03-19-2010, 09:56 AM

My hard drive crashed. I'm assuming it's gone completely so I'll need to replace it. However, I'm not sure what hard drive originally came in my 20" iMac, and researching the external drives on the apple store website isn't helping me get an idea of how much it will cost to replace.

Assuming my hard drive was definitely not a terabyte, from a 20" iMac I bought about 4 years ago, can anyone guestimate how much replacing the internal drive will be? I've never replaced an internal drive before so I have no idea.

Right now I'm praying it's below $500. I spent $1200 on the computer.

Thanks for the help and sorry I'm an idiot when it comes to hard drives.

03-19-2010, 10:06 AM

The price of the drive mechanism is insignificant compared to the labor of replacing it in an iMac. It's unfortunate, but Apple did iMac owners no favors in the way the machine is assembled - I can personally attest to this as I had to do one for a customer with a 20" plastic iMac.

The good news is, the mechanism itself is pretty inexpensive. If yours is anything like the one I worked on, it probably has a 250GB HDD. You can easily find one of that size for less than $60. If you're so inclined, you can go right up to 1TB (1024GB) for right around $100.

So, let's say that you go with a 1TB drive and whatever retailer you get it from has a 20% markup on the part. Assuming 2 hours of labor at a premium price of $100/hr, you're looking at $320 tops. And that's aiming pretty high....

03-19-2010, 10:53 AM

wow..thank you. I really hope it's that low. That's much lower than I was prepared to have to spend. >< Thanks for the help!