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Resolved Best used Imac model to upgrade diy
- Thread starter Silverfox68
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If you are not looking for a recent Mac, the Mid-2011 27" iMacs are really easy to work on and have some pretty cool things about them:
1. They have 3 SATA ports on the logic board. I think 2xSATA III one used, one unused, and 1xSATA II for the optical drive.
You can make a software RAID0 with two SSDs on the SATA III ports, and put a third SSD or HDD in the optical drive location. You could also do a three-drive RAID 0, but I bet the two-drive RAID0 would be faster due to utilizing the faster SATA III ports.
Anyways, there are lots of things you can do with the SATA ports.
2. Replaceable GPU, it is rare to be able to replace a GPU in any Mac, but the Mid-2011 can. It is a plug and play of iMac GPUs that were an option for that model, such as upgrade to the 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6960M, but I am pretty sure that you can use other non-native GPUs with some hackintoshing.
3. Target Display Mode, the Mid-2011 27" has a gorgeous display on it, and it is one of the few iMac models that can be used as an external display.
4. Easy (relatively) to work open and work on, and lots of parts out there for it.
5. Runs HS and still gets security updates.
6. RAM is cheap, and I am pretty sure it has a max of 32GB.
7. Pretty powerful for being old, some came with a i7.
Anyways, if you don't need a new iMac and just looking for something to tinker with, the Mid-2011 iMac would be my recommendation.
1. They have 3 SATA ports on the logic board. I think 2xSATA III one used, one unused, and 1xSATA II for the optical drive.
You can make a software RAID0 with two SSDs on the SATA III ports, and put a third SSD or HDD in the optical drive location. You could also do a three-drive RAID 0, but I bet the two-drive RAID0 would be faster due to utilizing the faster SATA III ports.
Anyways, there are lots of things you can do with the SATA ports.
2. Replaceable GPU, it is rare to be able to replace a GPU in any Mac, but the Mid-2011 can. It is a plug and play of iMac GPUs that were an option for that model, such as upgrade to the 2GB AMD Radeon HD 6960M, but I am pretty sure that you can use other non-native GPUs with some hackintoshing.
3. Target Display Mode, the Mid-2011 27" has a gorgeous display on it, and it is one of the few iMac models that can be used as an external display.
4. Easy (relatively) to work open and work on, and lots of parts out there for it.
5. Runs HS and still gets security updates.
6. RAM is cheap, and I am pretty sure it has a max of 32GB.
7. Pretty powerful for being old, some came with a i7.
Anyways, if you don't need a new iMac and just looking for something to tinker with, the Mid-2011 iMac would be my recommendation.
Suggest goinbgwith bhe 2012 27" model. It has the advantage over the 2011 of USB3 ports which are some ten times faster than USB2.
Hands down the 2015.
It has a PCIe 3 x4 bus crippled by a waaaay too slooooow AHCI blade. Install a fast NVMe 3 x4 blade like the 970 EVO and you have, essentially, a 2017 with TB2 instead of TB3.
It has a PCIe 3 x4 bus crippled by a waaaay too slooooow AHCI blade. Install a fast NVMe 3 x4 blade like the 970 EVO and you have, essentially, a 2017 with TB2 instead of TB3.
This is true, and USB3 isn't the only advantage the Late 2012 iMacs have. The GPUs are Metal-compliant, and this is a huge advantage over the Mid-2011 iMacs.
I have a 27" Late 2012 iMac with the i7 and the 2GB GeForce GTX 680MX, and this iMac is still a beast. It is my main Mac, and will be for a while unless it breaks, or maybe when the 2019 Mac Pros show up in the Refurbished Store.
I also have a maxed out BTO 27" Mid-2011 iMac, and it still performs almost as well as the Late 2012, but it is cheaper, easier to open and work on, and three SATA ports, so that is why I would go with it over some other iMacs.
[doublepost=1567033161][/doublepost]Also, the Late 2012 has the slow SSD blade that are more expensive than the SATA drives that can go in the Mid-2011 iMacs.
There is no need to replace the blade in a 2012. It is on a SATA III bus which makes it no faster than installing a SATA III SSD to replace the HDD. Since you can get those up to 4TB,
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch...ds=860qvo&qid=1567054173&s=electronics&sr=1-1
there's no point to the blade unless you want to use it as a TechTool Pro repair drive or something like that. There's no harm in keeping it either.
Since no one knows if the 2012 will be supported after Catalina, I wouldn't go out of my way to look for a 2012.
My 2011 runs like a top. My wife has no need for Catalina yet so leaving that alone. I made my living on my 2010 and I need to be current so enter my iMac Pro.
None of this changes my earlier recommendation that the 2015 is the one to get. Next couple of months, these will likely drop in price some more.
It depends on what the user wants to do. If the user wants 900MB - 1000MB Read speeds, this could be a reason to replace the blade.
BTW, I was comparing the Late 2012 to the RAID0 possibilities of the Mid-2011.
There are still options for RAID0 options for the Late 2012, just not as many. This is due to the limited size of the blade SSDs out there, the higher cost for those blades, and since it would be a more complex task of replacing the blade when compared to the Mid-2011.
Unless the user wanted to go bigger, the ideal situation would be if the the Late 2012 iMac already has a 768GB SSD from the BTO options, then just put a standard SATA SSD in the HDD spot.
Another limitation of the Late 2012 compared to the Mid 2011 would be if the user wanted 8TB SSD of internal storage, or 12TB SSD. This would be possible on the Mid 2011 by setting up a software RAID0 or JBOD, but not possible with the with the Late 2012.
Of course there is no right or wrong answer to the OP's questions. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it all depends on what the OP wants. The OP really needs to specify what he wants to do with his Mac, because his post can be interpreted in many different ways.
Really? What SATA III blade gives you that in a 2012?
2800 is typical of a 970 EVO in a late 2015 or later iMac.
Ahhh, I get it.
You don't need a blade for that, actually. There are cable adapters that let you plug a regular SSD into that connector. Just mount it where it has a chance of being cooled i. e. not taped to the other one.
Oh yeah....
I looked into this briefly a while back when I was having Fusion Drive issues and forgot about them. IIRC, the reviews at the time were not that good with people complaining about disconnect issue, and there was limited places to fit a second drive.
But, if the reliability has improved, this provides more options for modding the Late 2012. Still not as easy as the Mid 2011 imo, and has less drive combinations, but if the OP found a good deal on a Late 2012, he could consider this to achieve 1000MBps drive speeds.
I might look into this again for my Late 2012 iMac.
You can only use it in Target Display mode with another Apple product, for instance display mirroring or for debugging. Not that you can use it as an external display for anything else.
Coda…
Selling the Mid 2011 iMac tomorrow. The buyer is looking for a machine that can run Digital Performer 5. So I set it up over Mavericks after installing a new NV RAM battery. Last battery was installed in 2015 when I installed a Samsung EVO 845 — still in perfect shape. The 845 was an enterprise class drive with a capacitor bank designed to keep writing to disk in case of a power loss. Nope, just let it go…
After buying my wife a 2020 iMac earlier this year, the 2011 was taking up space in the garage.
I'm certain that the new owner has no idea just how good a machine she is getting, ya know? Without that WD Black spinning heat pump I removed in 2015, it ought to last forever.
Selling the Mid 2011 iMac tomorrow. The buyer is looking for a machine that can run Digital Performer 5. So I set it up over Mavericks after installing a new NV RAM battery. Last battery was installed in 2015 when I installed a Samsung EVO 845 — still in perfect shape. The 845 was an enterprise class drive with a capacitor bank designed to keep writing to disk in case of a power loss. Nope, just let it go…
After buying my wife a 2020 iMac earlier this year, the 2011 was taking up space in the garage.
I'm certain that the new owner has no idea just how good a machine she is getting, ya know? Without that WD Black spinning heat pump I removed in 2015, it ought to last forever.
Knock yourself out. Even though I spent years in Win support, I have no interest in it at all anymore.
My speculation is that MS are developing Windows for ARM chips, so future ARM Mac can be installed with Windows as well.