Chosen Solution
Hello! I’m about to upgrade my iMac A1311 Mid2010. This is in my mind: Replacing my old 500 GB 3.5" HDD with a Crucial SSD 256 GBReplacing the optical drive with a 2.5" 500 GB HD (7200 RPM) Then using the old HD to make an external USB drive. Question is: I’ve been reading about problems of the fan when you replace the original hard drive. In the answers given I’ve found this interesting solution using OWC In-line Digital Thermal Sensor. Fine, but what about second hard drive located into the optical drive? Does it need a new thermal sensor as well? Or I can just install it with no issues? Thank you for answering M.
Let me try to pull this together: You may have an issue with the SSD in this system as the systems SATA ports are only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) so the SSD needs to able to run at this SATA I/O speed. You’ll need to review the spec sheet to make sure. If it does not say it’s downwardly compatible by listing SATA II then you’ll need a different SSD. You’ll also need an adapter frame 2.5" to 3.5". I don’t think this is a good option in this setup. Frankly I would turn this around. I would replace the HD with the new HD and I would use a 3.5" drive you will need the OWC in-line sensor (even if you had gone with the SSD you would have needed it). Then place the SSD in the optical carrier. If you have a used 2.5" drive you wanted to repurpose here you’ll then need a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter frame here as well. You may want to look at just going with a hybrid drive which would be cheaper and gains the performance I think you’ve looking for, yet offers the deep storage a traditional HD offers. The drive I recommend here is the Seagate desktop SSHD. I would stick with the 1 TB drive here as I suspect you don’t have a lot of stuff. FYI: Apple has hinted this system is on the edge supporting macOS Sierra. While it might work the OS maybe too heavy to be very useful.
Hello, I’m you, I would put the SSD in place of the optical drive and I will not change the HDD location Because, you can get the temperature sensor, but you can not on the HDD and the OWC solution works very well. I used to change the HDD of my iMac by a SSD. If it lacks the sensor, the fan will start rotating at maximum. The Fan Control software can solve this problem, but you have to set the speed fan manually.
