My 1st Gen Intel iMac HD died, need replacement, SSD?

The hard drive in my Intel iMac died today and I'm going to replace it. While searching I found on OWC that SSD drives are almost affordable and was wondering if it is worth trying. With 1tb already hanging off of the machine I was thinking I don't really need to even put the full 250gb back, and could go cheap and use a 120. This would give me fast boots and app starts, and I'd put all the other stuff on the external drives.

Will a smaller drive be a problem with Time Machine? Or can I select just OSX and apps. This is the first time I'll have actually restored something.

Will these work in a 1st gen Intel iMac? And if they do will it make a difference on speed? And if they don't work, do I need to replace like with like? Or can any drive go in? I'm seeing a lot of comments about how Apple makes it difficult to swap drives because of heat sensors and the like, but these comments are for newer machines.

This is an old Intel machine, 5 years already, but it still serves its purpose for surfing and light apps. I'm not doing video editing, although I do some audio. I'm still using old PPC Excel on Rosetta and it is slow, but not too much. Open Office is equally slow. It runs my media center just fine and that's probably the most important app right now. I'm back to using CDs for music. Remember those?

The processor is a core duo, not a core 2 duo, the memory is 1gb as I could never get the second bay to work, it was a 250gb drive. I'm on Snow Leopard but still run the older iLife apps except the free ones of course.

You can replace the hard drive in the iMac with any SATA 3.5" drive. Personally, I wouldn't spend the extra money to buy a SSD for that old a machine especially since it's a core duo with only 1 GB of memory. You can probably buy a large 7200 RPM SATA 3.5" hard drive for around half of what you would pay for a 120 GB SSD.

If I can get almost instant app opens and faster boots/logins it would be worth it. I really don't need the space on the internal disk. 120gb of space is a lot of space for apps, although not much at all for video or hi-res audio where it get eaten up really fast, but those would go on an external drive. I'd think it would be a good work around for the memory limitation. For what I use it for the machine is fine.

+1 on Chscag's advice

Putting a $200 SSD in an old and limited machine like this doesn't strike me as a good use of your dollars or time.

I would either spend the minimum on extending the life of your current machine, or sell it and put the proceeds and the $200 saved by not buying the SSD toward something like this.

Refurbished iMac 21.5-inch 3.06GHz Intel Core i3 processor $929
Refurbished iMac 21.5-inch 3.06GHz Intel Core i3 processor - Apple Store (U.S.)

+ 1 on chscag and Razormac.

Great Advice.

But it isn't $200, it is $120 as I have to spend the $80 anyway to replace the drive. Consider too the cost of doing the replacement, even doing it yourself, in time spent and risk. There is a definite risk in trying this myself as there are no "user servicable parts" inside an iMac. I could end up with a dead Mac. (I've also rebuilt a 1950 DuMont TV, with 10000 volts running through one part of it, so I'm not shy about dinking around inside. If you're too young to even know what DuMont is, well it isn't just a burger joint in Williamsburg...)

For $120 more I'll have a machine that'll be as fast or faster in what I need to do then the latest machines. Processor speed isn't everything. In fact, most machines are constrained by the hard drive.

If you are happy working inside the iMac by all means go for an SSD. They are well worth the additional cost.

Strongly recommend the OWC Mercury Extreme. Do not purchase the 6GB transfer drive, the 3GB SATA II will be the go.

I say go for it. If the only thing wrong with your iMac is that hard drive, and it otherwise suits your needs, then sure… dropping in that SSD should improve your experience. Just because it's older doesn't mean it has no life left in it.

EDIT: I should point out though that you really should consider doubling your RAM also. With the limited write cycles SSDs have, it may be wise to limit swap file usage as much as possible.

zacster said:

But it isn't $200, it is $120 as I have to spend the $80 anyway to replace the drive. Consider too the cost of doing the replacement, even doing it yourself, in time spent and risk. There is a definite risk in trying this myself as there are no "user servicable parts" inside an iMac. I could end up with a dead Mac. (I've also rebuilt a 1950 DuMont TV, with 10000 volts running through one part of it, so I'm not shy about dinking around inside. If you're too young to even know what DuMont is, well it isn't just a burger joint in Williamsburg...)

For $120 more I'll have a machine that'll be as fast or faster in what I need to do then the latest machines. Processor speed isn't everything. In fact, most machines are constrained by the hard drive.

Click to expand...

Far be from me to discourage any project done just for the sake of learning, and for the fun of it. But, you did ask for input and couched your question as if the financial aspect of it mattered.

1) It is more like $160 rather than $120 because you don't need to spend $80 on a replacement drive. This 500gb 7200rpm drive is $37 from OWC

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB Caviar SE16... in stock at OWC

2) You don't have a fully functional Mac to begin with as you stated that you had been unable to increase the RAM which would have been your first upgrade.

3) if the machine is already "fast enough" why pay a premium for incremental increases in performance?

4) But, if you want to do this just because, then by all means go for it and tell us how it turns out. Life is short so enjoy yourself.

BTW: definitely old enough to remember. I used to repair Radar Systems when the monitors were washing machine sized B&W CRT based monsters.

$37? I didn't see it that low.

Anyway, yes, it will be a learning experience as well. I was wondering too about that ram slot and if there was something that could be done. I'll check when I'm in there if maybe there's a cable problem.

I'm going to give it a shot. There's also a 30 day return policy with OWC in any case.

zacster said:

$37? I didn't see it that low.

Anyway, yes, it will be a learning experience as well. I was wondering too about that ram slot and if there was something that could be done. I'll check when I'm in there if maybe there's a cable problem.

Click to expand...

There wouldn't be a cable problem as far as the RAM slot goes. It could be a bad slot… it does happen. It also may have been the RAM you were using, particularly if you were using unmatched pairs. I always recommend sticking to a reputable brand and using exact matching pairs to ensure highest compatibility (don't mix Apple's RAM with 3rd party RAM).

post back with your results.

If I ever get myself home. My car's computer also just crashed and I'm stuck in Chicago at the moment, headed back to NYC.

I'm hoping the results are positive. If not, there are 3 more recent MBPs in my house, maybe one of them will get the upgrade instead, or it could go back to OWC for a regular drive.

OMG, it works!!!

Not the new SSD, which is still in the shipping box, the old HD!!! Before I left for vacation it was totally dead, making a clicking sound on startup. I was going to install OSX on my WD Passport drive as a start so I could clean up a bit. When I went to Disk Utility before the installation, just to check, the old HD showed up. I did a verify on it and it checked out OK. I then booted off the hard drive and now I'm typing this message in Safari instead of Windows Explorer 6 from my office laptop.

I'm taking a backup right now as I know the last one I did was about 2 months old, but almost all new stuff is on the external drive anyway. I wouldn't have lost anything important.

Now I have to decide whether to leave well enough alone, or give the SSD a try. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Given that the ONLY reason I was willing to crack it open was that it was dead anyway, I'm not sure I will use the SSD.

I went ahead and installed the SSD, an OWC Mercury 115gb drive, and I'm using it right now. Just about everything worked as expected. Here's a rundown on the process and all the problems encountered:

1. First and foremost, removing the front from an iMac is a royal pain in the @$$. The clips that hold it on just don't release. It took a lot of doing to get the first one off, and then I couldn't get the other to release even though it was 3/4 off and just holding on by the one clip. I eventually stuck my finger in there and got it to release but I thought I'd break it in the process. Also, the connectors to the camera and mic were buried deep inside and I left the cover connected for the time being.

2. Once removed, removing the shielding is another process that just doesn't want to work. The bottom flap came off easy enough, albeit with a few rips, but the shielding around the monitor doesn't give at all. That is one strong tape. I made a mess of the shielding around the LCD. The machine is still open as I type this and I'm going to clean it up a bit.

3. The installation video I was using was for a 17" 1st gen (SmallDog Electronics), and I have a 20". Of course nothing is in the same place, and the connectors are all different.

4. I also couldn't find the screws that hold in the LCD panel. I went to a second source, Ifixit.com to get that info. They are deep underneath, too deep for the torx set that I bought. I had to use the bits by themselves to get started.

5. There were more connectors than even ifixit said to disconnect. Not a big problem.

6. I finally get to the disk and that was the easy part. Unscrewed the old one and put the new one in place, except that the new disk is 2.5" and I used an adapter bracket from Newer Technology. This went smoothly. I had to pry off the heat sensor and stick it on the new one. The bracket doesn't have the pegs that the old drive had that fixed it on the other side, but since there are no moving parts I didn't worry about it.

7. Re-assembly went OK, except that the 4 screws holding the LCD on are deep and I didn't have a magnetic screwdriver. I taped the screws to the torx driver and fed them through. This worked surprisingly well. Once you get the screw started you can pull away the driver and the tape.

8. I still have the bezel off, but I started it up with my Snow Leopard disk and it just all worked!

9. I formatted the OWD drive and it took literally a split second.

10. I connected my Time Machine backup and that's where I was disappointed. I had cleaned up my old drive so that I'd have a backup that would fit. For some reason though it didn't see it on the backup disk, and the prior backup was way too big to fit. It wouldn't allow me to install from backup.

11. I installed SL from my disk instead and this went without a hitch. It took a half hour + to install, but at least it's unattended.

12. I started up the migration utility and it is running right now. I copied everything except my son's account. He had 100+gb with all his video. He has his own MB now and doesn't need this anyway. (I installed a 4gb memory upgrade on it and he's happy too now. I'd have gone with 8gb, but he didn't want to be bothered with the software/firmware upgrade it needs.) I'd never used migration utility before and see now that it is the better way to do this.

From what I can see now this thing is blazing fast. I won't know better until I'm fully restored, but I don't expect anything but speed. Is it worth $200? I don't know yet.

harryb2448 said:

Strongly recommend the OWC Mercury Extreme. Do not purchase the 6GB transfer drive, the 3GB SATA II will be the go.

Click to expand...

Why the 3GB?


As for zacster, give us an update!
And, did you ever get the RAM fixed?

The 3GB is faster than an old core duo can handle since it is SATA I, and the 6gb is total overkill. I went with the 3gb, having read somewhere that you need to change the 6gb to work. In any case the 3gb drive I put in works great.

Is it worth $200, especially since my hard drive started working again anyway? I'd say yes, it was well worth it. I'm probably going to use this iMac for another 1-2 years now. My wife sits at it and is amazed at the speed, I'm totally blown away by it. It is also dead quiet now as there are no moving parts in the drive and the fan never comes on. In fact, it would be a great in-room media server because it is so quiet. If and when I'm done with this machine, I'll pull the drive and put it into one of my kids' MBPs. It'll extend the life on those as well, unless of course the next big thing makes them all obsolete.

I wanted to try to fix the ram, but I didn't really do anything except blow from the other side. It still doesn't work. But with the SSD, the virtual memory swapping is much faster and wouldn't be as much of an issue. I haven't tried transcoding a video so maybe I'll give that a try to see if it runs, not that I have anything to compare to.

Would a 2gb DDR2 ram card work in the slot as 2gb? I'd give it a try if I had the ram. I guess I could buy it and see.

New you would be happy and warned you about working inside the iMac. OWC technicians strongly recommend the clean install and Migration Assistant routers rather than Tome Machine backups,m or cloning.

Migration assistant worked well. After all of my experience on Windoze, I never expect anything to work smoothly, and even after 5 years on this mac I can still say "it just works".

Oh you bought it but I'd like to give more info for other user.

for consumer applications user like iLife. I prefer Larger storage more than faster storage with only 120GB that's not going to be enough for me and many users. spinning hard drive is not too slow and you can store/save/download more files 'coz it's larger storage

Many applications in OS X force u to install their applications in system's hard drive. So, for internal hard drive i'll get as large storage as I could get.

In my opinion SSD is great for Pro application users working with audio/video such as Logic pro and Final Cut pro or anything related 'coz they need to read/write a lot of audio/video files at the same time. So, faster storage is good for them.