{"id":2751,"date":"2009-11-02T20:59:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T02:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=2751"},"modified":"2014-12-15T15:54:37","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T21:54:37","slug":"proprietary-cable-can-put-the-brakes-on-upgrading-late-09-imacs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/2751-proprietary-cable-can-put-the-brakes-on-upgrading-late-09-imacs\/","title":{"rendered":"Proprietary cable can put the brakes on upgrading Late ’09 iMacs."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STOP-hard-drive\"[UPDATE:\u00a0<\/strong>No longer is swapping out brand for brand even necessary! OWC has just released the\u00a0Complete HDD Upgrade Kit with\u00a0<\/a>in-line OWC Digital Thermal Sensor for all Apple 2009-2010 iMac 21.5″ and 27″ Models<\/a>. You can now upgrade your iMac with any brand 3.5″ SATA hard drive. No software hacks necessary and it’s\u00a0AHT diagnostic compatible.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes even the best educated guesses can be thrown for a loop when an unforeseen “X-Factor” comes into play. Such is the case with the Late 2009 iMacs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As we were getting information together for the new iMac instructional videos<\/a>, we came across a little tidbit that, apparently, hasn’t been covered anywhere else: Apple has switched the iMac’s method of hard drive temperature sensing<\/strong>. They’ve gone from an external sensor that attached to the outside surface of the drive to a connector that seems to use the drive’s internal sensors. <\/p>\n

On first blush, this would appear to be a good thing; an internal sensor is closer to the drive’s mechanics and is likely to be more accurate regarding drive state. Unfortunately, there are no industry standards regarding the ports\/pins used to access this information<\/strong>, and each hard drive manufacturer seems to do it their own way. And more unfortunately, when the iMac gets no sensor information via that cable, the heat exhaust fans kick into permanent high gear, so that cable must <\/em>be connected.<\/p>\n

That means, in order to upgrade the internal drive, you need to have a connector cable that’s compatible with the brand of drive that you’re installing… and that’s an Apple service part not generally available to the end user. Pretty sneaky, Apple<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Fortunately, you can reuse the cable that came with your iMac as long as you replace the drive with another model from the same manufacturer<\/strong> we have confirmed works properly<\/strong> with this thermal sensor cable.<\/strong> To determine what brand hard drive your iMac has, go to About This Mac, click on Serial-ATA, and then look for the drive model installed at the factory. If the model has the preface WD, that’s a Western Digital hard drive and if your drive has a ST, that’s a Seagate hard drive. Once you know what drive came with your Mac, you can upgrade to a larger drive and continue to use the thermal sensor…thus avoiding the “ear pleasing” whoosh of fans on high.<\/p>\n

Here’s a list of the drives<\/a> that install into WD factory equipped iMacs.<\/p>\n

For the Seagate equipped models, these drives from us<\/a> will plug right into the thermal cable<\/p>\n

Fortunately, upgrading memory<\/a> is still easy to do, and will show a more immediate improvement in performance than will a hard drive upgrade. That doesn’t mean, though, that somewhere down the road you won’t want to upgrade your hard drive to something larger and\/or faster.<\/p>\n

We’re all about giving you the most options for upgrading your Mac and that’s why OWC is looking into potential ways to turn this curveball from Apple into a Home Run for you<\/strong>. As soon as we can find a viable method for connecting a different brand hard drive than the one that came with\u00a0 your 2009 iMac,\u00a0 you can be sure you’ll hear it first right here on the OWC Blog.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, if you get stuck for storage, you can always take advantage of that lone FireWire 800 port (or, if necessary, one of those USB 2.0 ports) and add a fast external storage device<\/a>, such as the Mercury Elite-AL Pro<\/strong>. The benefit of this is that when you are <\/em>able to upgrade that internal drive to your preference, you will have a handy extra external unit for backing up to<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Keep tuned to the OWC Blog for updates…<\/p>\n

Related Post: Diagnosing 2009 & 2010 iMac Fan Speed Issues After Upgrading The Main Hard Drive<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

NOTE:<\/strong> The comments on this post have been closed. For more information, please read our latest update on the Rocket Yard<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[UPDATE:\u00a0No longer is swapping out brand for brand even necessary! OWC has just released the\u00a0Complete HDD Upgrade Kit with\u00a0in-line OWC Digital Thermal Sensor for all Apple 2009-2010 iMac 21.5″ and 27″ Models. You can now upgrade your iMac with any brand 3.5″ SATA hard drive. No software hacks necessary and it’s\u00a0AHT diagnostic compatible.] Sometimes even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-tips"],"yoast_head":"\nProprietary Cable can put the brakes on upgrading Late '09 iMacs.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We've came across a little tidbit that, apparently, hasn't been covered anywhere else: Apple has switched the iMac's method of hard drive temperature sensing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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