Turns out …

posted in: Tech, Tinkering

… upgrading a 9 year old iMac with an SSD is worthwhile too.

Although I had to re-purchase, download, and create a bootable USB stick of OSX 10.7 Lion to format the new drive. But what the hell, now I have a complete set of OS media again. Why Lion? Lion is the last version of OSX that can be installed on this model.

 

specs

 

There were some dicey moments cracking the case open, the credit card method to unlatch the front top corners didn’t work so a bit of improvisation was necessary. The shielding was a pain in the ass too, as were the deeply recessed screws to release the screen. The absence of a long magnetic T10 torx tip necessitated further improvisation with tiny dabs of contact cement to keep screw and wrench together while fastening the screen back to the case.

This was by far the most involved SSD upgrade. I’m glad I had the four others for practice!

 

New SSD

 

Patient is awake and snappier than she ever was. Cheers!