SSD on iMac 2006 model

joleisa

Junior Member
Jan 17, 2012
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hi everybody;

I need a suggestion.

I upgraded many parts of my old iMac. I put an 1tb 3,5 hdd, I upgraded the CPU to Core 2 Duo, changed wi-fi card etc..

now my optical drive is broken. I actually noticed it now, cause I use it barely (last time was almost 1 year ago :)) So I decided to replace it with a Caddy for an 2,5 hard disk.

So comes to my mind to use an SSD. I am thinking to buy a cheap SSD to use it to boot and for application (30GB will be enough for it).

the problem is: for optical drive I have a PATA connection (eh iMac is 6 years old). I already found a Caddy with a PATA connection out and SATA inside so I can use it with any SATA drive on the market. But I don't know if its convenient for an SSD. I know that PATA can reach 133MB/s (maybe limited to 100MB/s I'm not sure) and it will use an adapter (PATA > SATA) which can slow more the speeds I think.

Is it convenient?

or should I swap the main HD (SATA I) with the one I will use for optical drive. I mean I have a 2,5 external drive (500MB but unfortunately 5400rpm), I can put it in optical drive caddy. I can put an SSD in place of the actual 1TB HDD (7200 rpm 64mb cache) and use the 1TB as external drive.

WIll I gain much migrating from 1TB 7200rpm 64MB cache HDD to an SSD always on SATA I (1,5Gbit/s) motherboard?

thanks