iMac 27-inch SSD Install (Out with the Superdrive, in with the SSD)

Being in that the optical drive in the iMac uses a full speed SATA connection (albeit using a ‘slimline’ SATA connector), and the fact that I rarely use optical media – I decided to swap out the Superdrive with a 128GB SSD drive.

Not large enough to use for all of the data on the iMac, but more than enough for the OS, all of my apps, and even a couple VMWare fusion images I use on a regular basis.  Meanwhile the 1TB 3.5 drive handles all the rest of the junk (download files, iTunes library, etc.)

The results – After cloning my boot drive (SuperDuper), and restarting – the boot time was cut down to less than 1/4 of what it was with the 1TB drive. Launch times on big/slow apps (Eclipse, DBvisualizer, MS Word,etc.) is incredible.

Notes:  The slimline 2.5 Caddy was purchased from NewmodeUS.

A couple pics:

SSD Drive and Slimline sata drive caddy

SSD Drive and Slimline sata drive caddy

SSD Mounted in Caddy

SSD Mounted in Caddy

The iMac opened up, exposing the Superdrive

The iMac opened up, exposing the Superdrive

SSD installed

SSD installed