Easily add an SSD to ANY iMac 2012-2019 model
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- With it's all in one design, iMacs are a pain to upgrade, you can't even upgrade the ram easily on the 21.5" model and until the new 2020 models, most of them shipped with slow spinning hard drives that only get slower over time. In this How to video I show you how I super easily added an SSD to my Family Computer 2012 iMac which had a startup time of 3 minutes!
Products shown:
Kingston 240GB SSD: www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-SA4...
UGREEN USB C Hard Drive Enclosure: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...
(note that comes with a USB C to USB C cable and in this video I used a USB C to USB A cable, you can find similar enclosures including from UGREEN that comes with that cable so you don't need to purchase it separately)
Subscribe to my UA-cam channel for more Tech content: / @imleeloi
Follow me on twitter: / leeloichieng
Chapter times:
Introduction 00:00
HDD Startup times 00:38
Solution 01:11
Step 1: Format the SSD 02:45
Step 2: Internet Recovery 03:35
Step 3: Setup macOS 05:25
SSD Startup times and Results 05:40
Conclusion 07:05
Gear used:
Sony A7sII
Tamron 24-70 F2.8 Lens
Viltrox VX-18M Tripod
THIS VIDEO REVIEW IS INDEPENDENT AND DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY SPONSORSHIP OR PRODUCT PLACEMENT. - Наука та технологія
Nailed it, homie. Couple years after you post this, and it's still relevant. Thanks!
Yay! Delighted to hear.
Thank you so very, very much. My husband would have a fit every time he tried to work on our iMac...to pay a bill or check something, etc. Ugh. It was so very frustrating. You literally saved us so much time, money, and headaches! Installed the new SSD external drive and followed your directions. What a changed world it is to use that machine now! Oh, my. You are such a Godsend. Thanks, again! Cheers from across the pond! Slainte!
Yay! So happy this helped and made your computing experience much easier!
Thank you so much! I bought a 2019 Mac right before they updated them. It’s been super slow and super frustrating. I was getting ready to either buy a mini Mac or replace the hard drive with a ssd internally. This was so much easier. You’re the best!
Congratulations Becca! I'm so glad this helped you. Main thing is your iMac is fast now. :)
Great idea if you don't want to open the computer, which is very tricky and requires patience and a steady hand. You can save some time by going into recovery mode (Option R), then perform a "restore" to the USB drive. This will "clone" the old HD to the new one, saving you the time of backing up, and then re-loading a fresh copy of the OS (which is actually unnecessary). Then you can use the option key to set the default boot device to the newly cloned external HD. I've just been through this, and it works. I went one step further: I removed the screen and properly installed the newly cloned SSD drive inside the enclosure. A word to the wise if you attempt this: don't use a metal knife to cut the glue on the monitor, I have wrecked two monitors in my experimentation. Use a plastic bladed "pizza cutter" to cut the glue strips. You can buy this tool on Amazon, and it comes with the tape to glue the monitor back on. Cheers!
I believe the keyboard sequence is COMMAND R for recovery.
@@petelc559 I stand corrected!
@@timallix4407 I tried both and the working one is COMMAND+R
DEAR LORD, i did not think this would be so hard to find. Thank you so much for this video. Exactly what i was looking for, simple and to the point. YAY! NEW SSD FOR MY MAC MINI 2014!!! :-)
Glad I could help!
Thanks for this video. In agreement with everyone else, my 2017 iMac 5k feels like a brand new machine now after adding a 1Tb SSD.
Great to hear! Glad this worked for you and your getting those performance boosts.
I have the same iMac and it’s super slow. Once you moved the os to the external ssd was the data on the fusion drone still intact? Do the apps also get transferred or they remain on the Fusion Drive? Thanks
THANK YOU for the fantastic tutorial and explanation to understand why so many iMacs have a problem with speed. I’ve been suffering with my annoyingly slow iMac desktop for the 3 years-ever since I bought it-and even tried to get professional help. Lately it’s become so slow, with the constant spinning wheel, I couldn’t stand it anymore and turned to UA-cam for help. What a great solution-thanks again for your video. 💯
K! I'm so happy this has helped you!
This was just what I was looking for. Solved my problem and saved me a £200 repair. You sir are a legend.
Glad it helped you Gareth! :)
see Mint Above
Wow what a difference!!!!! Thank you so much I had a spare SSD and now my 8 year old MAC works again like new.
I'm so glad it worked for you. For best compatibility make sure you format the SSD as Mac OS Extended Journaled and not AFPS
Thanks for the tutorial video.
Very easy, right to the point and well explained.
Cheers.
I'm glad this helped you Isabela! :)
I can’t thank you enough for this. I thought my iMac was dying until I tried this, feels like a brand new computer. THANKS!!!!
Juan! I am so so happy this works for you!
Was going to fork out £250 on ebay for a new imac but only spent £35 after seeing. It's like I have a new computer!
I can go back to making house music without lagging issues.
Massive respects bruv 🙏
Awesome. Saved me a lot of money and the torture my iMac would have undergone to install an internal SSD. And you explained it very nicely buddy 👍🏻❤️
Yeah I’m glad it worked for you! :) Thanks for supporting the channel.
Hi Again. Looks like I celebrated a little too early :P
My iMac (late Dec 2013) is stuck on the globe screen showing 0:01 as the remaining time... Been a couple hours.. Is it okay to force reboot the Mac or will it damage the OS on my hard drive?
Please advise :)
@@simplysarab13 Hi Sarabjit Singh! That means it's having trouble downloading macOS off the internet. If you force reboot you will be ok as this how to guide never touches your old install.
If it's having trouble downloading and you have a spare USB key lying around feel free to download Mac OS Big Sur ISO to the memory stick and install offline. :)
@@ImLeeLoi Thank you. Was able to reboot. Will try it again tomorrow. Thanks again :)
@@simplysarab13 Dos1Dude has a patcher that allows you to install MacOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs but his tool is actually a very good way of putting Mac OS Big Sur on to a USB Thumb Drive so that's something you can try. :)
Oh man, this is huge advice and tutorial from you for us, thousands thanks for it, now my iMac 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i3 is rapidly speeded up using LaCie 1TB mobile SSD. It is a vast difference than before, quite easy to understand what you have done step by step. Again huge thanks, bro 😎👊
Glad to hear it helped!
Great tutorial! Very well explained, patient and detailed! Thanks!
Nice Thanks a lot, This is going to save me like $600 on my two 2013 imacs!
Incredible savings! I’m glad you found this useful! 💸💸💸
Hello there! Thank you for this great video! I have one question, in terms of speed/performance is there a difference between using an external portable SSD vs opening the computer and installing an internal SSD? I would like to avoid the latter solution for a number of reasons. Moreover, my computer (late 2015 imac 27 retina) does not support PCI type internal SSD (only SATA-at least so I have been told) so my options are either an external USB 3.0 SSD or an internal SATA connection SSD. Thank you in advance!
I think there would be minor speed increases by using it internally but you can read the other comments down below a lot of people are very happy with their external SSD. Why go through all that effort!
@@ImLeeLoi thank you for your reply! actually I was planning to give it to a third party certified repair shop, they charge 270 euros in total for the work and SSD. I would never attempt to do something like that on my own! My biggest worry is of psychological nature I would say, running the whole computer from a tiny little stick hanging outside the computer feels a bit bizarre lol. However I may consider this option and if I am not happy I might as well keep the external SSD and go for the upgrade later on. Thanks again for your time!
@@garyfalosparisis9039 as I said: VELCRO!!
This is a great solution for an older iMac I have at the office that I'm not willing to crack open and go through the internal SSD upgrade. Thank you!
Glad it helped ! :)
Your the best!!!! I was going to open heart surgery on my iMac 2012 to upgrade the ram. You save my life!!!
This doesn't help ram but you are very welcome!
Thanks for this video. I bought a renewed Best Buy 2019 21.5 4K . 1TB HDD. It was a good price. I thought I was going to have to open the whole computer, remove the screen panel, and all until I saw this alternative of installing an external ssd instead. . Thanks for sharing. You saved me the hassle 👍
Glad this worked for you Freddy, enjoy the new iMac!
Thank you so much for this video. My late 2015 was extremely slow for few years now. We completely wiped it out and the speed only improved by a little. I followed all the steps in this video, didn’t transfer anything since I still have access to the original HD, I copied and pasted whatever files I needed to my external ssd.
I am using San Disk Extreme Portable SSD 1tb.
That's exactly what I recommend. Copy stuff over as needed and keep your new fast drive fresh. :)
Thank you! I used a sandisk extreme on a late 2015 Imac and runs much faster than when i got it brand new! Is like having a new computer! Thanks so much!
Glad I could help! Glad it brought some life back to your iMac!!
You quite an adept and knowledgable Apple and Tech individual. Great job!
Thank you!
I just found your video and added a Samsung T7 with 2TB of memory on my late 2012 iMac. Absolutely amazing improvement. Thank you!
Glad this helped.
Hi, was this the sdd portablenor you got an the case?
I just used this method to upgrade my late 2015 imac 21.5" with a 1TB fusion drive; I added an external 1TB Samsung T7 SSD, for $99 ; it took me better part of a day -- I restored from a Timce Machine backup -- but also upgraded to Monterey from Big Sur. Took some tweaking but now it runs SO fast... take a couple of minutes to boot up (it is new software on an old machine) but once it's booted it is running incredibly fast. Thank you, Lee Loi-Chang for this, you probably saved me $1000!!! Very simple and easy.
Ed! I am SOO happy to hear this. That is SOO much money right - have a holiday for that!
Excellent video, thanks a lot. I did this a year ago with a SanDisk v1 that was formatted with APFS and it was a great improvement once it loaded the O/S - loading the O/S however took ages (+10 mins!!). I now followed this manual with a SanDisk v2 device and formatted with Mac OS Extended / Journaled as suggested and it really rocks!! Far less than a minute for booting and even a bit faster whilst using the machine.
Delighted to hear it's working much better than APFS. :)
Hey thanks a lot, great video, and very good explanation on how to do things!
Glad this helped you Greg!!
Thank you for this, I was having a problem installing Mac OS to an external hard drive when dowloading it from the App Store, this worked perfectly and saved a lot of headaches.
I'm glad this helped you! :)
Best vid I've seen so far regarding this method. Mainly because I want to do a fresh install and not clone the old HDD like most other vids show but well explained as well.
Hope this helps! :)
wow. great video. 2017 21.5in iMac that I thought was broken bc of how slow it was. I've contacted Apple numerous times to discuss how slow start up was and they finally recommended me to a local Mac repair company to upgrade the RAM and/or SSD. Thankfully I found your video bc I was quoted over $400 USD just to replace the HDD with an SSD. I will definitely try this first to see if it works for me. Thanks!
I can only recommend what I've used. I'm sure new drives came out. 400USD isn't actually that bad depending on how big the SSD is if it's like 1TB or something I'd probably pay that but yeah if it's like 240GB or something definitely go the external route.
SanDisk or SanDisk Pro or Samsung are great bets. :)
@@ImLeeLoi Thank you. Will start with the external. The internal was 1TB but I'll start with the Samsung T7 to save more than half. If down the road I decide to have them do the internal SSD, then I'll format the external and give it to my kids for their PlayStation so it wont go to waste. Thanks again!
@@RMatSLU79 Oh brilliant idea! Yeah the T7 is the new one right? I think the T5 or T7 would be perfect. Glad I can help. :)
Thank you, Lee-Loi! You are a life saver, and a slow AF 2013 iMac saver!
I would say it should run warm, not incredibly hot that it burns to touch. But they should be well built.
Thank you!!! I’m going to be trying this method. I’ve been scrolling for a video for hours and yours was by far the best and most clear. Cheers mate 🙏
Exellent video was thinking of buying a refurbished iMac 2015, I was unsure because of the year it was produced, but getting an external hard drive so somebody like myself who is not the most tech savvy is very easy well done 👏 thanks.
Late replying but I hope it worked out for you.
Thanks a bunch! I followed the instructions and this old IMac feels like completely different computer now.
I am so glad this helped you Miller! Quite the difference right
Thank you! I was able 2 take a computer I hated since purchased in 2017 and turned it into a very usable machine in 2 hours!
Oh fantastic! I love to hear it.
This is amazing, thank you so much!! you have saved me open the imac!
Absolutely! Delighted this helped you! :)
Your video is so interesting to me. I have an iMac 27" that I love. Your step by step video on adding an external SSD as StartUp Disk was very encouraging! Is there any new information you can offer since your August 2020 video. Should the SSD be formatted as APFS versus Extended? Many thanks.
No, please only use Mac OS EXTENDED JOURNALED. APFS is better for SSD's if their inside the iMac - there's something about that doesn't play nice with external USB.
Thanks so much for this I Just scored a 2017 iMac for $150 this video is soooooo helpful.
This little manoeuvre just saved me 750 bux, I can't believe it. It costs 900 to upgrade to an internal SSD. Thanks for this
LOL!!!!! Buy a new computer at that point haha
Hi Lee-Loi, I recently discovered your channel searching for videos about the possible purchase of the old but very reliable Canon 600D camera, as I am finally ready to turn my curiosity about photography into something tangible. I am also considering switching from my 2013 ASUS Windows 8 laptop to a newer model and I'm interested in a Mac because people have been raving for years that it's so much more stable than Windows :-) ..... I've watched a few of your videos and what strikes me is your kind demeanor, your charisma and your knowledge of all the products you display. Just wanted to let you know and of course I immediately hit that Subscribe button. Keep up the great work.
Wow, Harry! Sorry I'm late responding but that is such a sweet comment! Thank you very much. :)
@@ImLeeLoi you're very welcome ☺
Thanks bud , works a treat on my old 2014 Mac mini .
Glad this worked for you and on a Mac Mini too!!!
Great vid fella - neat and very cost-effective solution to add an external SSD 🙂
Very informative Lee.
Thanks for sharing this helpful video.
Very welcome
Thank you for posting this video! Very helpful
Thanks u so much. Did exactly as u suggested and works brilliantly! Cheers!👍🏻
Glad it helped! :)
This video just saved my iMac from a Vertical Suplex. It’s unrecognizably fast now. Thank you so much! ^_^
Glad to hear it! :)
So I went the long PITA (pain in the ...) way of disassembling the whole machine to replace the 1TB HD with a 1TB SSD. While I was in there I upgraded the ram.
This is a much much simpler upgrade and something I will keep in my mental toolkit. Great video.
Glad it worked!
Thank you! A very straight forward and easy to follow along video. Just need to pick up an ssd and I'll try this! One quick question though, I have a 2017 iMac with a fusion drive, will using an external hard drive bypass both the internal fusion ssd and mechanical drive? Not sure if this model complicates the boot process in the end or not...
Nope you should be good to go although provided your Fusion drive is working properly I don't know if you'll see much faster boot times as that should obviously be running off the SSD on the Fusion but for files and apps - absolutely!
Thanks! Worked perfectly on my late 2012
Glad to hear it!
Thanks so much for doing this video really helped me!!
Glad this helped!
this was really helpfull!! I din't want to break my imac attempting to remove the screen
Yep!
Thanks for this video. I noticed that the SSD you used, while inexpensive, had a much lower storage capacity that the original HD. Were you using the SSD only for system operations, and the original HD for regular document, email and/or image file storage, or did the SSD take over those functions as well? Thanks again for a well-thought, well-presented video.
Either or! Many in the comments are keeping their photos and videos on the old drive for infrequent access and most iMacs have 1TB which is a lot. It's the family computer so not much is stored on it in this situation.
Thanks dude, this is a great video.
Glad this helped!
Thank you so much this is a great tutorial
Great video and just finished the installation.
Glad to hear it!
Nice option, thanks for sharing.
Glad this helped you! :)
Hey Lee-Loi, thank God I found this video! Been searching for a solution since last year. I just bought the Sandisk Extreme Pro 1TB and followed your tutorial - my iMac feels like a new M1 Mac computer. lol. Since I totally erased my hard drive prior to the installation of OS in SSD, I'm wondering what's the use of my 1TB HDD? I can see it using disk utility but not in finder. Thank you so much!
It's still there! In finder preferences make sure you tick to show all hard drives on the desktop and in the side bar.
Thank you, this actually worked for me!
So glad this worked out!
Thanks for this well explained video. 👍🏼😎
Will the iMac always know to boot from the external USB drive?
Hi there. Yes it will. OR go to system preferences and press startup disk and select the External USB drive manually if it had not done so automatically.
I was willing to upen up and probably completely destroy it in the process of changing the HDD to SSD. But doing it loke this is so much easier. Thanks a lot man, now my girlfriend is gonna understand the difference between Macs and Pcs when she sees the speed
Hey Andre, definitely don't open it up! I hope this works well for you. Enjoy! :)
Please make a video on How To Use The 21.5 as a dual monitor.
I followed this tutorial year's ago and it was extremely help, Thank You!
I would LOVE to do this, but it's not really possible. If you search on UA-cam Luke Miani, he has a video on doing it with a 5k imac. Not cheap.
Amazing video. Im gonna switch my 2015 iMac to a SSD this weekend.
Late to reply but hope it worked out!
Excellent explanation, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
This was informative thank you
Glad this helped
Really helpful. Thank you
Glad this worked for you Matthew!!
Lee, this is awesome and you have given me the confidence to do this to my ever slower late 2015 iMac with Fusion Drive 1TB. Question: should I upgrade internal drive to latest OS so it is the same as what the new SSD drive will have on it? Have been hesitant because I'm terrifed of the slowness getting worse... thanks!!!
Hey Ed - answered your newest message earlier, i've been slow to reply with work commitments so apologies for not answering before you upgraded but I wouldn't recommend upgrading past what your iMac can handle. If your iMac automatically upgraded to the latest OS, that's great and will extend the software support but I wouldn't be running DosDude1's patcher on your home computer that you use every day!
Hey… I followed all the steps on my late 2015 and it didn’t work. I am running macOS Monterrey. Weirdly I don’t get the option to choose the HD where it will be installed =X
great video...Help me out a lot I have a 2014 iMac 5k retina display 32gb ram with a slow HD now with the SSD much more faster!!!!!
Thanks for the video
I am so happy to hear this! Best of luck with the "new" iMac!!
Great info .. thank u ✅
Just set up a Samsung T7 on my late 2012 iMac and Whoa!! What a difference. Night and day!
Delighted to have helped!
Excellent video Lee-Loi! Really helpful. I just today ordered a new iMac 21.5 to replace my current one (2013) which is becoming glitchy. Although I’m getting the ssd, 256GB is not much storage. What external ssd setup would you recommend? I’ve seen the Cable Matters enclosure with a Samsung 2.5 1TB recommended. Any thoughts?
If you’re getting a new iMac I think get it a proper external SSD then like the one Sandisk shown here or the Samsung T5/T7. They do go on sale so hold out! :)
@@ImLeeLoi Many thanks! 🙏🏻
Thank you! Great video!
Glad you liked it!
Great video. I purchased a Samsung T5 500Gb external SSD. I used carbon copy to clone the HDD. It worked great for about 2 months and then started restarting without warning. I had to go back to the slow internal HDD again. So I’m thinking to just take the plunge and open her up.
Oh no! Have you considered doing a fresh install on the T5 to see if that stops that. I'm not a big fan of cloning mechanical hard drives to SSDs.
Excellent video my friend. Worked great. Question... How do i switch back to my internal HD?
Hold down the option key when computer turns on.
Jonathan Bailey
0 seconds ago
Thank you very much for a very concise and good video. Appreciate your hard work in editing that and I'm pleased you had a good system up and running and also good for the environment.
E-Waste is such a big issue, I'm glad this helped you!
Thanks for the video, the hard drive in our 2012 iMac failed and the repair company tried to charge us $600 to replace it with an SSD!
The price of a weekend holiday!
Wow. Great news!!!!!! Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching!
I did it! I think the computer gods were looking out for me because at a certain point (Install) I felt like I was jumping off of a cliff. I did call Apple Tech Support to verify I was using the SSD as my start drive. Everything is good. Enjoying the speed. If I can do it, anyone can! Thank you so much.
Great video Lee! I am thinking of installing an SSD internally and removing the old hard drive in my late 2012 iMac. After the installation do I need to hold the command, alt, r keys as you did in this video? The original hard drive will not even boot anymore.
IF the old hard drive wont even boot anymore, then it is not necessary!
Great video. Thanks. Sorry for my ignorance, does that mean that if I buy the Sandisk USB SSD, I do not need the USB enclosure?
Yeah. I'm just giving you pricing options so like if your iMac is super old like 2012 here I wouldn't buy it I mean you can if you want but it's an 8 year old machine. In those scanerios I think the Off brand Amazon enclosure and then the Kingston SSD's are great value.
If you have like a 2018-2019 iMac that has a spinning drive and you obviously bought it quite recently then yeah the SanDisk SSD is a great bet or the Samsung T5's as you know they'll last as long as the iMac.
Not to say the Off brand wont last long but Samsung and SanDisk manufacture everything, guaranteed use great parts etc.
great video thanx
Thank god for this. Now I don't have to open up my imac and reseal it =D Thanks
Glad this worked for you! :)
Thank you. Just save my day.
Glad it helped!
Thank you so much for your detailed video. I was successful this process and increased my speed tremendously. The boot drive is awesome. I have only 1 question, it appears I cannot use the rest of the drive for storage? Or is there a way. It is saying I don't have the permissions even though I'm the administrator. Thanks for your advice.
I figured it out how to partition the remaining part of the 1TB drive to get my storage. I am one happy camper with my 2015 Imac now running super fast...Thank you soooooooo much Lee.
Pure brilliance. Who would have thought that you could use an external hard drive. I guess "Easily add an SSD to ANY iMac" is much catchier than "how to plug in a usb external hard drive to a usb port". LMAO!
A win is a win!
Plus using an external hard drive over an external SSD would defeat the point even if it was 7200rpm, SSDs are way better and the performance cannot be compared. It has to be some form of solid state drive or high quality USB-C 3.2 flash drive
Wow Amazing content!!
Glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for supporting the channel
2023. Thank you for this incredible video. Easy to follow instructions
. Peace
Glad this helped you Nelson! :)
Hey, I just finished your install procedure..so far so good ! Everything is working. Can I still use the storage on the internal drive?
yes! :) finder preferences enable show all hard drives
Great video, my mac has slowed down over the years, and will definitely be giving it a go, can you recommend the best SSD for my iMac it is a (27-inch, late 2013) , processor 3.2 GHz quad-core intel core i5. Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, with 4 USB, I'm not sure if it has USB c 3.0 or 3.1.
Iv looked on amazon and there is so many SSD being sold it's a bit bewildering and I would just be guessing.
would really appreciate your advice as I don't have a clue thanks again. ;)
Hi Alan, it depends on how much you want to spend as I said in the video. If you got the Cash get the SanDisk or Samsung T5. They run at USB 3.1 but will slow down to USB 3.0 for your iMac but when you eventually do upgrade the new Computer would take advantage of it.
Because it is an old iMac, if you want to save some cash - consider getting an SSD from Kingston and an enclosure like I demoed. :)
Thanks for the great video, Lee-Loi Cheng! I have a late 2012 iMac and found other videos to add an external SSD (replacement to internal) drive. I wonder if you think the (leftover-inside-the iMac) HD could become useful as an extra TimeMachine backup drive?
Hmmm... It is such an old hard drive it's going to fail sooner or later so I'm going to say no! Your better off being "choosy" which documents are important or not and putting them on Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud Drive.
Thank you, It worked really well :)
Glad this helped you!
@@ImLeeLoi It helped a looot ! You were fantastic here ❤
please advise them to format to apfs thank you for this beautiful video good work
From what I understand please DO NOT use APFS for External SSDs.
Fantastic!!! I've been battling with my late 2015 iMac 27" since Covid hit - I love the machine but it was starting to lag in every way! In fact I couldn't even upgrade to Big Sur due to the disk configuration that's in my Mac. Grabbed the 500 gB SSD from SanDisk & it's as you say - a new Mac that will buy me a couple more years for $70! Thank you!!! Waiting for 27" iMac w/ the M1 - fingers crossed if they go bigger than 24"
Awesome job Roger! We had questions in the comments below about if it worked for Big Sur, thanks for confirming it worked for you too!
@@ImLeeLoi Start up isn't screaming fast, approx 1.1/2 - 2 mins but once I'm up the response time of the machine is excellent. I had Photoshop, Bridge, Premier MacMail all running at the same time - no issues.
@@RogerZacharias Glad that's improved. Strange your boot time didn't get much faster, did you restore from backup or start fresh? If you restored from backup expect longer boot times as you carried over the system's past baggage which I've observed from some others who did this. If you did a fresh install, I'm genuinely confused why your boot time is long, I think some people who use the AFPS file format might be slower as that's for more internal drives than this method. In the video I kept it as "Mac OS Extended Journaled"
Anyway I'm glad the main thing is when your using the Computer it's much faster!!
@@ImLeeLoi I did restore from backup...so that makes total sense! I may do a clean install if things get 'clunky'. I did use 'Mac OS Extended Journaled' I selected restore from back up for no other reason than routine so that's my misstep.
@@ImLeeLoi have the same problem here. Boot time didn’t improve. Maybe since I used the sandisk 520mb?
Great video! Can I use this exact method with my late 2013 27” iMac rather than performing the long open heart surgery process? I know it would be cleaner to open ‘er up and replace the SATA hard drive with a new SSD but I have hammer fists and will probably break the screen or wreck something else. This seems like such a good hack. I have current 1TB HD slow AF and want to upgrade to 1 or 2 SSD. Any suggestions on specific brands to insure best performance. Thanks!!
I can't recommend brands I've never used so I like the SanDisk and Samsung. The cheap method I've shown so far is working great on the Family iMac and that's about 8 months in so far (but the iMac hasn't been used very much as parents are using iPads etc)
Yes 2013 is after the 2012 iMac so this method will work of course!
Oh yeah. I’m going to send it for ssd replacement but now no need. Tks my friend so much.
Glad I could help
I’m going to be doing this to my early 2014 Mac this week. Right now it’s got a 1tb HDD but it runs so slow. I can’t wait for a performance boost a cheaper fix than having to pay extortionate prices for a Mac upgrade which isn’t affordable right now
Good luck with the upgrade. Again make sure the new drive is Mac OS Extended Journaled and NOT AFPS.
Great video. Just wondering if you put the Time Machine back up onto the new drive as well? Otherwise, with all the apps and docs still on the old HDD, I would expect them to open much more slowly.
I don't Time Machine to the new drive.
Awesome video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Hi! Great video thanks. One question though, how do you get the data from the old hard drive? Time machine? Thanks!
You can retrieve it manually in the finder and browse through the old hard drive folders.
Thanks for the Step-By-Step video, Lee-Loi. Just what I've been looking for to speed up my 2017 iMac. Question: What happens to the 1TB Fusion Drive now? Can it be used for storage?
Yes it can!
@@ImLeeLoi Just followed your instructions and I now have a "New iMac", well it's the same older 2017 iMac but now it has a New Life and is lightning fast thanks to the SDD. Thanks again, Lee-Loi. One step that would have been interesting to see, would have been to Migrate all the info from the Old Set Up to the New SSD Set Up. Do you have a video on that?
@@SergeHoude4U You can "Clone your hard drive" and YouTubing that you are likely to find a tutorial but don't expect speeds as fast as your carrying over years of baggage. I much recommend a clean install like in the video and just copying over the files and documents you plan to use.
@@ImLeeLoi Good advice. Thanks. Have a wonderful weekend.
Thanks mate, it really helped. It s not necessary to open my mac so i dont want to...
Nobody wishes to open up an iMac LOL I'm glad this helped you. :)