Our goal is maximum performance(#2) at minimal cost(#1), size of the upgrade is negotiable.Sadly, you're between a rock and a hard place here. and you can of course use the disks individually and how create a fusion drive and separate them, you can see at googleOK, as to using an external SSD to marry with your internal HD: I would hold off that direction. Here's a better way to understand the complexities:90% of the gain in SSD usage is from the access time.It is then easy to setup your own Fusion Drive combining any PCIe blade with a normal drive. You may want to think about getting a replacement system which has the SSD and then transplanting your HD in to it Vs trying to open the system to add in the SSD. TRIM is enabled.gave up efforts to dig around inside. You can not make a Fusion Drive from 2 SSDs though. i was already getting great speed with the samsung SSD i have in the main SATA3 port but the PCIe is much faster. Finally I installed a 1 Tb Crucial SSD MX 200 and work beatifully but thanks for telling me that the proper blades are available at OWC maybe I will but one.I think we just have different perspectives on what value is here. i am working now on identifying which SSD models are compatibles.I just need to be sure before I buy some used pulled from a Mac lap-topI also have a late-2013 27" iMac. We tested 4 different ones and most dropped data blocks (CRC error) so over time you'll likely wear out the SSD sooner and could end up with data loss. Even OWC and Transcend limit their support to the SATA drives in the iMac's as it's such a big job to get to the blade SSD.As far as I have read (could be wrong though) the PCIe slot is only present if the iMac was ordered with a Fusion Drive.
No support for that.The other factor here is the Apple to M.2 adapters being sold. Back up your system or move data between computers with this 500GB Samsung portable solid-state drive. The 21.5" 'Thin Series' are the ones that maybe missing the blade SSD interface! Some comments state that the PCIe slot only exists if it was installed at the time of purchase but I am not sure I believe that.Did your machine already have an SSD or was it a standard HDD installed model, I got the impression that some seem to think that the standard models don't have the PCIe slot but I'm not sure I believe that.BTW Paul, My computers has only ne SATA III 6GB connector so I think it is not possible to make an internal fusion drive with adding an internal SSD plus the original 1TB HDD.The other issue with PCIe is the number of lanes. Only thing you need is screw to secure OWC drive in slot , stickers for re-glue LCD and few hours of time. Do you have the needed skills and tools?aeuja64 - Only if your system has the SSD blade slot. It isn't my machine and didn't want to hurt it trying2) Those blades are used and compatible with the following models:This is my 21.5” late 2013 iMac’s logicboard. It also has PCIe slot for SSD, in which I installed a 256GB Samsung SSUBX/SM951/JPV256 655-1858 that I bought on eBay. 45 minutes and very simple. So getting the correct looking SSD (even by vendor P/N) may still not work!
And the speed won't be as good as the real Apple drive our even one of the SSD's designed to work in an Apple system (OWC & Transcend).
Unfortunately the Thunderbolt enclosure+SSD is way too expensive for what I'm looking for. The Good With the addition of Intel's Haswell chips, plus 802.11ac wireless, faster SSD hard drives, and new Nvidia GPUs, the latest Apple iMac is a thoroughly up-to-date desktop. It also had the PCIe slot, however. So a lot of newer SSDs with PCIe 3.0. will not be compatible, even original blade SSD from MacBooks 2015 (Generation 4).Most 2.5" SATA SSD's support TRIM services. You could RAID them but the issue you face is the I/O has to be the same which clearly won't be here.I've done ssd to USB2 on even older machines and that's a marked improvement.Also I am not sure if TRIM support is possible with 3rd party drives.So if you go with a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO $160 plus the case $240 for a total of $400 I think you'll still end up with a better deal!Also if you might want to spend more you could get a thunderbolt drive but I didn't think the cost is worth it.NVMe is a new interface think how PATA was displaced by SATA. I just have the 1TB HD, apparently just like yours..?I have a late-2013 27" iMac with 1TB HD. Some of the 21.5" don't have the parts mounted on the logic board!Where are you getting the information that these blades will work?No you can't use two SSD's configured as a Fusion Drive.
1. Oh, that question is an old one ; I got that information after a deep research and from experts, indeed IFixit sells a PCIexpress blade for iMac late 2013 of 21.5" as well 27" but finally I decided to buy a Crucial SSD 550GB model MX200 and works beautifully, the OS boots in only 10 seconds and the speed was increased from 60 MB per second to 512MB I would like to upgrade it to 512GB or 1TB SSD.
As noted, I added an OEM (Samsung) blade SSD in the PCIe slot and then merged it with a 1 TB SSD to make a 1.25 TB Fusion Drive. Going with a 500 GB drive (~$160 US) while doable will lessen your storage as you are giving up your 1 TB HD!Sure it's an externally attached boot device so you can ant to be careful about that but it is a desktop after all so should be possible to make that workBy the way... boot times are in the 10s rangeHi Milos , it seems OWC finally are selling the PC express blades for our iMacs, whenI was interested they were planing to produce them but I couldn't get any one, it was only their project.