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Model A1311 / Mid 2011 / 2.5 & 2.7 GHz Core i5 or 2.8 GHz Core i7 Processor

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SSDs Types on iMacs?

I bought a 128 gb Western Digital GREEN SSD to upgrade my Old 2008 24 inch iMac, it worked brilliant, no issues. I then decided to upgrade my old 2011 2.5 ghz with a SSD, so I purchased a 500 gb Western Digital BLUE SSD, plugged it into USB 2 to SATA connector to Transfer over the Data, it would not recognise the SSD. I then tried it on the Older 2008 24 inch - still did not see it, tried it with a 2013 Macbook Pro, still did not see it, in desperation I plugged it into my very Old MDD Powermac G4 (that I still use btw) and still did not show up. Is there an issue with different Brands and Models of SSDs that are not compatible with Apple Macs??

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No, there is nothing wrong with your Mac! You more likely have an adapter issue or its only a SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) unit while the drive you are using is expecting a SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) interface.

SATA interfaces are a bit mystical ;-} The very first version SATA I (1.5 Gb/s) was replaced with SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) and then upgraded to SATA III (6.0 Gb/s). One of the issues many people faced is understanding which drive worked under which standard! The standards group worked on the idea drives where more likely to be carried over to newer systems as they were at the time very costly! And besides they would have the precious data of years of work! So older drives will work in the newest of systems SATA I drive works in a SATA II or SATA III system!

Now the rub! The prices of drives plummeted and the sizes increased! So instead of people doing what the standards group expected people where upgrading there older SATA I or SATA II systems with newer SATA III drives! Early on many drives had a jumper block to set the interface from SATA III to compatibility mode (SATA I) people didn’t like this! And some people noted a SATA III drive sometimes works in a SATA II system! So that too confused the mindset as well (A slow RPM drive often will appear to work). In any case people would get angry at the system when in fact it was the new drive!

To combat this many drive makers leveraged a technology first seen in Ethernet (802.3), They too had an interface problem! Jumping from 10 to 100 mbps (and then 1000 mbps) people would face issues where the connections just didn’t work as expected! The network folks came up with a brilliant circuit, which senses the data rate of the connection!

mmm… could SATA leverage this? They did! We call this Auto Sense Vs Fixed speed. So you need to review the drives spec sheet to see what the drive is able to support! If it only lists SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) then it will only work in a SATA III system! If it lists the multiple SATA specs then you’re good!

Getting back to your problem: Here we have a fixed SATA III SSD drive WD Blue3D NAND SATA SSD while it will work inside your 2011 iMac you will also need this OWC In-line Digital Thermal Sensor for iMac 2011 Hard Drive Upgrade if you are swapping out your HDD iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Hard Drive Replacement.

Frankly, I recommend adding the drive following this guide Installing iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Dual Drive Kit which will allow you to gain the speed of the SSD by making it your boot drive with your apps and yet hold your data on your HDD!

iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Hard Drive Image

Guide

iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty:

Moderate

—

45 minutes - 1 hour
iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Dual Drive Kit Image

Guide

Installing iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2428 Dual Drive Kit

Difficulty:

Difficult

—

1 - 4 hours

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3 Comments:

@danj - thanks for the quick response, I did not look back until 2 days ago and it gave me some relief that it was the adapters issue. I decided to give it another go to see if the SSD would be recognised, played around for a fair while chopping and changing ports that the adapter went into until if finally saw the SSD, so I transferred the HDD over to the SSD.

I decided to just swap out the HDD with the new SSD as the HDD was on its last legs. SSD is just sooo fast in comparison now to what it was - Like a brand new machine.

Thanks Very Much Dan.

Also, just a quick question - when using Disk Utility to Restore my HD to the new SSD, the option of OS X Base Systems comes up - my question is, if I chose that in the future, what will be on the Base System, what programmes etc.?

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Happy to hear you've got your drive issues worked out.

OS X Base System is an older structure with the onboard recovery. Its basically a small partition on your HD which Disk Utility is seeing. It sounds like you cloned your data over which is not a good idea!

On your new SSD I would just reformat it to a single GUID Journaled partition, then using the proper OS installer (here I would stick with Sierra as the highest) install a fresh OS onto the SSD (that's after I've put it into the system). With the old HDD held in a powered SATA case or universal SATA adapter use the Apple Migration Utility. This leaves the old junk on the HDD and cares over your user accounts, apps & data over.

To make things easier first create a bootable OS installer using this OS image How to upgrade to macOS Sierra Jump down to Step 4 and locate the Blue URL link: Download macOS Sierra (double click on the downloaded file to open it) Then follow this guide How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive

FYI - Here's more on the reason for the new installer If you've got an old macOS install image, it will probably stop working today

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If you're set, don't forget to score the answer and accept it - Thanks!

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