Possible to safely upgrade the drive to SSD?

http://blog.macsales.com/2751-proprietar...

this pretty much covers it. So no real solution other than shorting the 2 pins or waiting for a work around.

hope this helps

Or replace the dvd superdrive with a SSD drive and use the HDD as a second internal drive. If you really need a dvd drive, just get an external like lacie or what not that uses usb or firewire.

Isn't there some software on a mac to allow you to change fan speed? On windows there is something called speedfan... I'd search for a similar program.

I manage to replace my iMac HD by an SSD and it works really great !

The probe was indeed an issue... fixed by cutting the Hardrive side's of the probe and connecting the two wires together. A piece of "electric proof" scotch and here you go ;-)

You don't monitor the drive temperature anymore but you can always do it later :p

The software you mentioned is HDD fan control (www.hddfancontrol.com) I use it now after upgrading to a SSD (Recommend the upgrade! SSD's RULE!), and you dont have to cut any cable either.

I just took apart my iMac 27" late 2009 (even the cpu and applied new thermal paste).

Replaced the 1TB Hitachi SATA drive with the Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black 6Gbit SATAIII - the iMac late 2009 does not support the 6Gbit SATAIII. At first I thought it was the 3Gbit SATA cable that was in the iMac, then I swapped the SATA Cable for a 6Gbit cable still no luck. Therefore I had to put a jumper in the HDD to change it to 3Gbit. That worked well and no issues

Took out the Super drive and replaced it with an SSD (Runcore V 2.5" 240GB) and caddy to hold the SSD. - No issues with compatibility and runs at 3Gbit.

Temperature is what we all want to know.

The 1TB has the temp sensor cable directly plugged into the HDD, so if you disconnect it the HDD Fan goes crazy. The new 2TB Caviar Black does not have a temp sensor to plug into.

The Superdrive has a Thermal Temp Sensor that is stuck on the outside of the drive.

My solution was to swap the Super Drive's Thermal sensor with the 1TB's Thermal sensor. Reason being the HDD actually gets hot so I need the iMac to monitor the HDD's heat and speed up the fans when required.

The SSD doesn't get really hot, so I disconnected the Super Drive's Fan. Other than that, there's no fan issues anymore.

It's all working fine now BUT I could be wrong as maybe the SSD will get hot?

That's 1 out of 3 fan not usable as I've disconnected it. Any ideas?

"...Took out the Super drive and replaced it with an SSD (Runcore V 2.5" 240GB) and caddy to hold the SSD. - No issues with compatibility and runs at 3Gbit..."

Hi - did you end up booting from your SSD in the optical bay? I have an early 2009 and I'm thinking of putting a boot drive SSD in the optical bay and leaving the current hard drive in place. System profiler tells me that my negotiated speed on my optical drive is 1.5G, so I'm encouraged to see that you managed to get 3G with that drive.

How's it been - reliable? Does the SSD in the optical bay get hot?

Many thanks,

John

Hi John,

I believe the optical bay isn't getting hot at all but because I put my fans down at a slow speed now the overall iMac gets quite hot.

I'm still experiencing lag issues but not sure if that is related to the SSD being on the optical bay port (converted to SATA).

This setup hasn't been really working for me. I have not figured out if it's because:

1) SSD is in the optical bay port

or

2) OSX Lion instability issues (software related)

Booting up the computer makes it faster again but after about a night's use of computing it slows down to the point where you want to put a hole through the screen(of course i really won't).

Thanks

Jonathan

Sorry I forgot to answer:

I did boot from the SSD in the optical bay.

And I am getting 3G on the SSD on the optical bay.

Thanks very much

Jonathan

Hi - that's really useful - thanks so much for taking the time to reply!

John

Hi - Sorry if I missed the advice for my question here but: What I want to do is remove the built-in Apple 3.5 HD on my iMac late 2009 27" 11,1 and replace it with a SSD. My goal is to not have a spinning HD in the thing. Can someone kindly tell me if this is feasible and what I need to do? I gather there is a heat sensor / fan control issue if the sensor on the 3.5 HD is not attached, correct?

Of course I figure I'll need some kind of 2.5 to 3.5 HD mount. If anyone can provide a link - thank you!

Thanks

Did some more reading so I'm more up to speed here now.. So it seems from some posts I've read here and other places that shorting the HD thermal cable at it's connectors is one way to avoid the fans from running high or use the hdd fan control software mentioned here. I'd like to avoid both of those methods..

Does anyone know of a 2.5 to 3.5 HD mount a SSD can fit into that has a thermal sensor input the iMac thermal sensor can plug into?

Thanks