Best way to add more storage to iMac

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If I were to purchase an iMac with the 512GB SSD option, what's the best way to add more storage to it in terms of capacity and performance? I presume I cannot add an internal drive easily, so would an external HDD work at an decent level of performance? If so, which connection type into the iMac would be the fastest?
 

Raz0rEdge

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You don't want to tear into a new iMac due to the warranty, but the SSD will not be a traditional 2.5" SATA drive but rather a PCIe card. You can likely upgrade that in the future. Your best bet is to go with an external SSD storage (the largest your budget will allow). As far as interface goes, you can go with a ThunderBolt connection to get quite a fast speed.
 

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I totally agree. Don't touch a brand new Mac. And I also agree External Storage, whether with conventional Spinning Platter or Solid State Drives are easily come by; and if money is tight and speed is not of the essence, then go for a Spinning Platter External Hard Drive. Very inexpensive these days and connection type becomes less relevant.

But, of course, Ashwin is spot on; if speed is crucial - SSD and Thunderbolt connection.

Ian
 
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I've just had a look at external SSDs and they are prohibitively expensive for me in capacities of 1TB+.

Ideally I'd like something like a 4TB external drive as up to half of that would be used up by my flight sim program plus additional third-party scenery. Does anyone have any recommendations for a 4GB external drive that'll work well with an iMac?
 
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Look for a USB 3 version.
 
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IWT


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As in my post #3, if speed is not critical, then you can get a 4TB External Hard Drive (EHD) of the Spinning Platter type for a tiny fraction of the cost of an SSD. And the connection type is what's easiest.

Ian
 
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External Hard Drive (EHD) of the Spinning Platter type for a tiny fraction of the cost of an SSD. And the connection type is what's easiest.


Not forgetting that the 3.5" HDDs are often faster than the 2.5" versions, and I would suggest only consider the 7200RPM models. Many can overcome the speed of the connection so check all the specs and speeds.




- Patrick
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Ideally I'd like something like a 4TB external drive as up to half of that would be used up by my flight sim program plus additional third-party scenery. Does anyone have any recommendations for a 4GB external drive that'll work well with an iMac?

You didn't mention which Flight Simulator program you intend to run, but from my experience with running one, you should definitely try to put everything on the internal drive not an external one. I realize that scenery alone can take up a great amount of space but that's the way it is.

If you can't afford a large internal SSD then what Ashwin recommended above is the only realistic alternative in my opinion. Either that, or cut back on the third party scenery.
 
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This gives pretty fair comparisons of 3.5" drive capacities and prices.


Regardless of price, I'd strongly recommend the WD Black 3.5" series for external use, even if they do cost a bit more but often available on sale.
And I see they are also rated as one of the fastest at that review site. Nice bonus!!! :Smirk:

Highly recommended enterprise HDDs.





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I got a 4gb Seagate hard drive for this purpose but Thunderbolt is also good.
 
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I spent much of yesterday and last night looking deeper into this. The Thunderbolt 3 ports on the 2017 iMac have a bandwidth of 40Gbit/s. There is not realistically-priced external HDD that would max out the TB3 connection. The TB3 port also doubles as a USB Type-C port which has a bandwidth of 10Gbit/s. Most consumer SSDs seem to have internal interfaces with bandwidths of up to 6Gbit/s (e.g. SATA III). Thus, an external drive with a USB Type-C interface seems to be the best in terms of performance/price.

Given that I want to run a very large flight-sim app off the external drive, I think an SSD-based one would be best. I'm going to go with the Samsung T5 2TB SSD.
 
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Given that I want to run a very large flight-sim app off the external drive, I think an SSD-based one would be best. I'm going to go with the Samsung T5 2TB SSD.


An excellent choice for a fast external SSD according to some reports. ie:
Samsung’s X5 is a portable, blazing-fast SSD with Thunderbolt 3 speeds
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...table-ssd-x5-announced-pricing-speed-features

Certainly not exactly cheap, but as harry said above, you get what you pay for.ie:
Remember[sic] what may seem a bargain today in a couple of years may be slow and disappointing.





- Patrick
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@pm-r: I managed to buy a Samsung T5 (not X5) 2TB portable SSD for a very good price on eBay UK. I was actually worried that it might be a fake as the price was around 20% cheaper than the next best price that I'd seen on Amazon UK. However, the seller had thousands of positive reviews and no negative reviews. It arrived today, factory sealed, and I tested it on my Mac Mini as I the iMac hasn't arrived yet. It worked fine. The Samsung Portable SSD software (for Mac) recognised it so that pretty much confirmed to me that it was a genuine product.

I'm looking forward to using it on my iMac when that arrives. I'll be formatting it to APFS on my iMac in due course.

Another question: has anyone ever had an issue with a third-party SSD (internal or external) connected to a Mac that goes into sleep mode? A year or two ago I replaced the system HDD on my Mac Mini with an internal SSD (512GB) which got bricked after a few weeks and I could not recover the data on it at all. I suspect it was down to the Mac Mini going into sleep mode and trashing the SSD.
 
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has anyone ever had an issue with a third-party SSD (internal or external) connected to a Mac that goes into sleep mode?


Nope, but then again, I don't have much exposure to any great selections any more. But there were several HDD units around that would spindown on their own, but don't recall which brands or models off hand.

And my opps: I got the Samsung T5 and the X5 mixed up.





- Patrick
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I had an internal Kingston SSD die, when I upgraded a few years ago. I think it happened go from Yosemite to El Capitan, but it could have been going to Yosemite from Mavericks. It was in my Late 2011 MBP.
 
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I had an internal Kingston SSD die, when I upgraded a few years ago.

Personally, I would never purchase any Kingston product since they started praising themselves and elevating all their excessive prices many, many years ago.

PS: Their's was the only memory chips I've ever had fail on an install for a user, also many years ago. But never again.

PS: Some of the latest SanDisk SSDs look promising, and they must be as WD is using them in some of their own SSDs!!!




- Patrick
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Personally, I would never purchase any Kingston product since they started praising themselves and elevating all their excessive prices many, many years ago.

PS: Their's was the only memory chips I've ever had fail on an install for a user, also many years ago. But never again.

PS: Some of the latest SanDisk SSDs look promising, and they must be as WD is using them in some of their own SSDs!!!




- Patrick
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It's a good thing everyone gets to decide for themselves.

I got that SSD in 2012, it was a 240GB for $130. The next week, I found another one, which I don't remember the brand, it was a 240GB and it was $120. I tried them both in my MBP. The cheaper one didn't work, so I sent it back and kept the Kingston. Worked great for 3 or 4 years. Then it died.
 
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The cheaper one didn't work, so I sent it back and kept the Kingston. Worked great for 3 or 4 years. Then it died.


At which point I would expect and hope it should have been covered by their warranty replacement at least. :)





- Patrick
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