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Hey there, I know this is an old thread but I'm about to open up my iMac. I was looking at upgrading the RAM & the HDD to an SSD. Question, are you able to keep the HDD in for additional storage? Is that worth it? So I would have a HDD & SDD in there.
Is this a good question?
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@andrewoliv82900 - I would just go upto 16GB of RAM
As you have a Fusion Drive you'll want to make a full backup and setup a bootable USB thumb drive with the macOS your system is running as you'll needed later.
Here you have both connectors which allows you to replace the almost useless drive Apple Blade SSD installed to something better! Here I would go with a 1TB SSD blade drive. Ideally, I would get a pin compatible drive from OWC. I still don't like seeing the M.2 adapters some use to use an M.2 SSD as they can iffy! I've seen the adapters fail as well as some SSD's which are just fine in a real M.2 case or PC system.
As to the order of things, after backing up you'll want to reformat both drives using the bootable OS installer thumb drive as the boot-up drive using Disk Utility. Now open it up carefully! Take the logic board out swap-out the SSD and re-assemble.
Using painters tape to hold the display on. Now with the USB thumb drive boot the system up. Now go into Disk Utility format the blade SSD and name it so you know it will be the boot drive. Launch the OS installer from the drive and setup the blade SSD as the boot drive.
Once you're running you'll want to restore you Apps to the SSD and put your media music and vids back onto the clean HDD as well as any older stuff. The blade SSD should only hold active projects and you want to leave 1/4 of the drive unused so the OS and your Apps has elbow room!
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Amazing, thanks DanJ. I'm reading that I might NOT have the possibility of a SSD Blade Drive, there is conflicting info out there about this one. I have the iMac 19,2 and EMC No. 3195. I'm reading I can on the OWC website...
So if I open this up, I would like to do the following:
Upgrade to an Intel i5 or i7 (saw a video on a i9 but think that's pointless)
2TB SSD
32gd RAM
And should I got with OWC products?
I'd like to max this out and have a solid machine for years to come. I do photo/video editing on my laptop but would love to switch to the iMac for the screen/multiple screen usage.
Really appreciate your advice and help here. Sorry for all the questions. I don't want to &&^& this up 🤣
@andrewoliv82900 - A Fusion Drive'd system has two drives which are 'fused' to look like one drive. The SATA HDD is the core drive, but to make it more efficient Apple via the OS fuses a small blade SSD. But Apple has gotten cheap! Only the Fusion Drive and dedicated SSD only systems have the connector and support components loaded on the logic board. So if you saw two drives in the Disk Utility > Device listing view then you have a Fusion Drive config'd system! So taking out the impish SSD 24GB and sliding in Hefty 1.0 TB will make your system smoke! With the 16GB of RAM you won't have any lag. I wouldn't go larger on either as you still have the second HDD drive to hold stuff.
And what if I want to get rid of the HDD completely? I already have a very large external for backups/storage.
@andrewoliv82900 - Well... Sure you can pull it and only install the Blade SSD as that the faster interface. But while using an external drive also works, it's not as fast as the internal SATA port, but the drives performance also plays a role here. SATA HDD's tend to be slower than SATA SSD's. Do remember the HDD here will be empty as we are off loading the OS and Apps to the faster SSD so it will have a lot more room.
In the end it's up to you and what your use (workflow) is.
Lastly, upgrading the CPU is a bit tricky! As it's easy to damage the socket pins if you haven't done a few your system really can't support the i9. You need to stick with the chips Apple offered.
Going to 32GB of RAM for most won't help. The only place it makes sense is video/image rendering or heavy object drawing (Massive Art, building design or circuit design).
Going with a 2TB SSD might be useful if you are doing a lot of video rendering, otherwise stick with the 1TB.
DanJ, you are truly amazing. Thank you so much for all your responses. I’m going to tackle this head on and look forward to upgrading my machine. Have a wonderful week and thanks again.
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@andrewoliv82900 - What does your system currently have for RAM?
Also open up Disk Utility, click on the icon in the left corner select the view for All Devices how many do you see? If you have a Fusion Drived system you should see two thats important! Let us know what you discover.
by DanJ
I have 2 memory slots, 4GB are currently installed, each accepts 2400 MHz DDR4. Disk Utility Findings: Fusion Drive - Container disk2 & Macintosh HD - Macintosh HD - Data. I want to open this thing up and upgrade as much as I can. What do you recommend upgrading to bring it to the best it can be?
by Andrew Oliver
Yes, you can keep the HDD for extra storage alongside the SSD. It’s definitely worth it for capacity and performance.
by Rashmi Kandhil