I want to upgrade the 320MB hard drive on my iMac EMC 2211. What is the largest drive I can get? I have seen some conflicting info on the web; one says 2TB is the max, others seem to imply no size limit. Thx!
Is this a good question?
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How much space do you need? If you hold out a bit longer you could go with this bad boy: HGST Ships 6TB Ultrastar ;-}
Putting our feet firmly back on the ground here:
Your limit is the SATA I/O speed your system runs at. In your case you have a SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) port. The OS version you are running could be a limiting factor. You'll need to be running OS-X 10.x. Here's the Apple T/N on OS-X limits: Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended format (HFS Plus) volume and file limits. As you can see you're not likely to hit any of these limits (unlike other OS's) just by upgrading to the newest OS-X you could go with the 6TB Ultrastar ;-}
In any case you may want to boost your RAM to the max of 6.0 GB while you're upgrading as the newer OS's and the larger HD's need a bit more room.
You do have a lot of choices here:
I wouldn't go with a SSD, while they are good, they don't offer the size at the price people are willing to pay. While some people have swapped out their optical drives for a second HD or SSD. I wouldn't recommend it on this model as the optical drives I/O is quite slow.
We like SSHD's they give you the best performance at the best price.
Yes, you can go upto a 4 TB SSHD drive.
Seagate offers one: Seagate Desktop SSHD. And heres the spec sheet for it: Desktop SSHD specsheet. If you look at this line SATA Transfer Rates Supported (Gb/s) you'll see 6.0/3.0/1.5 as this drive offers auto SATA port speed detection. Not all drives (HD or SSHD) offer this, some have a compatibility jumper and others are fixed and may not play nice in your system.
In any case you do want to make sure your firmware is up to date. Follow this Apple TN on how to check and update: EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs.
I would take the time cleaning any dust build up inside & the heat sink fins and it you can I would also clean and refresh the thermal paste on the CPU & GPU chips.
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Thanks...I may go with the SSHD...but can I go higher up to 4 TB?
Also, are there any compatibility issues for my EMC 2211 that I need to be aware of when purchasing the new hard drive?
Excellent! That is the exact drive I was looking at. Thx for your help!
While you will not get the full speed of the new HardDrive, if you have less than 3 Exabytes (Those drives may be quite away off yet! ) your OS has no problem with mere Multi-Terabyte Drives.
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I was at BestBuy the other day and I asked when they expect to get in the Zettabyte External Hard Drive ;-}
FYI: It will take a single Zettabyte to hold a persons digital copy of ones brain!
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