Upgrading My 2011 27-Inch iMac! Adding SSD and Second Hard Drive for MAX Performance!

[@MegaDan0o]

Hi, first of all kudos for doing this man. Second I have a mid 2010 iMac (27) Will it be the same process? And same ssd link you have recommended? Tnx

[@CircuitSphereUT]

I'm sorry for the late reply. The process is the same for both, the hardware design didnt change, and yes that same SSD will work perfect!

[@demef758]

Just be aware of the slower speed of the SATA connector on the optical drive port. I know my 2011 iMac is a SATA II connection, but I can't tell you if the 2010 iMac is SATA I or SATA II. I.e., don't expect standard SATA III speeds using the optical drive's SATA connection

[@jackfender9274]

Just wondering why you chose to remove the Optical drive, when you could have simply purchased a second SATA connector and used the second hard drive SATA port. The optical drive SATA port is slower than the two hard drive SATA ports.

[@demef758]

You are correct that the optical drive is a SATA II link (3 Gbps), not the standard SATA III (6 Gbps) that the hard drive uses. 3 Gbps translates to an theoretical speed of 375 Mbps, but realistically more like about 225 MBps tops. I'm trying to keep my 2011 iMac going because 1) it's still a perfectly fine machine with its i7 processor, and 2) its OS can go as high as High Sierra but as low as Snow Leopard. The problem with High Sierra is that it requires the drive(s) to be formatted in APFS, and once the drives are in APFS, then you cannot drop down to Snow Leopard via a partition! I already have a 16TB rotating hard drive and a 1TB SSD in the two SATA III slots. Since I seldom drop down to Snow Leopard anymore, it's a reasonably compromise for me to replace the optical SATA II slot with a little 1TB SSD formatted in HFS+ and live with the slower speed when I boot into Snow Leopard.

[@jabee81]

I’m wondering compared to if ssd boot from the hdd connection and from the odd connections is there any different in boot speed

[@CircuitSphereUT]

Thats an interesting question. I just sold this iMac or I would have tested it and reported back.

[@demef758]

Yes, the speeds ARE slower on the optical drive SATA connector, by a factor of two.

[@HK76931]

Hi.. I just put a new ssd in a 2011 imac that I'm working on for someone who bought it at a yard sale..I opened it up to find that it did not have a hard drive in it,so I put in a new ssd drive.Now I am having issues getting it to boot in recovery mode to format the drive.Using a windows keyboard,I hold down the windows and r keys after hearing the chime and waiting for the apple logo to appear,then letting go. When the progress bar gets all the way to the right,nothing happens and it just goes to a white screen..Any help would be greatly appreciated..I need to get this fixed asap

[@demef758]

Unless the hard drive has something like Lion (10.7) or above already installed on it, then there is no such thing as recovery mode (command-R). You will need a bootable drive connected to the USB port, then hold down the option key as you power up. Or remove the SSD and initialize it on another Mac and install MacOS on it from there, then install the SSD back in the iMac and it should go from there. The 2011 iMac was right on the cusp of this sea change in the way Apple fiddled with MacOS.

[@jofetsk822]

Where i can buy a New screen for That model

[@CircuitSphereUT]

eBay is probably the best place