Local Apple Repair and Upgrades

There are a few upgrades that can be carried out on an iMac but the iMac Hard Drive upgrade can add some life to an older iMac. Not only by adding extra space but also speed. Upgrading to a Hybrid SSD/HDD or a true SSD(Solid State Hard Drive) can give your ageing iMac or MacBook a fantastic speed boost. Add in some extra RAM memory and it would be like new again. 

Recently we carried out a Hybrid SSD Drive upgrade on a 2009 iMac. We thought that we would show you what goes on with your iMac or MacBook when it comes in for an upgrade.

Below shows the iMac hard drive when it came in. As you can see it was time to upgrade!

With the glass removed we now have access to the LCD panel.

No matter how clean of a working space your iMac or MacBook lives in over the years  they collect lots of dust. Ideally this should be cleaned out every year to make sure your iMac or MacBook has the optimal of air flow over the important parts like the CPU and Graphics card. This will help to increase the life of your Apple device.

Behind the LCD panel on a Apple iMac you gain access to the hard drive. It is not really advisable to attempt this upgrade yourself without a lot of research. The power supply in the top right holds a charge for many hours even if the iMac is turned off and unplugged. This can give you a nasty shock!!

As you can see there is quite a process in getting to the hard drive on an iMac.

Here is the hard drive that we decided would be best for this upgrade. A hybrid ssd is a blend of  two types of drives adding a large amount of space and a speed boost and less expensive than a large sized SSD.

Next we replace the LCD panel in to the case and connect the cables from LCD to logic board. This is just to test everything is working prior putting the aluminium case back on.

Next we install the chosen version of OS X that the client has asked for. Some iMac’s are unable to run the very latest OS X version. We will advise on the best OS X for your model.

Here at Combe Wood Computers we are only too happy to supply advice on the best upgrades to suit your iMac or MacBook. Once we have established what would be the best upgrade for your needs we would book in your Apple device at a time to suits you and keep you informed along the way on how things are going.

Below you will find one of our clients iMac’s that had run out of space and become very slow indeed. The hard drive was full to the brim with files. We advised to upgrade the hard drive to a much bigger one. Rather than choose a true solid state hard drive upgrade we thought that a Hybrid SSD would be better and keep the price down!

Below you can see how we use glass removal suckers to remove the glass iMac front.

The aluminium iMac case is held on to the main shell by a selection of screws.

We clean out your iMac or MacBook of dust. Making sure all fans and vents are free of dust. In extreme cases where the device may have overheating issue we would also remove the logic board and clean the old thermal compound from the CPU and GPU and replace it with brand new.

There is another fan on the 2009 iMac behind the LCD that will also require cleaning out.

On other models the fans are in other places and this is in now way a How To guide, we just wanted to show you what goes on here at Combe Wood Computers.

We then remove your old hard drive. Yet more screws holding it in place with anti vibration rubbers. 

The hybrid hard drive is now in place.

The same rubber anti vibration screws can be used again. The process is slightly different if installing a true SSD in a iMac, these are smaller and require a bracket.

With the iMac tested and working we put the aluminium case back on and carefully put the glass on too. This has to be done very carefully making sure not to trap any dust between the glass and LCD.

Well here we have it a 2009 iMac upgraded from a 320gb hard drive to a 1TB hybrid hard drive adding both space and speed. All ready now for our client to collect and enjoy the added boost.