It’s been possible to get an SSD upgrade for your iMac for some time now, but the options have been limited. Even today, Apple offers just a single SSD upgrade option with the 27-inch iMac, a 256GB SSD, of undisclosed branding, that costs an extra $500. If that’s not for you then you can always send off your iMac — new or old — to have a drive professionally installed. You’ll have to eat the shipping fees and the process will cost you over $200 in labor, but you’ll be able to choose your SSD and you can upgrade an older system if you didn’t get get an SSD from the factory. Finally Other World Computing, a popular vendor for iMac SSD upgrades, has a DIY option available — they are selling an upgrade kit.
The SSD upgrade kit, which doesn’t come with the 2.5-inch SSD, goes for $45. It includes an 11-piece tool kit with all the things you’ll need to dissect your Apple all-in-one, a microfiber cleaning cloth, the Mac-to-SSD SATA 6Gb/s data and power cable, two suction cups (see above), and a “thermal-safe adhesive mounting set”. Sounds like a pretty useful kit! This is especially true considering that, aside from the screwdrivers, you probably don’t have a single one of those tools at home right now.
While it’s great to have another upgrade option, OWC does include some concerning warnings on the kit’s page. They note that this is a “very difficult install that requires advanced skills,” which is a scary prospect given the 27-inch iMac’s $1700 starting price. The company does include a 17 minute instructional video, available below, so you an see a walkthrough of the upgrade and figure out if you are up to the challenge. After all, you’ll save some good money, but the life of your computer will be on the line.
