and booting Windows in seconds... Great machine.
TWO TIPS: Tip #1: When applying the strips, Before you apply, clean the surface of iMac and edge of screen with alcohol swap lightly, gets rid of the crud the old adhesive leaves behind. Tip #2, Use the holes!!! The strips have holes! Take end of black stick, guide thru strip hole, then line up with corresponding hole on side or tip you are adhering to. Makes lining up the strips much easier then eyeballing it! Peel off one side with strip, not both at same time. Makes applying so much easier. And remember, to press down fully once applied!!
Literally working on one of these right now in the repair shop I work at lol Original HDD got its partitions and data all messed up so its going through a long data recovery process. But looks like the data the customer wanted most will be recoverable! Unfortunately, just replacing the drive with another HDD since he's on a budget.
Just a note, make sure you have the firmware password before making hardware changes (if it is set). My dad bought a used iMac few years ago with slow physical hdd. I knew the screen was a pain to get off, but putting in a ssd wouldn't be that hard. What I didn't know was the previous owner had added a firmware password to the machine, which locked the system due to the change. Putting the original drive back in didn't help either, and the prior owner had no idea what the password was... Only certified shop are allowed to fix this (think they just call Apple and get some codes...), which cost us around a 100 dollars. So beware ...
I have a 27" 2013 iMac. I bought in 2019 used from a design company. It was stored for 5 years. Then came the owner's daughter and decided to sell it. It was expensive for me but a good value because it was almost the high specs model. I don't use it for design or media work, just a normal house computer and some school work. At the beginning I thought it was expensive but I felt in love with the all-in-one package, the audio, the 2k quality image and easy work iOS. But like yours he had a 1TB HDD that was dying and it did. Then I search for a repair shop near and they change the HDD for a 1TB SSD and the diference was amazing. I'm using that old computer with 8 years even today, I'm writing this with that same computer and I love it. Apple don't always get it right but in this case they nail it. If you want a good computer to do simple work, listen music and watch some movie the 27" is amazing. Recommend.
Fussion drives do not show up as 2 drives. The SSD spaced used to cache is hidden from the user. WD did that with a single black laptopdrive. some of those large caps can hold a charge for months after being unplugged. just don't touch the insides of PSUs
I recently bought a 2014 Mac Mini with an i5. It would take about 7 minutes to boot, it had the same HGST drive in it. But I put an SSD in it and holy cow, it's usable again
Of all the ssd swap imac videos I watched, your is the most informative, clear and generous. Really appreciate the close ups adn explanations. Amazing tutorial!! Thank you
This just re-enforces what I found while working for AppleCare in the UK. I saw countless 2013 iMacs with the 1TB hard drive just become slow as molasses, and often failed. It is most certainly the hard drive. No idea why, maybe all the 1TB drives ever given to these models are just trash... I know this is not just me, there has to be a deep seated issue there
I had one from HP I'm guessing at a certain point there was really trashy components the circulated thing is that was a seagate, this one I think is a toshiba or hitachi made
If you have the 27-inch version regardless of the drive options, or if you have the 21.5 with Fusion Drive, you can upgrade the SSD as well using a regular M.2 2280 NVMe drive and a passive adapter. You will need to put Catalina on it first though as that OS package comes with a firmware update that adds NVMe support to a lot of old Macs. You can even create Fusion Drive setups with NVMe SSD as the fast device, and SATA SSD as the slow device.
i would love to be sure that it is really useful to do this, because I want to upgrade my 2013 iMac: to access the SSD, you have to unmount the whole iMac and motherboard. But I read the PCIe is only PCIe2.0 x 2 , so not much better rates than SATAIII SSD... what do you think ? Thank you
@@michelusac1798 PCIe 2.0 x2 is still 1GB/s theoretical over 600MB/s theoretical for SATA 6Gb/s. You can still use a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD in there and it would just negotiate down.
It sure got me a lot of life out of my 2010 Mac Mini. With max ram and an SSD it was running Catalina by the time I retired it to be the bedroom movie player.
Done it on my mid 2010 27" i7 imac and omg, what a difference, along with the ram upgrade to 32gb ram (although apple says mid2010 27" i7 will only support 16gb, they do support 32gb with no problem) It is like a brand new mac now!
I found a Mac Pro last week at a school, but I don’t know if it works since it uses a matte Cinema Display monitor, and it’s missing that stupid power adapter! But at least the Mac Pro chassis can be easily opened and modded.
I have a 2014 model and was going to put a Sata SSD and more ram in. When I took the logic board out to get to the ram (no ram door on 21.5" models) even though it didn't have a Fusion drive the NVME slot pads on the PCB was populated, so I put in a 512Gb NVME along with a 1Tb Sata SSD :)
Im using this exact model to write this comment! I did the same upgrade. But I added an OEM apple blade ssd and used the existing hdd for a bootcamp installation :)
I did this for both my 2012 MacBook Pro and a friend's 2011 iMac and both are like new machines now. I wish the trend of using glues and such never started. Edit: Also, on the iMac I forgot to unplug it at first and touched a solder joint while working. Got a good little zap. Lesson learned, lol. Double also, the custom firmware is fascinating. That explains the SMC fan problem I had afterwards. I'm in line to get another 2011 iMac from a friend so it's good to know about those adapters. I'm glad I watched this video. Good job here Colin.
Thanks, because I wondered if the glass could be held with shipping tape to test. No other tutorial mentioned this. I'm still going to wait for my adhesive strip shipment to arrive, as it includes the cutter wheels.
My mom is still using a 2009 iMac running El Capitan with 8GB RAM and. 128GB SSD. It lacks some features for her iPhone and iPad so I hope to find a more recent model from about 5 years ago and buy it to update it. In contrast, the previous Windows PCs fell over every couple of years and needed major funds to upgrade them.
Grazie per il video e il tempo che hai dedicato!!! Io ne sto facendo uno ad un amico esattamente come il tuo, quindi mi è molto utile il tuo video. Il modello vecchio che hai fatto vedere nel video c'è l'ho io ed è esattamente come quello da te mostrato, aveva il disco da 3,5 e ho messo un SSD e Mac OS El capitan 👍🏻 Grazie ancora!
I had to replace the 3gig fusion drive in my late 2013 iMac, I swapped it out for a 1tb SSD...although it all worked out well, it was pretty much surgery!
Also worth noting that Big Sur runs great on this hardware via one of the popular patchers. Typing this comment on a late-2013 iMac running Patched Sur!
I've watched you install numerous SSD's into various Macs, but I've never seen you enable Trimforce. Enabling Trimforce is a critical step when replacing a mechanical drive with a SSD.
I had the same problem in my Early 2008 iMac and also swapped out the failed HDD for an SSD. The speed difference from HDD to SSD is like night and day! I'm not even getting the full speed out of it as the 2008 iMac is limited to SATA II, so I'm currently getting 200/260 write/read according to BMDST. Performance has likely dipped though as the SSD is five years old and is used every day. But I'll take it any day over a spinning disk.
If the old hard drive is still running halfway: plug it into a USB-Sata adapter and boot from it. Install from there. Or create a USB stick with MacOS install beforehand. I had a protary M.2 SSD in the Macbook. I first installed the system on an external hard drive and recovered data. Then I swapped the internal M.2 SSD with adapter. Started via the external HDD and reinstalled everything with data recover again.
An SSD on an older machine, even if it's bottlenecked to the point you aren't going to see all that much of a speed increase, is going to be a drastic improvement on reliability and longevity. I have a SFF Lenovo that's... actually about as old as that mac, and between the SSD and the (budget) graphics card? does what I want pretty solidly well (hiccups and hangups of running windows games in linux, and chrome's tendency to OMNOMNOM memory to one side....) I dunno if I'm getting 'full' performance out of the SSDI got, but it loads faster, is quieter, and probably has far less heat going on.
I installed a 2TB SSD in my 2010 iMac and 12GB of RAM. It was my main computer until recently when the screen started to show vertical lines and the whole thing got really hot. Replacing the thermal paste didn’t fix the issue and since some softwares started dropping High Sierra support I ended up dropping it as my main device… but it still works and that is frustrating !
I've had the same problem with both corrupted screen and unsupported software. I finally tried to install a patched version of Mojave but it didnt support the graphics card and would not boot. However there was some other patch to integrate the graphics driver to the mac os installation package and it installed correctly!! Supprisingly now it works without graphics problems and glitches on this new version with the new driver. The problem is that I dont really remember the website that had all those tools and patches anymore :(
@@VladoT yes i saw some of the tutorials about this but apprently there is no way to have GPU accelerated graphics when you have a Radeon like me so it's unusable even if you manage to install everything :-/
I’m still running a mid-2012 MacBook Pro, it’s a 2.7 GHz Core I7 with 16 GB of ram and a 1 TB SSD, and still runs great with the latest OSX 10X. Older Macs, at least to me, are great machines as they’re upgradeable, can run Linux, Windows, and MacOS natively or in virtual machines. I work across platforms and with some legacy softwares that still require DVD drives for media/installs and repairs which is why I run the most recent MacBook Pro equip with an optical drive. While the SSD is capped to Sata-3 speeds its fast enough for most things; my next machine will probably be a 2016 or so where you could still upgrade the NVMe SSDs and Ram; I just refuse to get a computer where the ram and/or SSD is soldered in. Modern Macs may be faster but they are much less professional; I’ve been a Mac user since the 1980s when Apple still believed in user repairability, sadly they’ve forgotten their roots.
I think Apple, at some point, changed the storage I/O optimization to skew heavily toward SSDs. Once you get to Mavericks or so, things just get slower and slower and slower on rust media. I had El Cap on a 2009 Mac Pro with a 1TB HDD - bafflingly sluggish, but usable. I replaced that with an SSD running High Sierra. World of difference. The original laptop HDD in a 2012 Mac Mini, when running Mojave, was slow to the point of wondering if there was something physically wrong with the computer. It would take upwards of a minute to launch the App Store. 😫 Now, of course, it runs like a top. Older Mac OS releases don't have that same issue, but they come from a time when 10-20ms access time was a given. iMac G3 running OS 9? Snappy! iMac G4 running OS X 10.3? No problem! Rule of thumb: If you see skeuomorphic design elements, you're OK with a spinning HDD. If it's a flat aesthetic, you better have solid state storage.
Yeah I've noticed this too on my 2009 Macbook. Snow leo, mavericks run fine. Anything past that gets noticably slower every release. Windows is the same way, you really need an SSD for windows 10, it just thrashes a regular hard drive.
Yeah I remember reading a lot about this kinda thing back when I had my HDD-equipped 2013 MBP running whatever what was current in 2016. Suffice to say I did not want to upgrade the OS again, right until the death of the machine
The gluing the screen to the body bugs me so much that I refuse to come near an iMac. Like seriously the magnets were the best possible solution. But Tim Cook really hates if people want to fix or upgrade their own machines
Even my super cheap HP laptop uses screws and decent clips, I've opened it twice now for adding 16 gigs ram and a 1tb M.2 drive and it's been a charm to work in. It's HP 17-ca0006ca laptop with a AMD Ryzen 2300u with Vega 6 graphics, it's no monster but I've got it running Garuda linux and it's heaps of fun, even running games on Steam Via Proton is terrific
Man, a 5400 rippum spinning rust affair. We used to compute like animals. Some painters tape over the power supply solder points can provide a little more margin for clumsy hands.
I'm wondering if this is what I should do with my daughters early 2013 iMac, as it's working fine, but slow as molasses compared to my 2013 MacBook laptop, where I added a 1 TB SSD to it some years ago. So, I'll assume the slowness is the rotational drive, and although she say's she'll deal with the slowness, this upgrade doesn't seem to be too extensive! I would also like to add another 8 GB of Ram, but I see that is far more extensive in doing that, and the iMac will be mainly used for Word Processing tasks now. Now to try to find out the cost of the adhesive strips, tools needed, and a decent sized SSD!
I can confirm that the late 2009 model of the iMac 27" has a temperature sensor that plugs directly into the hard drive so it goes back earlier than 2010
I wonder, is it actually a modification apple forced drive makers to do because they're dicks and wanted to limit user repairs, or just the regular SMART system present in all drives for 20+ years doing what it designed for. I've diagnostic tools that could get lots of info from the debug/diag ports on older sata drives, including temperatures.
I am on windows 10 Tower I built in 2016 paired via a infra red remote control HDMI switch with a 2012 Mac Mini ( Catalina ) that i upgraded Ram and SSD . Good thing was the old Altec Lansing 7.1 speaker had a desk input i could pair sound with . The samsung curved monitor does basic sound thru the hdmi but now the whole setup has the best of all worlds at a flick of a remote switch . I can toggle both . I do need 2 mouses but thats simples . The old mac mini HDD is still plugged in with a SATA / USB cord
Just FYI, a fusion drive doesn't appear in the NVMe settings (my 27" iMac 5k 2014 has a 1Tb Fusion drive which I'm watching this on) - both elements of the disk (the 128Gb SSD and the 1Tb HDD) appear in the SATA under 2 different controllers. The SSD is on Apple's own SATA controller and the HDD uses the motherboard's Intel Chipset SATA controller.
Did this to my Mid 2010 iMac - which I am STILL using even as I type right now. SSD on a failing HDD was great, the fan's jacked up RPM became the issue also. I was using 3rd party Fan Control software but eventually the cable with sensor (13:54) was the true solution. The big problem for me I guess is very little room to work with inside with larger hands. All very doable in those older iMacs, especially when the screen is connected by very strong magnets. But checking out to see how to upgrade my aunts old 2013 21" iMac (Boot up is SLOW and after he light use with internet, youtube videos and online games with heavy java...her iMac just becomes SUPER slow!) I even totally wiped that out and restored to Mavericks..which felt great again, but it has obviously become obsolete - the security updates, She uses Chrome and THAT needs newer OS to update the browser security now. She doesnt need a super computer...but something faster than what she's using now is necessary. (Her iMac is reminding me my ancient 2006 Windows Laptop running Windows 8, it's painful!) I'll get around to it in the next few weeks, I guess I need that iFixIt kit now....but ugh.
Trying to install the new OS version on my late 2013 iMac via OpenCore Legacy Patcher. If that doesn't get me the wanted effect, I'll have to try this one. it's also the late 2013, 21.5 model so it should be the same as in the video. Thanks a lot.
I was able to get past the fan speed problem on a 2011? model by using a 4 wire sata power extension, I guess it combined the pins in the right way that the machine didn't want to ramp up the fans. Granted I wouldn't do this for a 3.5" drive but an SSD shouldn't get too hot even with the fan speed not accounting for its temps.
How is the fanspeed? I remember replacing an HDD with an SSD on a slightly older machine and the Fan went full speed. There was some proprietary sensor with the HDD and you had to install a Tool to regulate it back down to sanity.
One thing I wouldn't do is use UHB tape with this thing. They put tractor trailers together with this stuff. It most certainly would pull off even if you cut it open. It's not an adhesive in any traditional sense. It's a chemical bonding agent.
I did this on my wife's 2012 iMac, which has a magnet-based mounting system for the display panel. The SSD was an enormous performance boost from spinning disk and without exaggeration felt like a whole new computer.
I did the same on my 2011 27" - It was unreal how much better it was after the upgrade.
I think he should have stuck with the original OS. It would be as fast as it was the day it was new, even faster with the SSD.
@@bobacks Same here. It really doesnt feel 10 years old. Macs Fan Control installed to handle the fan speed issue. Running problem free for 3 years.
How did you reply three days ago when this video wasn't uploaded until today?
@@matthewlanzilla9849 probably a patrion supporter
Fun fact: I checked your iMac S/N that you showed at the beginning in Apples Service platform. The previous owner already had an issue with the iMac not booting up in September 2018 and created a support ticket.
A very fun (But alarming) fact.
nice catch
where can i check for such things? i'd love to check out some of my older apple devices to see their history
@@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862 I repair phones and computers for a living and our company takes part in Apple’s IRP (independent repair provider) program. As such we have access to Apple’s service platforms like GSX. Unfortunately there is no way for a normal person to check things like that, even though it could be very helpful (repair history, configuration the device came with, etc.).
That sounds a little weird bro
Have the 27” GPU model of the 2013 iMac in my studio and it’s a beast. Got real slow a few years ago but I swapped an SSD in last summer and it’s flying now
Did you had any problems with the temperature sensor ramping up the fans? , or no issues whatsoever?
If possible, you should also investigate putting an NVMe SSD in there. AFAIK all 27-inch iMacs of that time period should come with the internal card-style PCIe SSD slot even if you did not order it with Fusion Drive option, and that slot can accept an NVMe drive through an adapter. Those can be at least 5x faster than SATA, so even just a 256GB one for building a Fusion Drive with your SATA SSD can be beneficial.
@@hikaru-live I always thought the Fusion drives were one piece like those Hybrid stand-alone HDDs, great to know there’s an actual PCI connector for real SSDs
Do you have to backup the computer before installing the SSD?
I do a lot of these! For the adhesive along the bottom chin, there is a vertical tab at each side you can grab to release the adhesive. To get more access to the SATA plug, undo the 2x screws for the speaker and it can be tilted to the left to give you more room to plug in the new drive. Oh and for 27" 2012 and on models you don't need a software patch or plug in thermal sensor if upgrading to SSD, you do if replacing HDD with HDD.
Great information! I have a question, I have a 3TB fusion drive in a 27” 2014 iMac that I would like to upgrade to a full SSD, would the process be the same?
@@ronkemperful Similar. But you can’t have a Fusion of two SSDs so you’d end up with your new SSD and the smaller Fusion SSD as two separate drives. Still worth doing 👍
@@griffog2001 Thanks!
Darren: I've got a 27' late 2012 with a failing HDD. What SSD model do I need to buy to replace it?
@@690design Any model is fine. I got the cheapest 480GB from Teamgroup and had no problems for 3 years.
This reminds me of working tech support for my university and having to service 3rd and 4th gen iMacs from time to time. While the “pizza cutter” tool helped with the adhesive, I still preferred to work on the older ones.
Colin, I remember buying a 2017 inch iMac at Best Buy back in the day. The sales rep wasn't too pleased with having to go into the back with the forklift to move that massive 168 foot display. But to be honest, the hardest part for Best Buy was arranging the right delivery truck that could fit such a mammoth display inside. That and also having to take out part of a side wall to move the Mac in! 😅
2017 inch???
@@fhdbvkdfhbv2639 no wonder they had such trouble moving it around lol
@@alvareo92i cant move a normal sized one around becus i dont have one
You on drugs? 😂
168???? The biggest one they sell is up to 27 inch I use The 2021 iMac M1 24 inch it’s really good!
Amazing! I just did this two weeks ago with a late-2013 iMac I got from a friend. New SSD from Other World Computing, and it's like a new machine!
I hate how gluing electronics together has become the accepted norm. Especially when they already had such an elegant solution with the magnets.
The bottom adhesives actually have pull tabs on the sides for you to pull. I know this because I am an Apple technician. You don't need to cut it.
Do you have a video showing this??
@@mr702s if you look at 17:50. The left side of tape 4L and right side of 4R are the two pull tabs of when you remove the display. This way you don't need to cut it like mentioned in the video.
I bought my 27" IMAC in 2012. It looks and runs like new. I added additional storage and plug in two external HD for use for general storage and Time machine. To those people who doubt Apple products you are delusional. To get best part of 10 years out a desktop and still purring along nicely I call that a quality product.
You can easily get 10+ years out of a half-decent PC as well... and you'll pay 10% of the price up-front. Apple's hardware is good quality, sure -- but so is standard PC hardware. My machine from 10 years ago is still running fine.
I want to learn to say "However" like Colin does.
Great video! I used to work at an AASP, and this is pretty much exactly how I was taught to do this. The only thing I want to say is that I heavily discourage using generic VHB when replacing the display. The iMac adhesive (including the iFixIt stuff, which looks identical to what Apple gave us) is designed to split in the middle when you use a plastic cutting tool, whereas normal VHB is not. You can still split it with a box cutter, etc. but you'll greatly increase the risk of damaging internal components.
Holding down the power button while it's unplugged is how you reset the PMU, and resetting the PMU is achieved by completely discharging the PSU. SOOOOOO it stands to reason that the advice is sound.
+1, do this.
The caps in those PSUs are pretty fat, you would absolutely not want to get zapped by them. And they absolutely hold charge for quite a while.
Had this done to my 2012 i-Mac adding 16 gigs of Ram, as well as a New 1 Tb SSD. It served me well and is now with my daughter still working as her daily driver. It cost me just under $200.00 to add the SSD and Ram and so far my daughter says it's running well for its age.
Adding the Ram also boosted the speed on the i-Mac too!
I have a late 2009 21.5" that is still my daily driver. Upgraded to an SSD a year ago and it still works fine for everything I do. It's hard to believe that a computer that now 12 years old is still my main machine. Granted Apple stopped support for it a few years ago, but I think it's safe to say that I have definitely gotten my money's worth from this machine. Great video Colin!
I have a 2009 24” that is still my daily driver also but it still has a mechanical hard drive inside and it’s getting way too slow; I was thinking about swapping it with a SSD but i don’t know if it is worth the trouble…
@ I swapped my HDD with and SSD years ago on a 2007 24", use it everyday it works great and fast.
@@donduncan3052 thank you for your input. If you don't mind me asking, how much memory do you have and which ssd did you install?
Thanks
@ 6GB of Ram and the SSD is a Samsung 850 EVO
As a 2017 21.5" 4K iMac user myself, I remember vividly when High Sierra took 1:30 and Bootcamp 3min to boot straight outta the box! I did the SSD swap myself and I can confirm no thermal sensor was needed. Only the HDD in the fusion drive model requires it and mine's the stock 1TB. I need to warn you that the new adhesive strips aren't as sticky as the original, as mine started to peel off 2 years after the upgrade. I did order new ones, but I'm thinking of also performing a ram upgrade while I'm at it, as it's such a pain to pop open the screen again.
Nerd debate time!
Holding the power button to discharge caps is mostly effective from my experience. Especially on higher quality units with large filtering caps it's important to do.
Still, don't want to test it by putting my finger on it though.
high quality power supplies should have a discharge resistor on those big capacitors, so they will be discharged after couple seconds/minutes. But as you said, holding power button is also a thing i recommend.
I do it while working on macs and PCs, and haven't got 'bitten' since I started doing that before stabbing power supplies (as one does) during upgrades/repairs.
have you put a volt meter to it before you did to see if it recorded anything ?
@@jockeyjeon9532 it’s in case of you doing it accidentally :)
This week upgraded the SSD of my 2011 MacBook Air for an new Aura pro 250gb SSD, and the result it’s simply amazing, it’s faster than when it was brand new back 10 years a go. I can’t be happier for that. All macs are so well made than can last for decades specially new ones, and this kind of simple and inexpensive upgrades can give a new life to an excellent machine
I had a similar problem with my 2012 Mac Mini, the hard drive did the same thing like the iMac. Sometimes it worked just fine while other times it would just freeze on startup. Every time the hard drive did that, I restored it with my Time Machine backup until I finally got a 2 TB SSD. Combined with the upgraded 16 GB of RAM I installed, it feels like a completely different machine! Definitely worth it to upgrade these older machines!
I just installed an SSD in my 2012 Mac Mini a week ago. :-) You speak the truth, sir!
It basically turns it into a new system, nice to hear it’s working well!
I'm still using this model myself to this very day. I did a RAM and the SSD upgrade years ago now! Still a solid system.
Completely usable system for a large portion of users out there, myself included. All signs point to Monterrey working just as well as Big Sur does.. so there's more life to squeeze out of this hardware yet!
Ppl are too quick to get rid of perfectly usable machines!
My late 2013 27" 3.2 GHz i5 running 10.14.6 with a 1TB SSD and 24 GB of RAM runs great. I still earn my living on it as a designer, photographer, AE, and Motion designer.
I ran into a similar issue with my 2012 27in iMac. It was not the drive. I’m glad you were able to get yours running. Thanks for another great vid!
I was gifted a 2011 27" i5 imac once. It had a dead hard drive, so i swapped in a new 2TB one. Installed that HDD fan control software and it worked just fine.
Later downgraded to a 2011 Mini, since I only have space for one screen, shared between my PC (fun and games) and my Mac (fun and productivity, still running Aperture in 2021!)
You can run MacOS on your PC with by installing a linux virtual machine. Mutahar from Some Ordinary Gamers did it.
@@jockeyjeon9532 or just hackintosh it. You can still run windows along side Mac OS.
@@drbass9677 Running MacOS through virtual machine IS hackintosh.
Thank you for your video! I watched it in parallel with the ifixit guide and now my imac became very snappy. I also recommend to remove the fan since it is on only 3 screws, and cleaning the dust that can build up on the radiator.
Great guide, just done it to mine and the change is amazing. Now a useable computer again.
This literally just happened to me last week and I'm reliving the horror of the onset of the problem, and so so so happy you have such a clear and well-explained resolution to this problem. Time to get cracking! Thanks!
Screen attaching TIP! Peel off long strip of blue painter's tape. Position the bottom of screen on lip, line up edges, Apply strip along bottom between screen and metal bottom, run the length of the screen. This will keep screen in place as you tilt and jiggle to get it in exact placement. Remember to always peel off bottom strips FIRST before you attach 2 cables! ALSO be sure you are lined up perfectly before removing bottom strips!!
on the 27" (at least 2013 & 2017 I have worked on) the last adhesive strip on the bottom of the screen has a pull tab on the outsides that you can pull off the adhesive strip rather than cutting that last one. Be glad this didn't have the SSD on the backside of the board, that was a complete pain to get to.
Think that only applies to the 27" models, as the 2017 21.5" didn't have the pull tab
Just gotta manually enable trim and you're golden
The best way to install a new drive is to lay the iMac on its back, unscrew the speaker enclosure and move ir aside and remove the tape from the nearby fan and move it away. You can remove the drive tray and it’s a hell of a lot easier. Laying the Mac down also solves your drop problem because the screen won’t fall foreword and smash on the floor. Also you’re right, don’t buy third party tape. I had a friend who used 3m high bond tape which unbeknownst to him had hardened over a couple of years. When he went to do another upgrade he couldn’t cut the tape and the screen broke in half. I’ve done three of these, a 21.5 and 2 27s. They all work fine.
Why wouldn´t Apple just use the standard way to read the current drive temperature?
I mean almost all sata drives support reporting it´s temperature as a part of S.M.A.R.T which can even be read over USB nowadays (and ofc PATA and SATA)
No need for external sensors or custom firmware on the drive.
It´s all there already...
Just another Apple thing?
Apple just being "special" as ever
I upgraded one of these as well - it's amazing how usable these iMacs become when they're not hindered by the absolute trash-tier drives Apple put in them from the factory. It boggles the mind why Apple continued to do it for so long, but it also makes used examples of these excellent values for light-use machines with a little upgrade work.
Because during this time period SSDs were PRETTY PREMIUM then again.... macs are Premium hardware so paying 500USD for 512GB is fine
@@edwardtan1354 7200 drives were normal for many years before this model was released. And hybrid drives were fairly normal as well.
@@edwardtan1354 at the time, and for a few years after that, iMacs were the only Mac that sill shipped with HDDs. If you wanted a stock SSD you had to buy a MBP. It boggles the mind
@@wyterabitt2149 7200 2.5” drives normal for many years?
@@alvareo92 My mid range dell's all had them from 2011 onwards. And the hp I got for my gf in 2013 did. I only saw slower on low end, or the basic bad value spec companies try and sell those who don't research.
JUST did this exact upgrade to my unit and Im loving it! Only tricky part was making sure the SSD was set to GUID so that I could install Catalina :)
Just worked on a client's late 2013 27" MBP. It'd hard lock and fail D recovery as well as failed upgrading and hard locking from Mojave to Catalina, twice. Rolled it back and it's working again but incredibly, sluggishly, slow. >5 min boot times. Ran some diagnostics and it has massive sector failures on the HDD, sadly. Client is not choosing to upgrade to SSD or risk the cutting-it-open HDD swap, oh well. Great video sir!
Also I wanted to add I would love see you tinker with Linux on a MAC, and document all the issues you have, as Linux can help extend the life of these machines even further.
Seconded! Only reason I’d buy a Mac or MacBook at all is to run Linux on it, personally. That, and compiling Mac versions of my software if I decided to, I guess. I used to _really_ want a MacBook Air to run Linux on. Amazingly portable, decently durable, and with Linux on, perfect for writing code wherever I needed to.
Never got around to getting one since I could never find a used one at a sane price, what with comparably priced alternatives being typically more powerful. Just wasn’t viable for me at the time.
@@archgirl What about a ThinkPad with Linux? Mac and Linux doesn't sound like a good financial decision, as Macs were justified for its orignal OS. Then again, not anymore, as people began to install MacOS on PCs through Linux virtual machines.
@@jockeyjeon9532 I personally think Mac’s have never been justified at their price point, regardless of the OS you run on them. ThinkPad is a solid option, if you get the right one, but I don’t trust Lenovo worth a damn, so they’re not getting a penny from me. They’ve been known to install phishing software as part of the bloatware bundled with their systems. Not that it affects me, since I’d be wiping the drive and installing Linux anyway, but it’s the principle. I’d have to go secondhand, which wouldn’t be a problem if I was still in the market for a laptop, but I’m not. Don’t need one anymore. Thanks, though.
Linux on a Mac is great - but you need to know *first* if you have a 32-bit EFI or a later 64-bit EFI bootloader (despite both being real 64-bit Mac OS X operating systems once they load).
Not so many desirable, modern Linux distros still work with 32-bit EFI. For example, Linux Mint stops at version 19.3 (LTS to 2023, I think), for 32-bit EFI, sadly.
64-bit EFI and, theoretically, you’re good to go for years.
@@stevearkwright It’s not too difficult to implement a workaround for 32-bit EFI. I remember having to look into it for an obscure netbook owned by a friend a while back. Add a bootia32 efi file to the EFI/BOOT directory of the installation medium, and it’ll boot on machines using a 32-bit EFI implementation just fine for installation. Custom grub2 config can be used for implementing the mode switch to 64-bit after the bootloader, instructions and templates for which can be found online.
It’s getting harder and harder to find distros which still carry a 32-bit version, yes, but booting a 64-bit distro with a 32-bit bootloader is still doable. It’s not so heavily documented given that there aren’t all that many machines out there with 64-bit CPUs using 32-bit EFI, but there are discussions about it and solutions for it.
Secondary to all of this is that I don’t believe any Mac produced after mid 2010 actually uses a 32-bit EFI anymore anyways. They switched over to a 64-bit EFI long ago. Before this, they were restricting 64-bit capable Macs to 32-bit mode because of kernel extension compatibility issues at the time. This is no longer a concern, and all modern Macs boot and run in 64-bit mode now, and appear to have done so for roughly a decade.
I did this last year on my late 2013 27 iMac and it feels faster than the day i got it. 100% recommended if you have one of these with an HDD
Dude i opened one of this about two months ago. At reassembly replaced the entire double sided tape on it...And the screen felt about a week later. BY MIRACLE it doesn't crash, and since that i put simple translucent tape from the outside. Better to have to stand the bad look, than trust in some unknown tape manufacturer...
Dude, thank you so much for this video! 9:40 helped me SO MUCH! I was stuck trying to figure out how all these people were taking off that one cord with the metal bits, none of the people I saw did a close up, couldn’t see a single thing. I have a 2019 iMac, but the cord came out all the same. Thanks!!! :D
Thanks for this video, I was able to upgrade my iMac (same one as yours in the video) to an SSD. Super helpful and clear tutorial, thanks for the tips! I did struggle with holding the screen up while trying to re-plug in the two ribbon cables, and the screen fell out of place causing a tiny, couple centimers only, shatter on the bottom. Thankfully it's only in the bevel area, so it doesn't affect performance or visuals at all. afterwards, I realized I could lay the iMac on it's back to plug in the cables (shown in iFixit instruction), and that was a lot easier. I'm glad to have an iMac running at a decent speed again, thanks again for the help!
Super helpful! I need to do a screen replacement for my 2014 iMac and this gives me more confidence to do it. I didn't know about the little pizza cutter tool! Great suggestion :D
Your instruction for slicing open the display is wrong. The bottom edge adhesive has two pull tabs on the left and right edge. Pull the tabs to remove the bottom strips. You don’t have to try and slice the bottom edge. It is easy to slice open the display. The fused display to the glass prevents any dust getting between the glass and display like the older models.
This was one for my favorite upgrades that I did to my late 2013 iMac.
We had one of those that had a stick of RAM that'd died! Not seen many dead sticks but we confirmed with testing.
Ended up swapping out both sticks for 2 x 8GB, and replacing the NVMe and HDD with an SSD. Installed Windows 10. Apart from seeming to do nothing on boot for 30 seconds before suddenly kicking into gear and booting Windows in seconds... Great machine.
TWO TIPS: Tip #1: When applying the strips, Before you apply, clean the surface of iMac and edge of screen with alcohol swap lightly, gets rid of the crud the old adhesive leaves behind. Tip #2, Use the holes!!! The strips have holes! Take end of black stick, guide thru strip hole, then line up with corresponding hole on side or tip you are adhering to. Makes lining up the strips much easier then eyeballing it! Peel off one side with strip, not both at same time. Makes applying so much easier. And remember, to press down fully once applied!!
Literally working on one of these right now in the repair shop I work at lol Original HDD got its partitions and data all messed up so its going through a long data recovery process. But looks like the data the customer wanted most will be recoverable! Unfortunately, just replacing the drive with another HDD since he's on a budget.
Just a note, make sure you have the firmware password before making hardware changes (if it is set). My dad bought a used iMac few years ago with slow physical hdd. I knew the screen was a pain to get off, but putting in a ssd wouldn't be that hard. What I didn't know was the previous owner had added a firmware password to the machine, which locked the system due to the change. Putting the original drive back in didn't help either, and the prior owner had no idea what the password was... Only certified shop are allowed to fix this (think they just call Apple and get some codes...), which cost us around a 100 dollars.
So beware ...
I have a 27" 2013 iMac. I bought in 2019 used from a design company. It was stored for 5 years. Then came the owner's daughter and decided to sell it. It was expensive for me but a good value because it was almost the high specs model. I don't use it for design or media work, just a normal house computer and some school work.
At the beginning I thought it was expensive but I felt in love with the all-in-one package, the audio, the 2k quality image and easy work iOS. But like yours he had a 1TB HDD that was dying and it did.
Then I search for a repair shop near and they change the HDD for a 1TB SSD and the diference was amazing.
I'm using that old computer with 8 years even today, I'm writing this with that same computer and I love it.
Apple don't always get it right but in this case they nail it. If you want a good computer to do simple work, listen music and watch some movie the 27" is amazing. Recommend.
It’ s very easy to break the glass from pressure unless you use a heat gun to soften the adhesive first.
Fussion drives do not show up as 2 drives. The SSD spaced used to cache is hidden from the user. WD did that with a single black laptopdrive.
some of those large caps can hold a charge for months after being unplugged. just don't touch the insides of PSUs
I left the bottom adhesive in place like a hinge. Just didn’t install the bottom replacement tape when I reassembled.
I recently bought a 2014 Mac Mini with an i5. It would take about 7 minutes to boot, it had the same HGST drive in it. But I put an SSD in it and holy cow, it's usable again
Exactly the same problem with my 2015 - IMac 21,5 inch here.. ordering parts now! Thank you!
Of all the ssd swap imac videos I watched, your is the most informative, clear and generous. Really appreciate the close ups adn explanations. Amazing tutorial!! Thank you
I have the same model! Love this machine still running strong
Excellent video. I've seen other videos on this subject that don't elaborate on this part of the SSD/HDD upgrade.
This just re-enforces what I found while working for AppleCare in the UK. I saw countless 2013 iMacs with the 1TB hard drive just become slow as molasses, and often failed. It is most certainly the hard drive. No idea why, maybe all the 1TB drives ever given to these models are just trash... I know this is not just me, there has to be a deep seated issue there
I had one from HP I'm guessing at a certain point there was really trashy components the circulated thing is that was a seagate, this one I think is a toshiba or hitachi made
If you have the 27-inch version regardless of the drive options, or if you have the 21.5 with Fusion Drive, you can upgrade the SSD as well using a regular M.2 2280 NVMe drive and a passive adapter. You will need to put Catalina on it first though as that OS package comes with a firmware update that adds NVMe support to a lot of old Macs. You can even create Fusion Drive setups with NVMe SSD as the fast device, and SATA SSD as the slow device.
i would love to be sure that it is really useful to do this, because I want to upgrade my 2013 iMac: to access the SSD, you have to unmount the whole iMac and motherboard. But I read the PCIe is only PCIe2.0 x 2 , so not much better rates than SATAIII SSD... what do you think ? Thank you
@@michelusac1798 PCIe 2.0 x2 is still 1GB/s theoretical over 600MB/s theoretical for SATA 6Gb/s. You can still use a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD in there and it would just negotiate down.
It sure got me a lot of life out of my 2010 Mac Mini. With max ram and an SSD it was running Catalina by the time I retired it to be the bedroom movie player.
Done it on my mid 2010 27" i7 imac and omg, what a difference, along with the ram upgrade to 32gb ram (although apple says mid2010 27" i7 will only support 16gb, they do support 32gb with no problem) It is like a brand new mac now!
I found a Mac Pro last week at a school, but I don’t know if it works since it uses a matte Cinema Display monitor, and it’s missing that stupid power adapter! But at least the Mac Pro chassis can be easily opened and modded.
I just did this to my 2017 the other day made the machine actually usable again
This was one of the best how to, I’ve seen very impressed with the detail
I have a 2014 model and was going to put a Sata SSD and more ram in. When I took the logic board out to get to the ram (no ram door on 21.5" models) even though it didn't have a Fusion drive the NVME slot pads on the PCB was populated, so I put in a 512Gb NVME along with a 1Tb Sata SSD :)
Im using this exact model to write this comment! I did the same upgrade. But I added an OEM apple blade ssd and used the existing hdd for a bootcamp installation :)
I did this for both my 2012 MacBook Pro and a friend's 2011 iMac and both are like new machines now. I wish the trend of using glues and such never started.
Edit: Also, on the iMac I forgot to unplug it at first and touched a solder joint while working. Got a good little zap. Lesson learned, lol.
Double also, the custom firmware is fascinating. That explains the SMC fan problem I had afterwards. I'm in line to get another 2011 iMac from a friend so it's good to know about those adapters. I'm glad I watched this video. Good job here Colin.
Thanks, because I wondered if the glass could be held with shipping tape to test. No other tutorial mentioned this. I'm still going to wait for my adhesive strip shipment to arrive, as it includes the cutter wheels.
My mom is still using a 2009 iMac running El Capitan with 8GB RAM and. 128GB SSD.
It lacks some features for her iPhone and iPad so I hope to find a more recent model from about 5 years ago and buy it to update it.
In contrast, the previous Windows PCs fell over every couple of years and needed major funds to upgrade them.
I would buy one of this macs and one from the previous revision of the design just for the aestetics.
I’ve always wondered how to replace the ssd on my iMac. Awesome video!
Grazie per il video e il tempo che hai dedicato!!! Io ne sto facendo uno ad un amico esattamente come il tuo, quindi mi è molto utile il tuo video. Il modello vecchio che hai fatto vedere nel video c'è l'ho io ed è esattamente come quello da te mostrato, aveva il disco da 3,5 e ho messo un SSD e Mac OS El capitan 👍🏻
Grazie ancora!
I had to replace the 3gig fusion drive in my late 2013 iMac, I swapped it out for a 1tb SSD...although it all worked out well, it was pretty much surgery!
Also worth noting that Big Sur runs great on this hardware via one of the popular patchers. Typing this comment on a late-2013 iMac running Patched Sur!
Apple Legal would like to know your location.
@@kirishima638 ha! Non-MacOS updates still come through via Software Update. Needless to say, they know already.
WOW! Such a clean iMac inside!!!! That is very unusual! Dust is always caked in there!
This one was pretty clean looking, but you should use some compressed air to clean the dust out of the fan while it's open.
I've watched you install numerous SSD's into various Macs, but I've never seen you enable Trimforce. Enabling Trimforce is a critical step when replacing a mechanical drive with a SSD.
I had the same problem in my Early 2008 iMac and also swapped out the failed HDD for an SSD. The speed difference from HDD to SSD is like night and day! I'm not even getting the full speed out of it as the 2008 iMac is limited to SATA II, so I'm currently getting 200/260 write/read according to BMDST. Performance has likely dipped though as the SSD is five years old and is used every day. But I'll take it any day over a spinning disk.
If the old hard drive is still running halfway: plug it into a USB-Sata adapter and boot from it. Install from there. Or create a USB stick with MacOS install beforehand.
I had a protary M.2 SSD in the Macbook. I first installed the system on an external hard drive and recovered data. Then I swapped the internal M.2 SSD with adapter. Started via the external HDD and reinstalled everything with data recover again.
An SSD on an older machine, even if it's bottlenecked to the point you aren't going to see all that much of a speed increase, is going to be a drastic improvement on reliability and longevity.
I have a SFF Lenovo that's... actually about as old as that mac, and between the SSD and the (budget) graphics card? does what I want pretty solidly well (hiccups and hangups of running windows games in linux, and chrome's tendency to OMNOMNOM memory to one side....) I dunno if I'm getting 'full' performance out of the SSDI got, but it loads faster, is quieter, and probably has far less heat going on.
Hopefully you turned on Trimforce. The Trim commands can save the SSD long term.
I installed a 2TB SSD in my 2010 iMac and 12GB of RAM. It was my main computer until recently when the screen started to show vertical lines and the whole thing got really hot. Replacing the thermal paste didn’t fix the issue and since some softwares started dropping High Sierra support I ended up dropping it as my main device… but it still works and that is frustrating !
I've had the same problem with both corrupted screen and unsupported software. I finally tried to install a patched version of Mojave but it didnt support the graphics card and would not boot. However there was some other patch to integrate the graphics driver to the mac os installation package and it installed correctly!! Supprisingly now it works without graphics problems and glitches on this new version with the new driver. The problem is that I dont really remember the website that had all those tools and patches anymore :(
@@VladoT yes i saw some of the tutorials about this but apprently there is no way to have GPU accelerated graphics when you have a Radeon like me so it's unusable even if you manage to install everything :-/
I’m still running a mid-2012 MacBook Pro, it’s a 2.7 GHz Core I7 with 16 GB of ram and a 1 TB SSD, and still runs great with the latest OSX 10X. Older Macs, at least to me, are great machines as they’re upgradeable, can run Linux, Windows, and MacOS natively or in virtual machines. I work across platforms and with some legacy softwares that still require DVD drives for media/installs and repairs which is why I run the most recent MacBook Pro equip with an optical drive. While the SSD is capped to Sata-3 speeds its fast enough for most things; my next machine will probably be a 2016 or so where you could still upgrade the NVMe SSDs and Ram; I just refuse to get a computer where the ram and/or SSD is soldered in. Modern Macs may be faster but they are much less professional; I’ve been a Mac user since the 1980s when Apple still believed in user repairability, sadly they’ve forgotten their roots.
I think Apple, at some point, changed the storage I/O optimization to skew heavily toward SSDs. Once you get to Mavericks or so, things just get slower and slower and slower on rust media. I had El Cap on a 2009 Mac Pro with a 1TB HDD - bafflingly sluggish, but usable. I replaced that with an SSD running High Sierra. World of difference.
The original laptop HDD in a 2012 Mac Mini, when running Mojave, was slow to the point of wondering if there was something physically wrong with the computer. It would take upwards of a minute to launch the App Store. 😫 Now, of course, it runs like a top.
Older Mac OS releases don't have that same issue, but they come from a time when 10-20ms access time was a given. iMac G3 running OS 9? Snappy! iMac G4 running OS X 10.3? No problem! Rule of thumb: If you see skeuomorphic design elements, you're OK with a spinning HDD. If it's a flat aesthetic, you better have solid state storage.
Yeah I've noticed this too on my 2009 Macbook. Snow leo, mavericks run fine. Anything past that gets noticably slower every release. Windows is the same way, you really need an SSD for windows 10, it just thrashes a regular hard drive.
Yeah I remember reading a lot about this kinda thing back when I had my HDD-equipped 2013 MBP running whatever what was current in 2016. Suffice to say I did not want to upgrade the OS again, right until the death of the machine
The gluing the screen to the body bugs me so much that I refuse to come near an iMac. Like seriously the magnets were the best possible solution. But Tim Cook really hates if people want to fix or upgrade their own machines
Even my super cheap HP laptop uses screws and decent clips, I've opened it twice now for adding 16 gigs ram and a 1tb M.2 drive and it's been a charm to work in.
It's HP 17-ca0006ca laptop with a AMD Ryzen 2300u with Vega 6 graphics, it's no monster but I've got it running Garuda linux and it's heaps of fun, even running games on Steam Via Proton is terrific
Man, a 5400 rippum spinning rust affair. We used to compute like animals.
Some painters tape over the power supply solder points can provide a little more margin for clumsy hands.
Thank you. I have a 2016 iMac to upgrade soon; its i3 processor as well, perhaps. It would have been nice to see the difference in boot times.
The 2012 and up iMacs discharge the power supply after 5 minutes, which was a big upgrade on the 60 minutes of the previous models
Perfect timing. Our 2013 is so so slow.
I'm wondering if this is what I should do with my daughters early 2013 iMac, as it's working fine, but slow as molasses compared to my 2013 MacBook laptop, where I added a 1 TB SSD to it some years ago. So, I'll assume the slowness is the rotational drive, and although she say's she'll deal with the slowness, this upgrade doesn't seem to be too extensive! I would also like to add another 8 GB of Ram, but I see that is far more extensive in doing that, and the iMac will be mainly used for Word Processing tasks now. Now to try to find out the cost of the adhesive strips, tools needed, and a decent sized SSD!
Great job Colin! Still a lovely machine.
New write speed... 420. Good work there Colin.
I can confirm that the late 2009 model of the iMac 27" has a temperature sensor that plugs directly into the hard drive so it goes back earlier than 2010
I wonder, is it actually a modification apple forced drive makers to do because they're dicks and wanted to limit user repairs, or just the regular SMART system present in all drives for 20+ years doing what it designed for. I've diagnostic tools that could get lots of info from the debug/diag ports on older sata drives, including temperatures.
I am on windows 10 Tower I built in 2016 paired via a infra red remote control HDMI switch with a 2012 Mac Mini ( Catalina ) that i upgraded Ram and SSD . Good thing was the old Altec Lansing 7.1 speaker had a desk input i could pair sound with . The samsung curved monitor does basic sound thru the hdmi but now the whole setup has the best of all worlds at a flick of a remote switch . I can toggle both . I do need 2 mouses but thats simples . The old mac mini HDD is still plugged in with a SATA / USB cord
Just FYI, a fusion drive doesn't appear in the NVMe settings (my 27" iMac 5k 2014 has a 1Tb Fusion drive which I'm watching this on) - both elements of the disk (the 128Gb SSD and the 1Tb HDD) appear in the SATA under 2 different controllers. The SSD is on Apple's own SATA controller and the HDD uses the motherboard's Intel Chipset SATA controller.
Did this to my Mid 2010 iMac - which I am STILL using even as I type right now. SSD on a failing HDD was great, the fan's jacked up RPM became the issue also. I was using 3rd party Fan Control software but eventually the cable with sensor (13:54) was the true solution. The big problem for me I guess is very little room to work with inside with larger hands. All very doable in those older iMacs, especially when the screen is connected by very strong magnets. But checking out to see how to upgrade my aunts old 2013 21" iMac (Boot up is SLOW and after he light use with internet, youtube videos and online games with heavy java...her iMac just becomes SUPER slow!) I even totally wiped that out and restored to Mavericks..which felt great again, but it has obviously become obsolete - the security updates, She uses Chrome and THAT needs newer OS to update the browser security now. She doesnt need a super computer...but something faster than what she's using now is necessary. (Her iMac is reminding me my ancient 2006 Windows Laptop running Windows 8, it's painful!)
I'll get around to it in the next few weeks, I guess I need that iFixIt kit now....but ugh.
Knowing me, by the time I got back to the testing phase, I'd use that white electrical tape around the whole thing and just leave it that way.....
Trying to install the new OS version on my late 2013 iMac via OpenCore Legacy Patcher. If that doesn't get me the wanted effect, I'll have to try this one. it's also the late 2013, 21.5 model so it should be the same as in the video. Thanks a lot.
I was able to get past the fan speed problem on a 2011? model by using a 4 wire sata power extension, I guess it combined the pins in the right way that the machine didn't want to ramp up the fans. Granted I wouldn't do this for a 3.5" drive but an SSD shouldn't get too hot even with the fan speed not accounting for its temps.
How is the fanspeed? I remember replacing an HDD with an SSD on a slightly older machine and the Fan went full speed. There was some proprietary sensor with the HDD and you had to install a Tool to regulate it back down to sanity.
Watch the video you’re commenting on and you’ll know
One thing I wouldn't do is use UHB tape with this thing. They put tractor trailers together with this stuff. It most certainly would pull off even if you cut it open. It's not an adhesive in any traditional sense. It's a chemical bonding agent.
for my imac late 2013, i just use an external ssd as my boot drive, and the internal for storing stuff.