Let’s face it…upgrading the ultra-slim 2012 iMac is no easy task. In fact, a user-upgradeable hard drive doesn’t exist at this point (rest assured we’re hard at work on this). That leaves the pricey factory option as the only current performance upgrade option. Fortunately, those looking to help their previous iMac model run as well as – if not better than – the new hard-to-upgrade model need look no further than OWC.
In the January issue of Macworld, we explained how our Data Doubler delivers a huge performance or capacity boost to a Mac mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro. This month, we’re focused on how to give your 2010-2011 iMacs a major boost with our mail-in Turnkey service or with our DIY Kits that feature free step-by-step installation videos.
Looking to help your 2011 iMac pack a serious punch? Upgrade the main hard drive bay with a high-performance OWC Mercury 6G SSD or a higher capacity hard drive. Need elite performance? You can upgrade up to three (yes, three!) 6Gb/s SSDs to get a total of 1.44TB capacity and incredible speeds. Or, you can install two SSDs along with a 4TB hard drive for the best of both speed and capacity worlds!
And if you have 2010 iMac 27” model, you can choose from the same options as the 2011 models and breathe new life into your machine so it runs better than new!
For 2012 iMacs, wouldn’t it be simpler to just use an external SSD w/ thunderbolt as a boot drive? Thunderbolt is faster than the internal SATA 3 ports. Maybe even use an ssd RAID setup to boot from and just use the mechanical internal drive for data storage.
An OWC Mercury Helios+E2 would certainly be a fast and viable alternative to having an internal SSD in an iMac. Both have advantages over each other in certain circumstances.
The Mercury Helios+E2 is faster than a single 6G SSD. The Helios+E2 is a very simple to setup, it is a plug and play solution. This higher level of performance does carry a higher cost then a single 6G SSD installation. Some individuals would prefer to keep everything internal on their computer and avoid additional items on their desk as well.
Our iMac Turnkey service offers the installation of up to three SSDs. The 2011 iMac has 2 6G SATA connections and 1 3G SATA connection. You could install two 6G SSDs into an iMac’s two 6G SATA connections and create a software RAID 0 in Disk Utility, please note we do not offer this software RAID configuration as part of our Turnkey service. Doing this would out perform the Helios+E2 setup and would still be more affordable then the Helios+E2 setup.
A simple breakdown of the potential performance:
A single 6G SSD has a theoretical maximum speed of 600MBps
The Mercury Helios+E2 has a theoretical maximum speed of 1000MBps.
A RAID 0 of 2 6G SSDs has a theoretical maximum speed of 1200MBps
I did this DIY project on my 2011 27″ iMac. Not trivial, but the video shows each step. And then I used my backed up disk drive to create a Fusion drive out of a partition on the SSD and A partition on the HDD. Works great.
It would be great if you could offer…
The ULTIMATE DIY Kit for any Mac ever.
Updated when necessary, as new Macs are released in the future.
As far as I know, there is not such a product in the market.
You will sell millions…
OWC upgraded my 2011 iMac i7 with 16 gig ram and 240 gig SSD. It rocks, cold start to on-line in 15 seconds. Oprerating system and all programs, Logic Pro, Micro-soft Office, Adobe Master collection on SSD with over 120 gigs left on drive. All music, video, iPhoto and personal files on the Apple hard drive. It all works so well I did the same set-up on my 2012 13″ mac-Pto lap top.
Thank you OWC.
HI its really cool to look at new stuff to dream about! But’ in the real world there are a lott of people using power pc’s max OS 10.5
could you have a specile place for us?
Sure would like to boost my 2012 iMac