Has anyone added a Solid State Drive to their iMac?

Hey Everyone,

I am just curious if anyone has done this via after market? Apple charges $800 to add a 256GB SSD to the 1 TB Serial ATA drive which is crazy! (you can get it for a fraction of that after market).
I have a 2010 iMac 27"
3.2 GHZ i3 Processor
1 TB Serial ATA Drive + 1 TB external
12 GB ram

So has anyone done this to their iMac? if so, could you tell me about it? Where you got it from? how it was done? how much it cost you? the benefits of it? was it worth it? Just enlighten me as to if it is worth it. I am not considering it right NOW but I may in a few months or so.

SSD's tend to be far less prone to failure due to jarring and impact than traditional hard drives are. (So they are a good choice in laptops.) So far, they tend to be overall more reliable also. SSD's also tend to give much better performance, making a Mac seem quite a bit faster, and startup is faster too.

But SSD's are prone to wear-out in time, and, especially when used in a Mac, can suffer from poor handling of bad blocks.

I've heard really good things about:
OCZ Vertex 2
Check out this recommendation at anandtech.com:

The SSD Diaries: Crucial's RealSSD C300 - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

in which it says: "I often get questions from Mac users asking what
the best SSD is for OS X. Since Apple still won’t support TRIM you
need a very resilient drive under OS X. That path leads you to
SandForce. Pick up a Corsair Force, OCZ Vertex 2, G.Skill Phoenix or
whatever SF drive tickles your fancy if you want the best of the
best in your Mac." These models all have the SandForce controller.

There are usually some good deals on these drives at Meritline.com, such as:
Meritline.com Search Results forcz

But you want to be sure that you're getting the Vertex 2 models, as
their other versions don't have the SandForce controller.

I just read that OS X 10.7 will support TRIM, which means that SSD's will be faster and more reliable under Lion!
Mac OS X Lion Supports TRIM for SSD’s

___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________

Thanks a lot, that is some info I was not aware of!

bentharbour said:

Thanks a lot, that is some info I was not aware of!

Click to expand...

Glad to help!

Please let us know which drive you end up purchasing and how you like the performance.

You might enjoy this chart of SSD performance:
Charts, benchmarks SSD Charts 2010, Desktop Performance Index (50% Throughput, 25% PCMark, 25% I/O)

___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________

Wow that Crucial C300 really blew the others out of the water.