Hi, my name is June Oehlers and I’m co-owner of a small media production company named freshlab inc. based in Curaçao. We mainly produce commercials and infomercials. Recently, we started on the production of a 30 minute TV program which airs every other week on our local TV station. We shoot with DSLR cameras due to their amazing image quality, small footprint and cost.
Editing was previously done on a Dual 2.3 MHz Power Mac G5. As you may know, HD video editing and Motion graphics can be a very processor intensive procedure. We needed to upgrade ASAP to a faster Mac in order to accommodate the growth of our company. My first choice would have been an eight-core Mac Pro with a 27” display, but it didn’t fit our budget. Shortly thereafter, though, the news came out about the faster 2010 iMacs. We decided to go for a 27” Intel Core i7 iMac because it fit our budget perfectly.
A couple of weeks later, I visited macsales.com to search for an external 3.5” hard drive enclosure. That is when the magic happened; on the front page was an ad about OWC’s iMac Turnkey Upgrade Program for the 2010 iMacs. I was immediately sold on the eSATA upgrade option. After some research and getting our budget complete, we placed an order with OWC for the eSATA upgrade, then ordered a 27” iMac at the Apple store and had it delivered directly to OWC.
The order process went smoothly. After our iMac was shipped, we informed OWC of the shipment and they immediately informed us they have received our iMac. Within two days, we received a notification e-mail from OWC that the upgrade was complete and that our now eSATA interface equipped iMac was on its way to us. Just three days later, the iMac had arrived on the island.
We are very pleased with our OWC eSATA upgrade. With an 8.0TB RAID unit connected via eSATA, it makes the 27” Intel Core i7 iMac a real video editing beast.
I love what I’m reading. any updates on adding eSata port to a 2011 iMac i7? I’m upgrading in the process of setting up and edit station on a budget and am considering all my options, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Yes, the 2011 Apple iMac 27″ Turnkey Upgrade Program is active and does allow the addition of the eSATA port.
is there still an esata port available on the new 2011 imacs?
Hi Ken…Apple nor anyone else has never offered an eSATA port for any Mac…
OWC was the first to do so…on the 2010 iMac via our Turnkey program. We are planning on offering a similar program for the 2011 iMacs but have not yet determined what all the options will be.
Can I do this on my iMac11,1 (“Late 2009”)?
Unfortunately, these iMacs do not have an additional SATA connection on the motherboard that can be used to add an SSD or eSATA port. Even though these machines are not part of this upgrade program, there might be other upgrade options available for your iMac. Please visit the My OWC configurator or contact us at 800-275-4576 to learn about all your specific iMac model options.
I am considering doing this. What is the cost for an 8TB conversion?
Hi Tom and thanks for stopping by. Not sure what you mean by 8TB conversion?
If you mean doing the eSATA port and adding 8GB of RAM to the iMac, that costs $309.
You can see all the options with pricing here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27