2011 21.5" Drive died, ordered SSD. Want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

[lokiju]

I ordered this Samsung SSD today since it's on sale at the moment. Good timing I guess since my drive died last night.

I figure since I have to crack this thing open, I might as well add the eSATA external connector I've been wanting for sometime now so I was going to pick up a SATA to eSATA 3' cable today from my local Frys.

I want to confirm before I get mid tear down on my iMac that 1: I don't need anything special to swap my dead 500GB OEM hard drive with the Samsung SSD drive like cables or adapters of any sort and 2: all I need to get an external eSATA connection is just a SATA to eSATA cable like this one in order to get a eSATA connection externally on my iMac. I planned on just routing the eSATA end out through the memory door area as most instructions suggest.

I've never had or used eSATA anything before so I'm wondering if just the extra SATA connection on the iMac motherboard is all that's needed for the eSATA end to work? How does it get power? I guess eSATA enclosures are powered on their own?

I'll of course have a ESD strap and am going to pick up a spudger from Frys as well to get all those cables safely disconnected without pulling on the actual ribbons themselves.

Thankfully I already picked up some heavy duty suction cups from Harbor Freight a few weeks ago as I was thinking one of these days I'd like to put a SSD in my iMac. I just didn't plan on it being so soon. 😛

 

[cl-scott]

The iMac uses a proprietary SATA cable on the iMac. In a sense at least. The MLB (main logic board) end is like a 2.5" cable connector on some models, and in more recent models there's a special end for the power connector. Also, unless you're talking about the secondary HDD that can go into newer model iMacs, the internal drive on iMacs is 3.5", so if you're going to try and put a 2.5" SSD into that slot, then you're going to need some custom way of mounting it in the case as well as some kind of 3.5" SATA to 2.5" SATA cable adapter. If you were thinking about putting it into the 2.5" "bay" then unless you ordered the unit with a drive in that bay, it will not have any of the necessary mounting infrastructure, so you would need to find some third party way of sourcing that and putting it in yourself.

Have you actually looked at any kind of a teardown for the iMac? You will have to at least lift the MLB up in order to do what you want to do, so this is not something for the faint of heart to accomplish. You will also need some precision screwdrivers. T6, T8, and T10 Torx if memory serves. You shouldn't need a spudger for this, because that isn't going to help you get the various sensor cables out in the least, trust me. Best thing you can do is let your fingernails grow out a little. You will need at least a somewhat long and thin neck on the T10 screwdriver because the screws for the LCD panel are recessed below the lip of the enclosure. You'll also want to make sure that T10 screwdriver is magnetized or you will never get those display screws back in without a long series of choice four letter words flowing out of you.

It's probably a good thing you asked this question, because you seem rather ill prepared at present. Working on an iMac is not the same as working on your average desktop computer. Be especially careful of the PSU, which is exposed and HURTS if you get shocked by it. It can manage to hold a painful charge, even after being disconnected from the unit for quite some time. Be even more careful of the backlight PSU, which is high voltage and might even be potentially lethal, but you shouldn't need to remove that for what you're looking to do. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you watched a youtube video on how to do this, that you can do it no problem. Dealing with the iMac is almost as much art as science with all the various little cables, and what not. So my final tip for you, is to make sure to take the RAM out first. At least out of the couple hundred iMacs I took apart, it always made it much easier to get the MLB realigned properly.

 

[lokiju]

The iMac uses a proprietary SATA cable on the iMac. In a sense at least. The MLB (main logic board) end is like a 2.5" cable connector on some models, and in more recent models there's a special end for the power connector. Also, unless you're talking about the secondary HDD that can go into newer model iMacs, the internal drive on iMacs is 3.5", so if you're going to try and put a 2.5" SSD into that slot, then you're going to need some custom way of mounting it in the case as well as some kind of 3.5" SATA to 2.5" SATA cable adapter. If you were thinking about putting it into the 2.5" "bay" then unless you ordered the unit with a drive in that bay, it will not have any of the necessary mounting infrastructure, so you would need to find some third party way of sourcing that and putting it in yourself.

Have you actually looked at any kind of a teardown for the iMac? You will have to at least lift the MLB up in order to do what you want to do, so this is not something for the faint of heart to accomplish. You will also need some precision screwdrivers. T6, T8, and T10 Torx if memory serves. You shouldn't need a spudger for this, because that isn't going to help you get the various sensor cables out in the least, trust me. Best thing you can do is let your fingernails grow out a little. You will need at least a somewhat long and thin neck on the T10 screwdriver because the screws for the LCD panel are recessed below the lip of the enclosure. You'll also want to make sure that T10 screwdriver is magnetized or you will never get those display screws back in without a long series of choice four letter words flowing out of you.

It's probably a good thing you asked this question, because you seem rather ill prepared at present. Working on an iMac is not the same as working on your average desktop computer. Be especially careful of the PSU, which is exposed and HURTS if you get shocked by it. It can manage to hold a painful charge, even after being disconnected from the unit for quite some time. Be even more careful of the backlight PSU, which is high voltage and might even be potentially lethal, but you shouldn't need to remove that for what you're looking to do. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you watched a youtube video on how to do this, that you can do it no problem. Dealing with the iMac is almost as much art as science with all the various little cables, and what not. So my final tip for you, is to make sure to take the RAM out first. At least out of the couple hundred iMacs I took apart, it always made it much easier to get the MLB realigned properly.

Good catch on the 2.5" drive size and needing an adapter.

I'm assuming something like this should do the trick, right?

I've torn down endless blade, 1U servers, SANS, etc to the chassis to replace motherboards. I understand taking apart stuff like this.

I haven't had a ton of time to research the details of the process which is why I created this thread in the hopes someone who has done this before such as yourself could provide some helpful feedback that'll save me headache in the end.

Thank you!

 

[cl-scott]

A little hard to tell from the photos, but that does look like it'll work.

One other tip, is if your iMac has the actual video card and not just the integrated chipset, keep in mind it's a MXM card, and you'll see the heatsink for it up by the HDD. Be careful of that because there's only a couple of small screws holding it in, and you don't want to damage the card or port on the MLB. It's almost impossible to get the MLB out without using that as a handle, so just be aware of what it is, and treat it gingerly.

Also make sure you get a fairly long eSATA cable, since you'll need to route it around the ODD fan. So that'll add probably an extra 2-3" onto what you need. Then make sure to plug in all the sensor cables BEFORE you start screwing down the MLB, because it's real easy for one (or more) of them to get stuck under the MLB.

One other thing that comes to mind that you should be aware of, is that starting with the 2011 iMacs, the SATA cable apparently started carrying the data for the HDD temp. So you may have to live with the fact that the HDD fan will be running at 100% all the time. With a SSD you may be able to get away with simply not connecting that fan, but it's up to you. If the SMC doesn't get thermal data for some component, the corresponding cooling fan kicks into high gear and can be quite loud.

Be careful of the displayport cable used for the LCD panel. It is a PITA to get back into it's port, and the locking lever will pull free very easily. It can also be bent out of shape very easily. So I would recommend at least trying to find a source for a replacement cable. Hopefully you won't need it, but there's a decent chance you will.

Finally, I personally always found it easiest to work on iMacs kind of upside down. Lay it "flat" on the stand, and have the top of the display closest to you. That puts the HDD right by you, and I just found it much easier to work on the units that way. And again, don't get cocky, because the iMac is an impressive bit of engineering, and not entirely in a good way. Confidence is fine, just make sure that's all it is or you'll probably wind up with a broken iMac.

 

[lokiju]

So I did the bulk of the work last night. Wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.

I took out the Logic board, connected the SATA cable and carefully reseated everything.

Took the OEM hard drive with tray out and have it ready now to just put the new SSD into the 2.5" adapter and then into the tray.

I guess I'll have to address the fan speed issue but I actually already found a app that lets you manually control that awhile ago so I can probably work around it at least.

Can't wait to get this thing finished up tonight and back up and running!

I bought the Mountain Lion upgrade yesterday and have a USB flash drive ready to go to install from right away.

 

[lokiju]

Well I did it all mostly without a hitch.

I had a HUGE WTF moment when I put it all back together and hit the power button and nothing happened. Felt like crying thinking I killed my iMac 😛

I took back off the glass, the LCD and then got a flashlight and looked really close at all the connections I put back on after re-seating the Logic board.

This little connector is for the power button

and one of the two wires backed out just a hair from being seating in the connector end which I noticed after looking super close at every little thing.

I used a sort of dental like pick and was able to get behind it and push it back in properly.

I was sweating putting it back together and hitting the power the second time but much to my relief, it powered up and worked perfectly!! WHEW!!!

After that I sure enough had the full blast hard drive fan going all the time issue as I expected.

I tried a number of free solutions out there but none of them worked sadly, I'm not sure if it's because I did a clean install of Mountain Lion and the free ones are just not able to work (yet) with ML.

I ended up trying the HDD Fan Control app after all the free solutions, which thankfully had a 1 hour trial to prove if it worked before buying.

As soon as I installed it the fan slowed down to where I can no longer hear it.

Hated spending $30 for a license but worth it since it actually worked, plus has a nice interface and handy features at least.

I didn't actually NEED to remove my logic board just to replace the dead OEM drive but since I was in there anyway I figured why not use that spare SATA connector on the logic board and route it out the RAM expansion port on the bottom. That was by far the scariest part of the whole undertaking. Had I only needed to replace the hard drive, it would have been pretty simple.

I didn't have enough time to wait for a SATA to eSATA cable to arrive via some online order but I did already have a pretty long standard SATA cable with a right angle on one end on hand so that is what out ended up routing to the outside of the case.

I've already found and have on the way via snail mail a male sata to esata cable that'll let me adapt the end I have access to externally to a proper eSATA I can use on a 5 Bay Hard Drive enclosure I'm ordering that has a eSATA port multiplier built in.

This was up there though in skills required. If you haven't replaced a motherboard on a blade server or a laptop then I'd advise anyone against taking this one if they're unsure of their skill level.

As for the Samsung 830 256GB SSD, it's amazingly fast!

While I was getting things set up and doing a few reboots in the process I had one of those moments where I sent the iMac on a reboot and looked away to do something else and when I looked back I had thought it didn't reboot. It took a moment to realize that it reboot so fast that I didn't even notice it happen!

 

[Cable God]

Good stuff! I did this with my 27' i5 iMac with a Crucial M4 256gb. Didn't need the suction cups as the glass panel is held in with magnets and it just pops off. I shorted the HDD temp sensor like I saw on ifixit to stop the fan from blasting.