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Hello all. I have an late 2015 27” iMac - I7 4.0 GHz + 3TB Fusion Drive (with 128GB Blade SSD). Running DriverDX, it shows that the lifetime of my SSD is kind of critical
Should I be really worried about it ? Which Blade SSD should I go for? Any recommendation? Also, should I replace the Fusion’s HDD for an SSD like a Samsung EVO 970 or similar? I see a lot of confusion regarding it and I am a bit lost. I have upgraded HDD on old iMacs, MacBook Pros in the past but I know it’s not a simple process when it comes to remove the logic board, but it can be done with some precautions. Which are the parts I’m going to need to have the job done? Please could you list it. I don’t want to open the iMac and realize that something is missing and not be able to finish the job. Thanks for the help. Update (06/20/2020) Hi Dan. Thank you very much for your help. I was checking the link you post about SSD and it says it’s not compatible with Imac 17.1
Do you have any idea where I can find a SSD compatible with my Imac ? I am trying look for something at Ebay, preferable in Europe, but I didn’t have too many options. In case I choose the OWC Aura Pro X2, what would be the difference between them ? I already have all the tools needed and adhesive strips that I bought before and never used. I would like to know if I will need any cable adapter so ? Update (06/21/2020) Here is some info about my system, so you can be sure about it.
Ideally you want a real Apple blade SSD, Go with at least a 512 GB Samsung SSPOLARIS (1 TB would be even better!) which is large enough to hold your OS & Apps with the remainder of the drive left unused for cache & virtual RAM as needed. Then just leave your HDD alone! So you’ll have the SSD be your boot drive and your current HDD as your data drive. If you do vids or music getting the larger SSD will allow you to use it as your work space of your current project then move it over to your HDD when done’ If that’s too expensive go with the OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD which will also work quite well in your system! You should break the Fusion Drive set before you take the blade SSD out following this guide Split Your Fusion Drive Apart Follow this guide to get to the blade SSD iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement The needed tools are listed in the guide or you could get a fuller tool kit so you’ll be ready for your next project! You will need this as well [linked product missing or disabled: IF174-005-1] as the tool you’ll need to get the display off is in the kit (you may want to set a second adhesive set just in case) and getting two sets of Plastic Cards will make taking off the display a lot easier! Update (06/21/2020) OK, sadly Apple designed the system with a custom PCIe interface so your options are limited! I don’t buy parts off of eBay as there are 100% used even when they tell you otherwise! Apple controls its parts suppliers quite tightly so your only source for many parts is in the recycled parts market. Some parts are from parted out new systems! So don’t assume the dedicated parts supplier like BeetsTech doesn’t do this. Drop them an email or call them to get more info on the given part. Even a used PCIe blade SSD is better than jumping to a much slower SATA SSD! Last year I setup over 10 iMac systems using recycled PCIe SSD’s none of the owners had any issues. These are mostly students in the arts video and music production which are both very hard uses. So I’m not overly worried. Granted I verified the health of the drive before I installed it. Maybe the better direction for you is to just get a replacement system which has a factory installed blade SSD (new or used) and then add in the second SATA drive in it or just use an external Thunderbolt drive which is much faster! As an example I have a 2013 Mac Pro which has a 2 GB blade SSD and I have a SSD RAID drive which has four 2 TB drives for my data drive.
Hello If I remove the blade SSD and leave that slot empty, can I use the computer from the SATA drive only? Since it is so hard to find the correct SSD, I might just leave it out and swap the hard disk for a SSD instead. But will the iMac work like that? Faan
After some research I decided to go with a Samsung Evo Plus 2TB M2 SSD on my iMac, I just needed the M2 adapter. Spend 450,00 EUR total ( SSD, Adapter, M2 enclosure, adhesive - I already had the tools, so no need to buy it ), instead of paying 600,0 EUR for the OWC SSD. So far, no regrets at all. Split the Fusion Drive using another tutorial, because after Mohave the disks are converted to APFS ( https://medium.com/@ObjSal/split-fusion-… ). It took some time to take the iMac apart and clean all the dust inside, specially at the Power Supply and Fan. Some parts on Ifix tutorial were a little bit different on my iMac ( 27 - Late 2015 ) but not that hard to figure it out, except the Power Supply, which has a hiden screw to remove the board. Put it all back together, it took a little longer on the first start up and it seems to take longer to show the Apple logo, but in general start up process is a little faster with the Samsung M2 SSD over Apple SSD. For 3 days I have never had any problem, but I did let the iMac hibernate, which seems to be the most common issue and haven’t tried to recover from the internet and install boot camp. I am getting up to 3300 mb/s read-write speed, so pretty happy with that. If you are in the same situation I was, I can tell you to go all the way with the M2 SSD. Probably the Samsung Evo Pro would be better choice, but I am happy with the Evo Plus.
