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>> I have a friend with a 2011 27" iMac that uses thunderbolt 1. It has an absurdly slow HDD. Almost every single one of those that we bought, had a hard drive

>> I have a friend with a 2011 27" iMac that uses thunderbolt 1. It has an absurdly slow HDD. Almost every single one of those that we bought, had a hard drive failure. They used WD Green drives. I replaced them with WD Blacks, and if SSD's had been cheaper in 2012/13 we would have used them, but these were graphics designers. You will need to control the fans with software like SMC Fan Control, which is annoying, or better yet, this harness: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIMACHDD11/ You can pop the glass off an iMac with a credit card (or your fingernails, they don't glue them on that year, instead they used magnets) and with a torx bit you can tilt the screen out of the way and pull the bad drive out.

abakker 7y ago
Yeah, you need some suction cups to do it easily, but drive swaps on iMacs are trivial. If you prepare. Get the tools for $5 and go for it.
- Dr_Jefyll 7y ago
  Rather than buying suction cups (for which I would subsequently have had no further use), I managed very nicely by using just a couple of strips of packing tape. Each strip formed a "handle" -- one on each side of the screen, same as you'd do with the suction cups. There are various ways to manage this, I suppose, but in my case each strip began as a roughly 16 inch length. I folded it 180 degrees at the halfway point and allowed the two legs to stick to each other for about 4 inches. Then the two legs part company, turning 90 degrees but in opposite directions -- and that 90 degree point is where the tape meets the surface of the glass.
  - abakker 7y ago
    This works, but it is risky since I've seen it damage the screen coatings on some of the iMacs. Some of the older ones seemed to have softer coatings.
MonaroVXR 7y ago
Why did you buy an iMac for graphic designers? (No sarcasm or hate) When you are doing heavy lifting, the iMac isn't that good enough?

abakker 7y ago

Yeah, you need some suction cups to do it easily, but drive swaps on iMacs are trivial. If you prepare. Get the tools for $5 and go for it.

Dr_Jefyll 7y ago
Rather than buying suction cups (for which I would subsequently have had no further use), I managed very nicely by using just a couple of strips of packing tape. Each strip formed a "handle" -- one on each side of the screen, same as you'd do with the suction cups. There are various ways to manage this, I suppose, but in my case each strip began as a roughly 16 inch length. I folded it 180 degrees at the halfway point and allowed the two legs to stick to each other for about 4 inches. Then the two legs part company, turning 90 degrees but in opposite directions -- and that 90 degree point is where the tape meets the surface of the glass.
- abakker 7y ago
  This works, but it is risky since I've seen it damage the screen coatings on some of the iMacs. Some of the older ones seemed to have softer coatings.

MonaroVXR 7y ago

Why did you buy an iMac for graphic designers? (No sarcasm or hate) When you are doing heavy lifting, the iMac isn't that good enough?