Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from an iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

[free.flyer]

I intend to fit a Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SATA 2.5" into an iMac Mid-2017 (A1418, EMC 3069).

I then want to fit the 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 and fit it in an iMac Mid-2010 (A1311, EMC2389).

Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

I believe its a hybrid drive in that its a 1TB HDD with a 32Gb SSD ?

 

[Bigwaff]

Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

I believe its a hybrid drive in that its a 1TB HDD with a 32Gb SSD ?

Fusion Drives combine SSD + HDD but the components are separately connected to mobo on mid-2017. SSD from mid-2017 not compatible in mid-2010. mid-2017 SATA HDD probably work in mid-2010. Note 2017 iMac support SATA 6gbs while iMac 2010 only support SATA 3gbs.

You can add a 2nd drive to iMac Mid-2010. There is connector to do so avail on mobo.

Installing iMac Intel 27" EMC 2390 Dual HDD or SSD Drive

Although Apple never sold the 2010 27" iMac with the option of having a second HDD or SSD drive, they did provide the framework for inserting one...

www.ifixit.com

However, honestly, make no sense to make Fusion Drive in Mid-2010. Just upgrade Mid-2010 by swap internal HDD w/ a SATA SSD. Very cheap upgrade.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I intend to fit a Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SATA 2.5" into an iMac Mid-2017 (A1418, EMC 3069).

I then want to fit the 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 and fit it in an iMac Mid-2010 (A1311, EMC2389).

Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

I believe its a hybrid drive in that its a 1TB HDD with a 32Gb SSD ?

From your statement above I guess it will not work on your iMac mid 2010.
Remove the 32GB SSD from the iMac 2017 is more troublesome than you may think. And it's of very high risk to a newbie.

 

[free.flyer]

Thanks all, so the 1TB HDD and 32GB SSD are two seperate components then ? I got the impression it was a single hydrid drive (HDD + SSD).

So the drive shown in the picture below (from iFixit) is just a 1TB HDD ? And the 32GB SSD is a drive fitted somewhere else ?

If thats the case, I only want to move the 1TB HDD to the older iMac mid 2010. I dont want to touch the 32GB SSD in the newer iMac mid 2017.

Basically I am just trying to swap drives between the older iMac (which was broken but I fixed it by baking the video card) and the newer iMac as shown below...

The old iMac had the 2TB SSD, the new iMac has the 1TB HDD

As the new iMac will be the primary machine and the old iMac will be the secondary machine, it makes sense to fit the bigger drive in the newer iMac.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I would suggest the following before you pry open your precious iMac 2017.

1. Purchase a USB 3.0 enclosure for the Samsung SSD.
2. Plug it in the iMac 2017 and run Mac OS from it.
3. Use it for a while to see whether it fits your demand on speed.
4. If it does, buy another small SSD (240~256GB SATA SSD is enough) to assemble to the iMac 2010.
5. If it doesn't then go through the complicated and risky process of Defusion, erase the internal disk, replace the HDD part with SSD. I don't think you will get much improvement in speed moving the SATA SSD from external to internal, considering the similar speed between SATA III and USB 3.0 protocol (6Gbps vs 4.8Gbps), which is always be limited by the read & write speed of the Samsung SSD itself(500~550MB/s sequence R/W)

Why? Where I live, a 2nd hand 1TB HDD (Western Digital Black) is sold for about 10$~15$ top. It doesn't worth my time, cost (adhesive and tools, etc), and risk to pry open an iMac 2017 just to get an old 1TB HDD.

You can easily find one around your local PC parts market, probably even get one for free. I have a bunch of those HDDs at home, (various sizes 500GB, 1TB, 2TB) with no actual usage.

 

[free.flyer]

I would suggest the following before you pry open your precious iMac 2017.

1. Purchase a USB 3.0 enclosure for the Samsung SSD.
2. Plug it in the iMac 2017 and run Mac OS from it.
3. Use it for a while to see whether it fits your demand on speed.
4. If it does, buy another small SSD (240~256GB SATA SSD is enough) to assemble to the iMac 2010.
5. If it doesn't then go through the complicated and risky process of Defusion, erase the internal disk, replace the HDD part with SSD.

Why? Where I live, a 2nd hand 1TB HDD (Western Digital Black) is sold for about 10$~15$ top. It doesn't worth my time, cost (adhesive and tools, etc), and risk to pry open an iMac 2017 just to get an old 1TB HDD.

You can easily find one around your local PC parts market, probably even get one for free. I have a bunch of those HDDs at home, (various sizes 500GB, 1TB, 2TB) with no actual usage.

I have already tried 1 and 2 - I fitted the Samsung EVO SSD into an enclosure and booted the newer iMac 2017 from USB. It seemed to work fine, but a USB connected drive will have a lower performance than a SATA connected drive?

Ive already ordered and received the cutter tool and adhesive strips to open the newer iMac

The existing 2TB SSD is over 50% full and I want all that data on the newer iMac (not the older iMac). So the existing 1TB HDD or a smaller 256GB SSD would not be big enough.

I assumed I could just swap the drives between the two iMacs ?

Obvisouly the 1TB HDD in the older iMac would need to be reformatted and an older OS installed.

And I would try to upgrade the OS on the 2TB SSD once fitted into the newer iMac.

So as the 2TB SSD worked on the newer iMac via USB, does this mean there is no complicated and risky process of Defusion ? Not that I have any idea what that is !

I was just hoping for a simple swap over

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I have already tried 1 and 2 - I fitted the Samsung EVO SSD into an enclosure and booted the newer iMac 2017 from USB. It seemed to work fine, but a USB connected drive will have a lower performance than a SATA connected drive?

Ive already ordered and received the cutter tool and adhesive strips to open the newer iMac

The existing 2TB SSD is over 50% full and I want all that data on the newer iMac (not the older iMac). So the existing 1TB HDD or a smaller 256GB SSD would not be big enough.

I assumed I could just swap the drives between the two iMacs ?

Obvisouly the 1TB HDD in the older iMac would need to be reformatted and an older OS installed.

And I would try to upgrade the OS on the 2TB SSD once fitted into the newer iMac.

So as the 2TB SSD worked on the newer iMac via USB, does this mean there is no complicated and risky process of Defusion ? Not that I have any idea what that is !

I was just hoping for a simple swap over

Since you insist on installing the SSD internally...
As the 2TB SSD has already run fine on the 2017 iMac, now all you have to do is to purge and remove the Fusion drive from it, to clear space for the 2TB SSD.
Basically the Fusion drive or any part of it will not be able to run normally in the iMac 2010, you can't do anything but wiping it off and do a clean install of Mac OS.
1) Create a USB installer of Mac OS X High Sierra. (You can do it from the iMac 2017, if it is still running High Sierra)
2) Purge the Fusion Drive: Boot from the external SSD, run Disk Utility and delete the Fusion volume.
3) Swap the drive: Swap the 1TB HDD with the 2TB SSD on iMac 2017
4) Re-assemble iMac 2017 and test run: As the Fusion drive was purge, there is no Mac OS file on the 32GB internal SSD, iMac 2017 is supposed to boot directly from the 2TB SSD without any interference.
5) Assemble the 1TB HDD to iMac 2010
6) Plug in the USB installer and install Mac OS to the 1TB HDD.

 

[Fishrrman]

I believe the 2017 iMac has 2 USBc ports that are USB3.1 gen2.

These USBc ports are 2x as fast as "regular" USB3 (a) ports.

But... you also need an SSD that will support such speeds. That means an nvme drive in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure (many are available).

So...
Take your 2.5" SATA SSD and put it into the 2010 iMac.

Create a USB3.1 gen2 external boot drive and use THAT to boot/run the 2017 iMac. You should see read speeds up around 850-900MBps (or perhaps even a little better).

Or... you could just buy something like the Crucial X-9 (USB3.1 gen2 SSD ready-to-use), plug it in and go that way...

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I wouldn't "reuse" a Fusion drive. Odds are high that the SSD portion is nearly worn out and that will take down the drive at any time now. Retire it or make it a drive for storing non-essentials with additional backups, knowing it will fail... probably soon.

Instead, SSD drives that will drop right into that 2010 are dirt cheap. Get a fresh new one if you want an internal and you'll be set for longer than that Mac will probably last.

If this is about cost, consider buying SMALL for the internal SSD to only use it for system & app storage (mostly for READ purposes) and attach a big SSD to the stand or Velcro'd on back for regularly changing/evolving files use. This would- in effect- be recreating a fusion drive, except doing so with an eye towards NOT wearing out the little drive from too many writes.

However, if me and I want the drive to be internal, I'd just get one good-sized SSD to put in that 2010. But what I'd really choose to do is retire a nearly 15-year-old Mac and put the budget towards a 2024 Mac or PC. I happen to have that same 2010 and it is nearly entirely retired now. Yes, it can still work and yes I could instal the hack on it to try to run macOS newer than High Sierra... but then one has to trust the security of the hack... which seems loaded with irony in and of itself: using a hack in part to protect a vintaged computer against other hacks.

 

[free.flyer]

I wouldn't "reuse" a Fusion drive. Odds are high that the SSD portion is nearly worn out and that will take down the drive at any time now. Retire it or make it a drive for storing non-essentials with additional backups, knowing it will fail... probably soon.

Instead, SSD drives that will drop right into that 2010 are dirt cheap. Get a fresh new one if you want an internal and you'll be set for longer than that Mac will probably last.

If this is about cost, consider buying SMALL for the internal SSD to only use it for system & app storage (mostly for READ purposes) and attach a big SSD to the stand or Velcro'd on back for regularly changing/evolving files use. This would- in effect- be recreating a fusion drive, except doing so with an eye towards NOT wearing out the little drive from too many writes.

However, if me and I want the drive to be internal, I'd just get one good-sized SSD to put in that 2010. But what I'd really choose to do is retire a nearly 15-year-old Mac and put the budget towards a 2024 Mac or PC. I happen to have that same 2010 and it is nearly entirely retired now. Yes, it can still work and yes I could instal the hack on it to try to run macOS newer than High Sierra... but then one has to trust the security of the hack... which seems loaded with irony in and of itself: using a hack in part to protect a vintaged computer against other hacks.

I’m so confused??? I thought the two drives are separate? As in there is a separate 1tb hdd and a seperate 32gb ssd?

I intend to leave the 32gb ssd in the new iMac.

I only intend to replace the 1Tb hdd.

Are you saying that the 1tb hdd also includes the 32gb ssd ie it’s a single hybrid drive?

It’s actually my mums iMacs. She wants to use the new one herself and the old one for the grandchildren. So she’s not bothered about the size of the drive in the old iMac.

She just wants to use the 2gb ssd that was in her old iMac in the new iMac instead.

But that will mean there is no drive in the old iMac, so wants to put the 1tb hdd from the new iMac into the old iMac now that I have fixed the video card

If the old iMac couldn’t be fixed she would have got rid of it. But as it’s now working she wants to keep it

 

[Yebubbleman]

I intend to fit a Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SATA 2.5" into an iMac Mid-2017 (A1418, EMC 3069).

I then want to fit the 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 and fit it in an iMac Mid-2010 (A1311, EMC2389).

Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

I believe its a hybrid drive in that its a 1TB HDD with a 32Gb SSD ?

Fusion drives are just two internal drives (most commonly a hard drive and an SSD; but it could be any two internal drives) with Core Storage trickery to present itself the operating system as a volume spanning multiple drives. You can "break" a Fusion drive back into two individual drives. And you can also take two drives that were never a Fusion drive and make them into one.

That being said, if you are cracking open either or both iMacs, I'm not entirely sure why you're not just tossing both spinning drives and replacing them with SSDs. If you have two SATA connectors in your 2010, you can pop in two drives; the 2010 won't have any other drive connectors.

Incidentally, I'd say that, rather than going through the trouble of breaking and creating a Fusion drive there; just buy a 2.5" SATA 2TB SSD, pop that in and be done with it. Those are fairly cheap nowadays.

The 2017 iMac will have one SATA connection for the hard drive portion and one proprietary NVMe-like connector for the Apple SSD. OWC sells aftermarket drives for those or, alternatively, there are several places selling adapters from that connection to M.2 NVMe drives. Either option will work.

You can still build a Fusion Drive (with the slower SATA III/6.0Gbps connection on a larger drive, coupled with a faster drive using Apple's interface), if you want a ton of storage and want it to appear as one volume. Or you can leave them separate and have one serve as a "data" drive. Your call.

 

[free.flyer]

Fusion drives are just two internal drives (most commonly a hard drive and an SSD; but it could be any two internal drives) with Core Storage trickery to present itself the operating system as a volume spanning multiple drives. You can "break" a Fusion drive back into two individual drives. And you can also take two drives that were never a Fusion drive and make them into one.

That being said, if you are cracking open either or both iMacs, I'm not entirely sure why you're not just tossing both spinning drives and replacing them with SSDs. If you have two SATA connectors in your 2010, you can pop in two drives; the 2010 won't have any other drive connectors.

Incidentally, I'd say that, rather than going through the trouble of breaking and creating a Fusion drive there; just buy a 2.5" SATA 2TB SSD, pop that in and be done with it. Those are fairly cheap nowadays.

The 2017 iMac will have one SATA connection for the hard drive portion and one proprietary NVMe-like connector for the Apple SSD. OWC sells aftermarket drives for those or, alternatively, there are several places selling adapters from that connection to M.2 NVMe drives. Either option will work.

You can still build a Fusion Drive (with the slower SATA III/6.0Gbps connection on a larger drive, coupled with a faster drive using Apple's interface), if you want a ton of storage and want it to appear as one volume. Or you can leave them separate and have one serve as a "data" drive. Your call.

I’ll be opening the new iMac and the old iMac is still open after baking the video card.

I was trying to avoid buying another drive as i though I could just do a straight forward swap.

The new iMac would have a 2tb ssd, the old iMac would have a 1tb hdd.

The old iMac was using the 2tb ssd before it broke. That’s why the new iMac was bought.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I’ll be opening the new iMac and the old iMac is still open after baking the video card.

I was trying to avoid buying another drive as i though I could just do a straight forward swap.

The new iMac would have a 2tb ssd, the old iMac would have a 1tb hdd.

The old iMac was using the 2tb ssd before it broke. That’s why the new iMac was bought.

Doing iMac surgery only to keep an old 1TB hard drive in use (especially when 1TB and 2TB SSDs are affordable) seems like a waste to me. But you do you!

 

[Bigwaff]

Doing iMac surgery only to keep an old 1TB hard drive in use (especially when 1TB and 2TB SSDs are affordable) seems like a waste to me. But you do you!

They want to swap storage. 2010 has the SSD while the 2017 has the HDD. They have to open them both to perform the swap.

 

[Yebubbleman]

They want to swap storage. 2010 has the SSD while the 2017 has the HDD. They have to open them both to perform the swap.

I understand that. My point is that simply swapping is a waste of opening up both iMacs. Opening up iMacs is a pain. On the 2010, you have magnets that really want to catch the screws that you want to put back; and on 2017, you have adhesive tape that you have to break and replace every time you do surgery. Both models have exposed power supplies (though the 2017 is probably safer in that regard than the 2010). It's not fun and certainly not for the faint of heart.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I intend to fit a Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SATA 2.5" into an iMac Mid-2017 (A1418, EMC 3069).

I then want to fit the 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 and fit it in an iMac Mid-2010 (A1311, EMC2389).

Would a 1 TB (Fusion) from the iMac Mid-2017 work in an iMac Mid-2010 ?

I believe its a hybrid drive in that its a 1TB HDD with a 32Gb SSD ?

Drives, especially hard drives, wear out. Today good solid state drives are inexpensive. If I was building anything I would not consider using an old fusion drive.

 

[profcutter]

I’ll be opening the new iMac and the old iMac is still open after baking the video card.

I was trying to avoid buying another drive as i though I could just do a straight forward swap.

The new iMac would have a 2tb ssd, the old iMac would have a 1tb hdd.

The old iMac was using the 2tb ssd before it broke. That’s why the new iMac was bought.

The thing that people are reacting to, in part, is it seems a waste of a relatively new iMac to saddle it with old SATA technology. Blade NVME-style SSDs are several times faster, up to to 10 times faster than SATA SSDs, which themselves are usually a few times faster than spinning rust drives.
If you’re going to all the trouble of opening your 2017 imac, why wouldn’t you put something in that could actually speed up the Mac significantly such as an Apple AHCI drive or an NVME with an adaptor.
I think people get you’re trying to save money by reusing components, but you’ll end up with a 2017 iMac that was slower than the original models with SSDs in them. So why go to the trouble of possibly damaging your camera, or even cracking the screen, if you’re not going to soup up the iMac to its full potential?