Replace 24" iMac HD

alexlyons

I have a late 2008 24" iMac (2.8Ghz version)

The HD is dying on it. I have it all backed up so thats not an issue. The Apple Hardware test is giving me a Hard Drive error and its fairly obvious during use that the HD is dying. It's slow reading and writing data, general tasks such as browsing the web cause safari to freeze for abut 10seconds or so, maybe more. Every so often the whole computer will just lock up and I'll have to force it to shut down with the power button. Coming out of sleep or screen saver can cause major problems (it's restoring a saved state from the HD as far as I know when waking up) which would scream HD issues. Bottom line is it needs to be replaced.

It's out of warranty and I'm happy enough doing it myself. However...

It's mounted on a wall just above my desk. My desk is screwed to the wall, and to mount it there, the entire desk had to be removed, it was all wired in (ever single port is used at the back, including video out) and all the wires for it, my MacBook Pro Station, and numerous other electronic devices are all routed behind the drawers of the desk to hide them. Basically it's a full days work to take the desk off, take the iMac off the wall and then put it all back, forgetting about the HD replacement.

So what are the chances of me being able to replace this drive while the iMac is on the wall? It would make life much easier if it were possible.

Also anyone have any tips from experience on replacing the drive? I'm aware of ifixit.com

Thoughts on what drive to put in it are welcome, anything the same or bigger than the 320GB that's in it.

Sad Professor

Well, you need to use suction cups to take off the front glass and then disconnect and remove the screen. While on the wall? Hmmm, it's doable, I suppose, if you had help. But I'm not sure I'd recommend it. The thoughts of what could go wrong make me queasy.

alexlyons

Haha ye I thought you in particular might have a response like that It could go pretty wrong, I'll definitely have help.. I suppose it's how confident I am!! I might have a very very decent read through a walkthrough on how to do it and see what it's like!

Sad Professor

Does the mount have an arm? Are you able to tilt it up? Might make it bit easier.

alexlyons

nope, its mounted as close to the wall as possible... deliberately of course, without this in mind!!

alexlyons

Looking at this hard drive.

I take it it'll be ok in the iMac ye?

Sad Professor

Yeah, that should be fine.

alexlyons

Just got word from the Apple Discussions that there have been reports of the green drives spinning down and causing beach-balling for a few seconds if the drive isn't constantly active. and I've had enough beach-balling while simply trying to change tabs in safari or scroll a webpage.

I'm wondering would I notice a benefit in the "dual processor" feature of this drive?

or should I just go with this?

or any other suggestions..?

Sad Professor

The momentary beachball as the drive spins back up is fairly normal behavior with any drive. I don't like it either, and I don't think all that spinning up and down is good for the drive, so I'd always recommend turning off the "put the hard drive to sleep when possible" option in the Energy Saver prefs. However, I assume those WD Green drives have this feature built-in and do it regardless.

alexlyons

Ye I always have that turned off. DOn't want any more beach-balling than absolutely necessary, hence the enquiry about the other drives.

I thought I had a 5400rpm drive and was hoping for a nice increase to 7200, but i already have a 7200 drive.. devastated

Freddie59

alexlyons wrote: »

I have a late 2008 24" iMac (2.8Ghz version)

The HD is dying on it. I have it all backed up so thats not an issue. The Apple Hardware test is giving me a Hard Drive error and its fairly obvious during use that the HD is dying. It's slow reading and writing data, general tasks such as browsing the web cause safari to freeze for abut 10seconds or so, maybe more. Every so often the whole computer will just lock up and I'll have to force it to shut down with the power button. Coming out of sleep or screen saver can cause major problems (it's restoring a saved state from the HD as far as I know when waking up) which would scream HD issues. Bottom line is it needs to be replaced.

It's out of warranty and I'm happy enough doing it myself. However...

It's mounted on a wall just above my desk. My desk is screwed to the wall, and to mount it there, the entire desk had to be removed, it was all wired in (ever single port is used at the back, including video out) and all the wires for it, my MacBook Pro Station, and numerous other electronic devices are all routed behind the drawers of the desk to hide them. Basically it's a full days work to take the desk off, take the iMac off the wall and then put it all back, forgetting about the HD replacement.

So what are the chances of me being able to replace this drive while the iMac is on the wall? It would make life much easier if it were possible.

Also anyone have any tips from experience on replacing the drive? I'm aware of ifixit.com

Thoughts on what drive to put in it are welcome, anything the same or bigger than the 320GB that's in it.

After just two years? That's disgraceful - given the cost of these things. No comeback with Apple?

alexlyons

That's a good point freddie. It was actually replaced about 8 months ago as the old one almost completely failed. I'm not sure why two have failed so quickly. I was wondering if some issues could be graphics related, but no errors to say that come up in the HW test.

I'd like a few extra GB's so I'm not going to fight this one. The whole machine was compensation from Apple due to numerous faulty laptops. I'm sick of fighting with them for the time being.

J-blk

Would an SSD make sense given the huge job you'll have to go through to replace the drive anyway? I would imagine it would be more durable than any HDD and the speed gains can't be matched. I swapped my MacBook's HDD with an Intel 80GB Postville SSD about a year ago and haven't looked back, the system is very zippy.

Sure, 80GB is pathetic storage-wise, but I have bucket loads of storage on a separate server anyway. Unless you need a lot of internal storage, would an SSD/external HDD (USB/Firewire/NAS, etc) combo maybe suit you better?

alexlyons

SSD sounds good, I did look into it but size is a major issue in relation to speed.

Imagine my set up if you will.

Aperture installed on the iMac
Aperture Library on a My Book Studio 1TB hooked by firewire 800.
It takes a good while to open up, and scrolling can get jumpy, it can generally seem sluggish.

Would a SSD just improve the startup times considering the library is external (it's about 65GB) or would it improve overall performance?

The files are all referenced (about 290GB) and there is no way I could afford a SSD that could hold them all.

Any suggestions?

alexlyons

and on the other hand which I forgot to say, a 1TB internal drive would allow all files on the same drive, which would hopefully speed performance up quite a bit. no?

J-blk

I don't use Aperture so I'm not sure what impact the library has on performance but it sounds like you might be right: if you have to still keep it on an external HDD, the performance gains with an SSD will not be that great. The SSD speeds up the startup of any applications on it, Firefox, iTunes, etc all start instantly essentially - Mac OS X boots up way faster, etc. But if the Aperture library slows down Aperture overall, then the external HDD would be a bottleneck anyway...

alexlyons wrote: »

and on the other hand which I forgot to say, a 1TB internal drive would allow all files on the same drive, which would hopefully speed performance up quite a bit. no?

Though probably not as massive a speed gain, moving all files on an internal SATA HDD would indeed be faster than using your internal HDD + the firewire HDD you use now.

alexlyons

Appreciate the thoughts. I've ordered a 1TB WD black drive. I'm going tho throw all the files onto the internal drive. The external can really be heard chugging away when using aperture, I hope this will speed things up a bit!!

J-blk

Best of luck with the HDD replacement - I've seen the guides online and it looks scary indeed !

alexlyons

Being scared is for wimps!

pcbscott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB8dPNvXCJE&feature=related

I wouldn't fancy doing this!!

Hm where did I put that screw..

alexlyons

that's an older iMac, mine is much easier, just lift the glass of, take the screen off and its done.

Sad Professor

pcbscott wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB8dPNvXCJE&feature=related

I wouldn't fancy doing this!!

Hm where did I put that screw..

I had to go through this with my old white iMac. Pain in the arse. Like alexlyons said, the new ones are much easier.

alexlyons

Right, so I literally just finished installing my new drive.

It was tricky enough but not to bad. Getting the ram door off involved moving my desk a bit which disturbed a few wires but it wasn't to bad. Getting the display cable off after I had unscrewed the LCD was pretty tricky and required 3 people. one to hold the screen, one to hold the torch and another to take the cables connector out. It had to be pushed away towards the back of the computer as it was connected to the back of a chip board.

The new drive was 5mm deeper than the old one, but it still fits fine.

It all works, I cloned the system on to it before hand.

I have one major issue. When the drive is being accessed it creates an incredibly loud noise. It's very annoying but I could live with it if I had to. Except the iMac is on the wall, and the room next door is generally extremely quite and the noise really travels through the wall. I had the same issue with an external sitting on a shelf which I had to move.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to quieten this noise right down? I have no issues reopening the machine if I'm almost guaranteed a fix.

Any suggestions welcome