If You Want a Second Drive in Your iMac, You Better Get It From Apple

According to a new report by One World Computing, it will be extremely difficult, though not impossible, to install a secondary solid state drive (SSD) to the new 27-inch iMacintroduced earlier this week as part of Apple’s desktop upgrades. While the new iMac can support a secondary drive, unless you order one with the secondary SSD pre-installed from Apple, there are no mounting brackets or connectors for easy installation.

According to OWC, ” is that the SSD bay available in the new iMacs holds a standard 2.5″ form factor drive, which means you can install a high-performance OWC Mercury Extreme SSD for the speed advantage over Apple’s SSDs.

The bad news is that, unless your Mid 2010 iMac originally came with an Apple SSD, there’s no graceful way to install an OWC one. The appropriate mounting bracket and connector cables are nowhere to be found on the non-SSD models.”

Basically, if you buy a standard iMac without the secondary SSD option, your Mac won’t come with the brackets and cables necessary to connect an after-market one and the DIY method is not for the faint of heart.