Changing your computer’s internal spinning hard disk to a solid-state drive (SSD) is like getting a turbocharged upgrade; add some RAM, and you’ve got yourself a new computer in performance terms.
My setup: iMac 27” [late 2013], 1TB, 8GB RAM
Problem: Inexplicable beachballs, auto restarts, hangs, slow boots, very slow app launches…
• Apple Hardware Test: all ok
• Apple Disk First Aid: all ok/repeated corruption of Snapshots
- Approach: Clean installed OS, data restored from iCloud and Time Machine. Problems recurred after a week.
My diagnosis: Ageing disk, probably with few bad sectors that Apple formatting APFS was tripping over. Decided to change internal HDD to SSD, and add more RAM.
Samsung 860EVO 500GB seemed the best, affordable choice. Would have preferred the ‘blade’ NVMe 970 Pro, but it is more than double the price; more importantly, it’s incompatible with the iMac’s pin and channel configuration.
So, I picked the Samsung 860 EVO and
16 GB of Crucial RAM
for my upgrade.
Upgrading the internal drive of a slim-profile (5mm) iMac is not easy. Even in experienced hands, there is a very high risk of damaging the LED display panel, which has to be sliced off the aluminium chassis (see iFixit’s tutorial). Even more dangerous is remounting the display panel, as the quality and strength of the tapes sold online are highly suspect, with many users reporting that their displays fell off and smashed after remounting with such tapes.
The OEM adhesive strip used by Apple is a custom 3M VHB tape (5mm wide, 1 mm thick). So I spoke with 3M India, and after keeping me dangling in hope for 3 weeks, they stopped taking my calls. Thanks 3M. :(
The workaround was to shop around with Apple Authorised Resellers / Service. None of them would sell me the mounting tape separately, but they would do my disk upgrade for a price ranging from ₹4800 to ₹2500 (tape + service). Seemed the better option, as it mitigated the risk of damaging the display panel and ruining my Mac.
Preparation:
• Installed the Crucial RAM myself (8GB x 2 slots).
• Cloned my existing hard drive to the Samsung SSD 860 EVO, and ran it externally as the boot drive to check things out, for about a week.
• Took my Mac and new, data-loaded and bootable SSD to an Apple Authorised Service Center, on the appointed date.
2 hours later, my upgrade was done.
I did not buy or use a 3.5 to 2.5” drive adapter; double-sided tape is sufficient to mount the SSD inside the iMac’s chassis (technicians concurred). Neither does the SSD require an external ‘thermal sensor’; it runs cool.
Post upgrade:
1. The first thing to do after the SSD is the internal boot drive is to startup normally, and do a full Time Machine backup.
2. Once done, ENABLE TRIM (by default, Apple disables TRIM on 3rd party SSDs).
3. Open Terminal, and type in (exactly, without the quote marks): “sudo trimforce enable”, then Y when asked ‘Do you want to proceed?’
4. Reboot and press SHIFT (for SAFE BOOT)
5. After boot, go to > About this Mac > System Report > SATA / SATA Express and see that TRIM is enabled
6. Reboot normally, and you’re done!
* Note 1: It is ALWAYS a good idea to keep at least 25% of your drive free for better system performance, so move those large files to an always-connected external device.
* Note 2: Samsung Magician does not have a Mac version
Post the upgrade from OEM Seagate 7200 rpm 1TB to Samsung 860 EVO SSD 500GB, drive speed is up almost 300%. All the spinning beachballs, unexpected shutdowns, and interminable startup times are gone. Things work at a snap (almost zero latency).
So far, I’m delighted!
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