2011 iMac SSD Upgrade with Thermal Sensor w/ resetting NVRAM Tutorial no steps skipped
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- 2011 iMac SSD upgrade tutorial with OWC thermal sensor kit. How to clone existing harddrive to NVRAM reset which enables imac to acknowledge there has been hardware changes making smooth running imac. You need to perform this step after making any hardware changes to your imac preventing any flickering of screen or any other hardware issues.
1. OWC Thermal Sensor HDD Upgrade kit
www.amazon.com...
2. NewerTech AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket
www.amazon.com...
3. Sabrent 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool-free External Hard Drive Enclosure
www.amazon.com...
4. SuperDuper HDD Cloning app
www.shirt-pock...
Great video. I took a look at several videos before doing the upgrade and this was the only one which addressed copying the contents of the old HDD. I did mostly the same but instead of this specific SSD mounting bracket I used a generic pair of U-shaped pieces of metal that they sometimes give away with SSDs. That did the job as well, but only after several tries (bottom of the SSD is facing you, which is not what you are used to with PCs). Note that this bracket definitely helps you putting everything in the right direction.
Finally, someone did an accurate video. Merci beaucoup.
Thanks, I ended up breaking one of the LCD cables when I was putting it back together. So fragile. Got a replacement LCD from eBay and my Mac is now super fast with the SSD drive. What a difference.
Easily done I'm afraid - hope it wasn't the LVDS connector... :O
Thank you. I used this along with the OWC instructions for hard drive replacement. I can’t believe how much faster my 2011 iMac is now. Super easy to do. I used a Time Machine to restore my iMac. Took about 1.5 hours to restore. Command R on boot. Choose disk utilities. Format to Mac OS X journaled. And choose that ssd as your restore destination.
Yes its faster. But you don't need OWC at all. I'ts just a BS for noobs. In case your HDD Have TS which is actually not a TS. All you need is short 1st and 4th wire on your existing cable.
Can anybody confirm this mod?
Excellent video. Better even than the ones put out by iFixIt and OWC. It really helped me upgrade my HDD with an SSD on my 2011 iMac without a problem. BTW, the amount of dust in there was mind-blowing.
Excellent video.
Straight to the point, with no time-wasting, and yet shows all the required stages, unlike many other videos, which often assume knowledge of various processes.
Very good camera angles too, which helps a lot.
Thanks.
This is THE video to do this upgrade !!!
Clearly explained, detailed and good camera work. Changed my seagate HDD myself in 2013 because Apple wanted to retain the HDD. Although the change was free because of some fault with the original seagate HDD, I wasn't going to have all my work and personal details possibly being accessed by the agents (even after a disk wipe) who were doing the exchange - so I decided to take a risk and replaced the seagate HDD with a WDD hard drive myself. Unfortunately, the thermal sensor cable wouldn't fit the WDD HDD. Had to use a temperature sensor software (SSD fan control). Apart from that, everything worked well and has been working well since. Now for the next phase in the life of my geriatric mid-2010 iMac - we're going to attempt an SSD 'transplant'. I'm not terribly good at all this but videos like yours really help and saves a lot of us a hefty labour charge.Thank you Mark Kim.
Thank you, very much for this video! You give a serenity and security simplicity to the whole process, no music no frills and strait to the point! Great Video!!!!❤
Keep making videos...this was finally a video that was clean, clear, and concise. Thank You!!
great video man one of the best ones I've seen
Followed your video and an iFixit guide yesterday to rejuvenate my 2011 21.5” iMac. Thanks for the guide! I installed a 1TB SSD and windows 10 boot camp partition using steps from a Stackexchange article.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I couldn't find an accurate video on OWC's website that showed everything including the thermal adapter. It appears your video would also apply to mid-2010 models, but I'll take my chances.
Thanks for the video. Very helpful when upgrading my 2011 iMac. Be very careful with those tiny connectors. Extra lighting is recommended. Good tips on resetting the NVRAM - it helps shorter my boot time when I did it (time between physical power-on and Apple logo). Overall boot time on mine is only ~20s, compared to ~60s on original HD. Overall response time when opening apps is also noticeably faster. Very happy with the upgrade. I use WD Blue 1TB SSD.
I could have seen this video before I replaced the hard drive of my iMac this week. The FAN is very annoying. I'm using a FAN CONTROL but I think the best choice is use the thermal sensor as you did on the video. Good job, thank you.
Had ~ 500GB to transfer, so the initial SSD copy took like 9+ hrs. Rest of it went pretty smooth , took an hour for me, thanks for your great set of instructions..
Many thanks for uploading this, I was very hesitant about doing this but this video has convinced me to do it. The heat sensor and the resetting the NVRAM weren't covered in other videos I watched. Here goes ....!
Good luck to you sir and I’m glad this helped a little
BTW, you can actually remove the HDD and install the SSD without removing the screen. Just remove the top left cable, then lean the screen against your chest while you replace the drive!
100% agree just did this today avoid removing screen if possible.
Put a video up..
Good idea! I dread taking off that ribbon cable. I literally have to connect it over and over, put one screw in to hold the screen, power on and test. 1 in 5 times its ok and i can finally close it up. The black tape on one corner was pealing up and its hard to get in and lock down. Those ribbon cables are a horrible.
I did that. Had the wife hold it up. Took just 15 minutes. I also didn't use an adapter, just plugged the 2.5 SSD into the plugs, put foam and 2 sided tape on the back, taped it to that round thing and put back together.
I've done a few of these without disconnecting anything - just lie the iMac flat and prop up the screen with two biros. Pointed ends in the LCD frame holes. You'll will need a very short Torx tool or use a driver bit and ¼" spanner to loosen the HDD screws. I always use a 2.5->3.5" adapter but no doubt sticky tape would work. Another tip: you can just push a thumbnail behind the top corner of the glass to prise it away from the magnets - no need for suckers.
I've also missed the extension cable, the fans were going crazy and fixed that noise with some 3rd party fan control BUT the kernel_task is now slowing down the mac because it can't read the sensor values properly I guess. The build-in diagnostics did report an error (TH00-9.000). It's really annoying how slow it became and I don't think buying now a 40€ cable is worth it for this mac since it's only be used for web stuff and email. Just tested Linux on it and it's running so damn well that I'm gonna install it now.
Thank you for this really good video, straight on point
FYI the drive adapter listed is for an external drive, Amazon has listings for the AdaptaDrive bracket shown in the video and also for a Sabrent drive adapter. Both are for internal drive mounting.
thank you for pointing that out. I updated the link information on my video.
Excellent video getting right to the point! A bit late to the conversation, but I would imagine attaching the thermal sensor on the other side (the circuit board side) of the SSD would give more accurate readings. You attached the thermal sensor to the cover side of the SSD. Just an idea.
Bon tutoriel, il faut toutefois penser à activer le Trim par la ligne de commande : "sudo trimforce enable"
Excellent video, I have a mid 2011.... 27 inch iMac, I am definitely doing this upgrade. Thanks man.
Thanks Mark. Good video. Very informative without hours of unnecessary rubbish.
There are some good videos of how to ... but I think this is the best so explained step by step . Thank you so much for for taking time and making nu 1 vid. 🙏
Hi Mark, thanks a lot ! I did the upgrade exactly like you , I upgrade also the ram, and now I have a super fast iMac of 2011!!! Although connecting the small cables was not that easy for me , took me all together 2 hours, but so rewarding, Great !
Isn’t it great to know that 2011 computer can be so fast in 2019 by just upgrading ssd and ram? Enjoy it~~~
Lol people always obsessed with getting the newest model and spending thousands. Im still on my 2009 imac wich runs sooo smooth i did a sdd swap and got the new o.s that way and saved thousands.
Just did mine and it's 21" 2009. Do you experience fan noise issue? It's so loud. Sucks that I'm using manjaro Linux and there is no Mac is anymore. Don't know if I'm ready to throw $50 for a cable 🤔🤔
@@CCG0D The fan noise is because you likely bought a 3rd party HDD, not from Apple. Apple has proprietary firmware on their HDDs that is used to control fan speed when the drives get hot. You can buy a heat sensor kit that will take the place of the firmware or you can use fan control software.
One thing that’s missing from this tutorial is detailing how to remove those four connectors.
I’m having to search for that now, cause I don’t want to destroy my computer.
I read somewhere else that someone did that by pulling something too hard. It’s not clear exactly where to pull from.
1. I am replacing all the screws in the video panel, with brass ones. It is way too hard to get steel ones past the magnets.
2. I had way too much trouble trying to get the ribbon cable back into the video card. Big hands. I found it much easier to attach to the video card first, then into the video panel.
Thank you very much for all the tutorial.....specially for this 6:53
When I changed on my SSD I just applied the original temperature sensor because when I installed the other that you are talking about it didn’t work the fans were still running full blast but when I took that cable out and went back to the original sensor the fans went back to normal, but that’s just what happened for me!
Just performed this update! Totally safe and replicable. Great Results!
I didn't need to adjust the thermal sensor nor use bootcamp, I just popped the ssd with tiny11 and it just works. Still had to install the audio driver but that's about it.
if you are replacing your old HDD with SSD and you don't want your fan to be noisy, just take off your old HDD control board from the top of HDD (6 small screws), plug in the temperature sensor cable and stick the board on top of your new SSD with double sided tape.
Details on removing the 4 connectors are here:
czcams.com/video/43IDOK82kWo/video.html
You’re welcome.
That’s a cool black iMac you got there!
Very clear explanation! Thanks!
Reset VRAM requests three bong cycles, not one. Temp sensor for an SSD upgrade can be avoided, download Macs Fan Control. You then sent the HDD fan to a constant speed and ideal the CPU fan based on a lower temp, which prolongs both CPU and GPU life.
Excellent video! Thank you for being so clear and concise, and for taking the time to help others.
Super bos its more valuable appreciate u r efforts , kindly share more mac tils tricks hardwares
Great video. Bought the same kit as a result! Thanks.
you'll enjoy the new blazing fast speed for sure. Thanks for watching
great video, will start my upgrade ASAP
Great tutorial, thank you!
Whrn you find out the temp sensor isnt a sensor after all. I just plugged in new ssd and it just works
Two words THANK YOU😁👍
Awesome video!! Subscribed and will be doing this upgrade soon!
Brilliant! Watched many of these upgrade videos, but this is by far the best!! Thanks so much for this. Is there a particular SSD you would recommend?
Thank you. I would recommend any samsung or crucial brand. Cant go wrong with either one
Mark Kim Thanks for the quick reply. Do you recommend cloning the old drive or installing the OS clean? Not sue if cloning will keep disk fragmentation of old disk and lead to slower disk/software speeds and thus defeat the purpose of the SSD.
Excelent!!! worked like a charm!
Excellent video, thanks for that!
Great guide, thank you!
Like it for the before and after...cool
Don't forget to enable Trim Support if upgrading to a 3rd party SSD. This will significantly extend the life of the SSD.
fullsizerun where can i enable that?
@@Albisyx I've found this website...seems to do job www.cnet.com/how-to/installing-ssd-on-mac-trim-mistake/
@@oliverwoodman-smith6951 Great, thank you so much!
Great video. Thanks man 🤗👍
thank you so much! you helped me a lot!! my iMac works and it's super fast right now!
A SATA Y-power splitter cable does the same job for like $2 as the OWC “thermal sensor” which is a rip off. 😉👍
this has been the best video ive seen on this process. bought a 2011 and will be doing this. thank you Mark Kim!.
Question. Would it be pointless to use the thermol sensor and software? or would the sensor be better then just using the software? thank you in advance
I would definitely use the thermal sensor. Doesn't cost much more and less headache. I've heard people having some issues when using just the software. Can't go wrong with using thermal sensor as is how apple designed it.
@@MarkKimUSA just got my iMac in and am attempting the SSD upgrade and ram. When inserting the new 32gb(8per slot) upon reboot it only reconziged 16gb. Any thoughts? Thank you!
This is not really a thermal sensor, it is trigger. OWC or any similar "thermal" sensor could never be triggered and it is also described as obsolete for SSD configurations in Apple Service manual.
What it does is once triggered by approx. 50C it slowly raises FAN speed till maximum. once it goes below trigger temperature, it goes back down to minimum. You can bridge pin11 on sata port to ground to disable it, it will work in all cases unless you use server HDD (this pin is utilised for delayed start by many server HDD to avoid current peak). Apple uses special plug which shorts it to ground as well.
Thank you very much! This video saved me ❤️
This is great. Thanks so much. My 2011 iMac come back to life. Pretty fiddly and few scary moments removing the tiny /vulnerable LCD cables. One thing additional recommendation I've come across is that once you've changed to a SSD to ensure that TRIM support is turned on - which apparently will help the drive last longer (see: www.cnet.com/how-to/installing-ssd-on-mac-trim-mistake), Cheers!
I just realized this video doesn’t provide info on the SSD used and whether or not it can run Catalina. But thanks for that TRIM info. I’m taking baby steps to finally start updating my iMac mid 2011 and there’s a lot to consider.
Just saw a pretty involved CPU replacement video, may not go that route for now. The performance of the SSD in this video alone, seems solid, so the processor speed is good as is it seems. Other than that I’m just gunning for 32gb of RAM, and I should be all set.
@@nlawson2004 Mid 2011 iMac still wont support Catalina unfortunately. There are a few work arounds, but even that is not worth it due to graphics processor issues.
@@mrtechit101 That’s funny I was about to erase my new SSD to format to APFS but I don’t see any option to enable TRIM? I also canceled it cause I was unsure about using GUID, or the other 2 options presented.
If I ever get this step right, next is to clone my current OS and all files onto the new APFS TRIM SSD.
ibb.co/Q6NSQLq
@@mrtechit101 According to this article I shouldn’t enable TRIM:
1. Unless I experience slow write times on the SSD
2. Also it’s unclear how it affects external non SSD drives which I have 3 of, which are all HFS+.
eclecticlight.co/2019/08/26/caring-for-ssds-trim-wear-levelling-and-apfs/
It is a year old.
Beyond that, I’m attempting to find out which option to use GUID Partition, Master Boot, or Apple Partition...
GUID, since I have intel macs.
Full speed ahead now.
Man thank you so much
btw your voice sounds like jackie chan's voice no joke
Thanks Mark! I can't wait. Hope I don't f**k it up.
I have a couple questions.
1. Why you spend 37$ on cable you don't need?
2. Why you didn't use existing cable ?
3. Your HDD ( System ) doesn't have "Thermal sensor" why you installed one for 37$?
4. Do you know what cable you bought doing nothing except short circuit on 1st and 4th wires?
5. So, why you wast your money if your HDD don't have a sensor in the first place?
Thanx.
1&2 = i explained in the video saying you can do it without the cable...just use the fan control software to control the fan for heat measuring. 3. here is a quick google search. link thisdoesnotcompute.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/2011-imac-hard-drive-temp-sensor-explained/ read this and you will find out 2011 imacs hdd does have built in heat sensor on the their harddrive unlike off the shelf harddrives. 4. not sure what that is but it works for me. 5. again, if you read the link on the article about the built in sensors on these imac hdd, you can see i didn't waste it.... So after all, like i did mention on the video, you can do it without the $37 cable just using software to control the heating issue. If you don't do either one, your imac fan will run at full speed all the time. Thanx.
Mark Kim no, it will not. They trying to prevent you from upgrading your system. You can try short 1st and 4 th wires in your sata cable. It does same effect but without spending any money. It works for you. Cool. Thanx for your job any way.
@@alextanti432 maybe the guy doesn't mind spending the extra $. Everyone isn't like you.
My HD had a third smaller cable… currently looking it up to see what it is
Thank you!
Thank you Mark Kim for the informative guide. Can this process also be applied to a late 2009 21.5” iMac?
Fabian Wilson yes , pretty much the same
My HDD has an 8 pin sensor cable beside the SATA cables. What should I do with this connector when swapping to the SSD?
Thanks, forgot the reset part ! Nice skin around front Apple logo. You have a link or template for than ? I have a Cricut.....
I didn't use a template. I just put the carbon fiber over the entire front plate and cut around monitor with exacto knife. And then, i put a separate apple sticker on top. I didn't want to go through the trouble of making the template accurately so the apple logo shows through the carbon fiber. I took the easy method.
Great I love the test at the end, did you upgrade the ram and CPU?
I put 4gb ram additionally so its 8gb instead if 4gb factory. No cpu upgrade
@@MarkKimUSA I just put 2 times 8 gb, like new now !!!
@@snoopwing1 yup. big props to apple for making such a great machine...who knew we could make 2011 computer in 2019 act like a new computer by upgrading just a ssd and a ram stick. Enjoy it~~
Grest video,!
How are the funs working after SSD upgrade. Are they faster then before or the same?
You mean Fans? My fans seem to be running slower because SSD doesn't heat up as much as HDD that was in it before. So yeah, much faster imac with less heat and less fan noise. Loving it
Mark Kim yeah I mean fan 😂. Thank you
after insatalling the ssd drive can i download the operating system with the internet option or does it has to be pre installed?
yes, you could do the fresh install via internet.
Hi Mark, Great video, very detailed.
I have just a question:
The iMac mid 2011 support SATA lll speed ???
Or work just on 3GBps speed based on native SATA ll ???
SD7268 full sata 3 speed for sure. Originally they were shipped with sata 2 speed but they upgraded via firmware. Here is the article on it. blog.macsales.com/10050-firmware-update-enables-6gbs-in-2011-imacs/
@@MarkKimUSA wow great ! Thanks Mark, I've ordered all the things to do the substitution of the drive, I hope to do well.😉😅👍🏼
Just to let you know ! All work fine ! I've installed everything in the best way possible thanks to your tutorial ! And now I have a very fast iMac 2011 !!!! Supercool !!! 👍🏼😄
Just to let you know, sadly my iMac is dead after that I've changed with SSD , today i start to work , and just after two hours the iMac don't want to restart...no login, just a white screen and continued automatic restart... nothing to do... I'm so sad ...
@@SD7268 check out Curtis Gross CZcams channel, do the gpu upgrade and live happily ever after or, sell that pile of junk to me, real cheap! 😆 I’d be interested in what you do, keep us posted if you don’t mind. 👍
s u p e r !
Thanks for the video, I was wondering: does the optical drive have a SATA connection? So that we could replace it instead of the HDD
Yes you can do that. Just take out the optical drive and put the hard drive they’re using SATA
AFAIK, the optical drive has a slower SATA connection! Only half the speed. The mid2011 27inch iMac has an extra HDD SATA connector on the backside of the board! Perfect for a second SSD drive, and you keep the original HDD and optical drive. But you need an extra cable.
nice video
Hello , I've changed SSD and added thermal sensor but
My fan runs at full speed any ideas? now I am using Fan control software Mac (27-inch, Mid 2010) 2,93 GHz Intel Core i7 quatre cœurs
Wait… the normal iMac has a black part down there? I thought it was exclusively silver
It’s just a carbon fiber skin I applied
Does this thermal sensor issue also occur with a 2012 or 2013 21.5/27 iMac?
yes it applies to those years too
@@MarkKimUSA oh sad. From When Imac Model we can install only the ssd without the thermal sensor cable?
Great video. After doing thus can the computer now run OS Catalina?
No unfortunately the latest os it will install is High Sierra. Catalina is not doable... i tried
I'm about to do this same ssd upgrade, except I was just going to do a fresh install with an operating system disk. Would I press option, command, R and P before the startup sound to do a fresh install?
Yes. that's it. You'll enjoy the speed of ssd. Night and day difference.
great video ..i wonder is it the same for late 2009 i mac 27 inch
Maleki Ram although i dont have 2009 imac, from what i read, its basically same procedure
@@MarkKimUSA thanks for the reply, appreciated
I'm still getting a black screen. I've taken this apart several times to make sure everything is connected right.
What else can I do?
is it possible to boot up without this Thermalsensor trick?
you can still boo up without it but you may have the fan going crazy at full blast at times
Hi sir good morning,May I know what brand of ssd you install in this one and where did you bought it or can you give me the link ,thanks
www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-500GB-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM/dp/B08QBMD6P4/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=samsung+ssd&qid=1611776443&sr=8-4
I noticed that the temperature sensor pcb has what looks like another connector on it. Does that need to be plugged onto any cable? Because my imac now overheats, with the fans never turning on. (Before, they ran non-stop).
If I wanted to just reinstall the OS to the ssd without backing it up. Would I do that with the ssd external or installed? Also, does the process know what version of OS would work with my imac? Im bew to macs.
You can enter the recovery mode and then install os on either internal ssd or external ssd....meaning you can actually boot from external ssd even if you don' t use internal ssd. If you have internal harddrive, just leave that as is and connect external ssd and get to to recovery mode and install os on external ssd and boot from there. i believe there are cut offs on certain years of imacs...so you might want to google it. say you have 2015 imac, just google "latest supported os for 2015 imac" and it should tell you. Hope this helps.
I'm on ifixit going through their 2011 iMac guides & it says the RAM only goes up to 16 GB while the storage is only configurable to either 2 TB HDD or 256 GB SSD. I noticed you put in a 500 GB SSD so was ifixit wrong or something?
After doing SuperDuper back up process installed the ssd in to the iMac , iMac starts up to blank screen. What do I do. Is it not seeing the ssd as bootable drive? After blank screen the only option I get is download and install fresh OS. SSD is Samsung 860 Evo
upgrade 2011 or 2012 iMac that has blue death screen the same? Where can I upload the OS onto the new SSD?
then you would just do a recovery mode via internet. here is what i found on youtube doing a search under "2011 imac internet recovery mode" czcams.com/video/VKHIy7HPadM/video.html Good luck~
Hi Mark;
Where can I get the carbon fiber sticker for iMac 27”. Thanks
i just bought the 3M 1080 carbon fiber vinyl from amazon and put it on the mac and then manually trimmed it with exacto knife
Hi Mark, can I just use a sata to usb cable to connect ssd to imac to clone from hdd to ssd. that was how I did it with my windows laptop.
Lisa Jones yes that should work fine :)
@@MarkKimUSA Thanks, worked perfectly
I have a Samsung SSD on the way along with the other equipment listed in the description, but I’m considering simply attaching the SSD externally and making it bootable in order to run the OS directly from the external SSD drive. Are there downsides to doing this? Is overheating going to be a problem? I also want to format it as APFS in order to run Catalina.
nlawson2004 i tried that too but your bottleneck is the usb 2.0.... it wont be as fast as internal sata connection. I didnt like the speed so i went with this method instead
@@MarkKimUSA Gotcha. Yeah I think I’m going to do it your way, then maybe I can use the old HDD externally via the left over container piece.
I just found out that I can’t upgrade to Catalina because of my GPU (Radeon HD 6000 series).
But I should still format the SSD as APFS though correct? Right now I have High Sierra, which can run on APFS, and APFS is faster, right. I’m just worried about cloning the contents of the HDD to the APFS formatted SSD, that shouldn’t be a problem though right? Also all my current external hard drives can still be used with the OS running from the new APFS SSD. Ha, dude I’m new to all this and just not trying to run into any complications. Thanks again for the awesome video, really helpful. Cheers.
new ssds have a temperature sensor built in .. right>?
Hi Mark, I'm thinking about thesame upgrade. Why did you select "don't use time machine" ?
Siam Wood Shop I believe it was to format the hard drive first and then copy the entire contents to the SSD
You can use the time machine for the new SSD, but you have to do a partition first. If you don’t do partition, it won’t let you go into recovery mode(cmd +R)later. For mine, I didn’t install the thermostat wire, so I use the cmsfan control apps.
How does a power cable send a temp info to the fans?
Owc says to place sensor closer to HD connector and not on drive middle is only fault I see.
Which ssd did you use 850 or will it work with 860
Steve Aparicio i believe it was 860... but 850, 840... they are all fine.
How did you get the skin for the iMac I’ve been looking can’t find it
I just used scrap vinyl... here is my tutorial on how i did it czcams.com/video/o_8QRE6jYBM/video.html
Mark Kim thanks
If I upgrade the HDD to ssd are there any restrictions on SATA/SATA II/SATA III or SSD capacity?
Would this work the same for 2010 iMac or is the kit and instructions specific to 2011?
I heard it’s pretty much the same
I read that you cant update to high sierra or higher with this cable. Is that true?