iMac Hard Drive Replacement

[AHorseWithNoName]

Hello all!
I have a late 2012 iMac 27-inch with pretty much all the stock hardware. Recently my internal 1TB HDD took a turn for the worse and is pretty much gone. Fortunately, I have good time machine backups.
The computer itself is fine otherwise so I got an external Samsung 500GB T7 SSD and was able to successfully install and boot up Catalina. It's running pretty well in the USB 3.0 port and getting speeds up to 625 MB/s. My understanding is that if I connect through the Thunderbolt 1 port with an adapter I can get speeds of 700-800 MB/s which would be fantastic.
My question: is it worth it at all to get an internal SSD? I found a local repair shop that would do the job for $125 but I'm not sure if there would be an improvement in speed and I've read a few conflicting things online about the speed I'd get. Outside of speed, are there any downsides I'm not considering in running the machine off of an external drive?

Any wisdom and correction of my understanding is welcome!

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

Unless you plan on keeping a 9 year old iMac around for several more years, it may not be worth the effort and money spent on upgrading the HHD to an SSD.

Keep in mind that Apple is finished with Intel architecture Macs and everything from now forward is geared toward their own silicon designed Macs. Currently the latest iMacs are 24" with the new Apple M1 processor.

My advice is to continue running your 2012 iMac 27" machine from the T7. Later on you can consider whether to buy a new iMac. And by the way, the slight speed increase you'll get from running the T7 from the Thunderbolt 1 type port on your iMac will hardly be noticeable.

 

[pm-r]

t's running pretty well in the USB 3.0 port and getting speeds up to 625 MB/s. My understanding is that if I connect through the Thunderbolt 1 port with an adapter I can get speeds of 700-800 MB/s which would be fantastic.
My question: is it worth it at all to get an internal SSD?

You might be interested in this article and it might help answer your question, not forgetting it is an almost 6 year old article.

Regardless of comments about the age of your machine and how much you spend on it, I have no idea on what you use your machine for, but for some sort of comparison, I have a replacement 1TB SSD being shipped to replace my original 1TB HDD in my mid-2011 27in iMac.

No question for me if it was worth spending the money on a solid state drive. Peanuts compared to the price of a new Mac and it is also used for running Mac OS versions back to Snow Leopard, and I don't even use or enjoy or even need many of the more recent Mac OS versions, and this old gal can only run up to High Sierra anyway.

Do whatever suits you. But don't go overboard on costs if it only ends up with a small speed increase. Google will provide more answers for that if you need them.


- Patrick
=======

 

[AHorseWithNoName]

Many thanks to you both for your views! Apple is definitely going away from Intel- I was shopping around at the store this past weekend and saw some beautiful machines.

Patrick, I feel similarly to you in that doing these small upgrades is peanuts in comparison to a new iMac. I use my computer for Photoshop/Lightroom, word processing, and web browsing- nothing extremely demanding.

I get that I won't really feel a difference between the USB 3.0 and the Thunderbolt, but would I feel a difference in speed if I got an internal SSD vs running it externally. I don't know the read-write speed of the internal. And I also don't know if running a computer from an external hard drive has some unintended negative effects that I'm not thinking of.

 

[harryb2448]

You are correct Horse. I use two external SSDs for backups using SuperDuper. One is TB1 and the second USB3. They both do identical backups to within seconds of each other. The only real difference to me is when booting. The TB SSD boots in less than half the time of the USB3.

You will overcome this slight drawback if you sleep the iMac each evening instead of shutting it down. The only time my computers ever get a reboot is on a system or software update which requires a restart.

 

[pm-r]

I get that I won't really feel a difference between the USB 3.0 and the Thunderbolt, but would I feel a difference in speed if I got an internal SSD vs running it externally.

You can probably get some idea by looking at the Benchmark tests at everymac.com I'm doing a comparison with some other speed tests at various other sites that a Google search should take you to.

I would have to check at everymac.com to see what the internal bus speed is.

And just staying with using an external would save you the hassle of installing and replacing your internal drive and any possible temperature sensors that might be necessary. I would have to check with your model to see if it needs that special temperature cable.

- Patrick
=======

 

[chscag]

Let's not forget his machine only has Thunderbolt 1 ports which are not near as fast as the TB2 or TB3 ports. He will notice little or no speed increase from them versus the USB 3 ports.

He's better off just leaving things the way he has it setup now. And plan for the future.

 

[pm-r]

Let's not forget his machine only has Thunderbolt 1 ports which are not near as fast as the TB2 or TB3 ports. He will notice little or no speed increase from them versus the USB 3 ports.

True.

Thunderbolt has a maximum speed of 10 Gb/s, Thunderbolt 2 has a maximum speed of 20 Gb/s, and Thunderbolt 3 has a maximum speed of of 40 Gb/s, compared to 800 Mb/s for Firewire 800, 5 Gb/s for USB 3.0, and 10 Gb/s for USB 3.1.Jun. 11, 2015

USB and Thunderbolt

Let's take a look at what makes USB, Thunderbolt, and Display Port connectors similar and what makes them different from one another.

silentpc.com

It's actually quite amazing the speed increase that has happened with the various updated Ports recently. And even internally for that matter... But I guess that's the name of the computer game...


- Patrick
=======