[Eriamjh]

I've done lots of reading online and I have found that it is a crap shoot on which brands and which models will work with the internal SATA bus and which will not.

I have a 20" Core Duo iMac that I am very happy with. However, I have filled the 250GB HD and want to upgrade it. I plan on buying an external FW/USB2 enclosure and an SATA 500GB HD initially. Once files are transferred and such, I will swap the internal HD with the external 500GB drive.

XLR8YourMac.com has only a few entries of HD upgrades for the CD iMacs. Many are that certain drives do not work internally. Western Digital drives are the worst for compatibility, but some Maxtors don't work either.

Now to the point. Has anyone upgraded their Intel iMac with a 500GB HD (or even a 750) and what brand and model is it? Is the Intel iMac SATA I or II?

With 500GB drives down to $140 or less, I think it's time to add storage.

[Waragainstsleep]

Apple does not publish the specifics of the SATA bus on the specs page. Maybe some of the info available to you in System Profile or Disk Utility may shed some light on the subject. Maybe not though.
I have never installed one, but I know there are 500Gb CTO Intel iMacs about. If you plan on installing it yourself, maybe you should remove the old one and pick the same brand. It may also have the SATA type printed on it. Apple don't use over spec drives all that often. Except in Xserves or maybe Mac Pros.
If you put the 500 straight in, you can install the OS from your discs, then use the migration assistant to import all your data including apps and settings from the 250 in the enclosure. Its easy as, just takes a while to run. Also I recommend a firewire enclosure unless you want to use it with a PC too. Firewire is faster and more stable. And bootable.

[Eriamjh]

I know Apple usually has a pretty crappy implementation of SATA in the iMacs. It does not support all SATA drives or all modes. Some drives are unusable.

Apparently, no one here has upgraded their iMac's internal drive or does not care to share the info.

Oh well...

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

I know Apple usually has a pretty crappy implementation of SATA in the iMacs. It does not support all SATA drives or all modes. Some drives are unusable.

Apparently, no one here has upgraded their iMac's internal drive or does not care to share the info.

Oh well...

Where did you hear this? SATA is a standard. Any 3.5" SATA drive should work fine. Go to Fry's, Best Buy, or get it from New Egg.

Steve

[kamina]

I asked the company taking care of all Mac repairs for my work, and he offered he could upgrade the drive in my iMac to a 500GB Seagate 7200.10. Didn't go with it since they are pretty loud, I ordered a Western digital 500GB AAKS model. It's fast, and very silent (which is the most important thing for me). Another option would have been the Samsung T166 series, but despite being silent in theoy they vibrate a lot. My iMac currently has a 250GB KS, the previous revision to the model line I'm getting. Ordered it a week ago but for some strange reason didn't receive it yet. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow.

As an IT professional I have to believe that anyone having a problem with a SATA drive in an iMac has done something very strange (hope you don't find me complaining about it here next week ).

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

Where did you here this? SATA is a standard. Any 3.5" SATA drive should work fine. Go to Fry's, Best Buy, or get it from New Egg.

Steve

I here'd it on XLR8YourMac.com (check out the database).

[Waragainstsleep]

Maybe its different on the iMacs, but I have never had a PowerMac G5 refuse a SATA drive.

[Waragainstsleep]

Or a G5 iMac for that matter.

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Maybe its different on the iMacs, but I have never had a PowerMac G5 refuse a SATA drive.

Powermacs have had problems with 4 drives in RAID form, but I'm not worried about that with my iMac. I'm worried about this:

Reviewer's Name: Ian C.
Date Submitted: 10/9/2006
Drive Type: Hard Drive
Drive Interface: IDE (Serial ATA onboard)
Drive Brand: Maxtor
Drive Model Number: DiamondMax 10 Model 6V200EO (8MB cache/7200rpm)
Drive Size: 200GB
Driver Used: Apple Standard
Mac Model: Apple iMac Intel CPU
Mac OS Version: OS X 10.4
Reader Comments: If installed in a 24" iMac (in place of the stock Seagate), this drive will work fine with Windows, you can partition/install OS etc. All no problem. However under OS X 10.4.7 with the exact same hardware, it doesn't work. (?)
Disk Utility will beach ball at any attempt to partition or erase the disk (have tried waiting for over an hour, several reboots and checking for correct seating etc). Even if you partition the disk with Windows, and merely try to format the partition in Disk Utility, it still doesn't work.

Note: the reason for OS 10.4.7 and not 10.4.8 is that I had to use the DVD that came with the computer.

There is one jumper on the drive, a 3.0/1.5 Gb/s switch. Changing the setting makes no difference (prob. because the Intel controller in the iMac is a 1.5Mb/s controller anyway). The firmware revision (drive?) is A111630.

Or this...

Reviewer's Name: Adam B
Date Submitted: 9/5/2006
Drive Type: Hard Drive
Drive Interface: IDE (Serial ATA onboard)
Drive Brand: Western Digital
Drive Model Number: Raptor 150
Drive Size: 150GB
Driver Used: Apple Standard
Mac Model: Apple iMac Intel CPU
Mac OS Version: OS X 10.4
Reader Comments: (added as a FYI from the 3/27/2006 xlr8yourmac.com news page after a reader asked about this combo.)
I just installed a Western Digital 150GB Raptor drive in my new 20 inch Intel iMac. Everything goes smoothly until the system goes to sleep, once you hit the space bar or shake the mouse to wake the system you get the "beach ball of death" and the only way to get the system to respond is to pull the plug and reboot. I have tried several things and nothing seems to work so I switched back to the original 250 GB WD drive and everything works fine. If you have any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it because that drive was amazingly fast and I would love to use it but if I have to reboot every time it goes to sleep that wont work for me.
Thanks, Adam B.

or this...

Reader Comments: After having major issues with a WD 400GB (WD4000KD) drive in my (Intel CPU) iMac I decided on this drive to see if it would work properly. After installing the drive it was recognized in Disk Utility, then I formatted the drive & installed OSX. It has been perfect since my install.

I guess I just have to buy and try...

[kamina]

Well I will be receiving my drive any day now, I'll let you know how it works.

edit:

New disk supposidly arrived at the store. I'll pick it up today, and try copying all my data over. If I manage I'll try to install it tomorrow.

[kamina]

This new drive is working just fine, did a fresh install though. Exact model:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB (you want to make sure it's AAKS, not KS).

[Eriamjh]

Thanks for the update. How's the heat? Does the iMac fan kick up speed under heavy use any more than usual?

[kamina]

Nope. This drive should not really be significantly hotter then the previous 250GB model. What causes heat is the platters spinning inside the drive, and especially how many platters there are. The WD AAKS features new very dense platters, meaning they could get 500GB storage using just three platters. Most of the 500GB drives have 4-5 platters and produce a lot more heat and noise.

Actually the machine is now more silent then before, maybe partially due to me using pressured air to blow out all the dust in the machine.

And then a general note in case you never opened an iMac before:

You'll find that in most instructions for opening the case people talk about using a credit card to open up the top part of the bezel. I did that too, but had to bend the card to get it to catch. I was also under the mis-impresssion that I would need to use strength to get it open. Actually it was anything but strength (still took me about 45 minutes, but I think now I could do it in about 2 minutes).

Also I'd advise you to have a tool to magnetize the Torx tools, especially the T8 that you use for opening the 4 screws that hold the display panel in place.

[Eriamjh]

Anybody know if a 750GB or 1TB drive will fit the original CD iMac?