Adding an internal SATA HDD and SDD to a late-2014 27" 5K Retina iMac

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Level 1

8 points

Adding an internal SATA HDD and SDD to a late-2014 27" 5K Retina iMac

I have the late-2014 version that came with a 1T SSD installed. I've been using an external Thunderbolt 2 RAID (OWC ThunderBay 4) to manage over 20T of photos and movies. Mostly I use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro.

My two questions are: 1) can I add a SATA SSD or HDD in the spot where an HDD would have been if I'd ordered it that way in the first place? 2) Would there be any speed advantage over my current set up? I was thinking about changing the original SSD to the OWC Aura 2 2T SSD and adding either a 4T Mercury Extreme Pro SATA SSD or a 4T 6G/s HDD to have internal access to projects I'm currently working on.

I've upgraded the innards of many iMacs over the years so I feel relatively comfortable with the project, but I don't want to open up the machine to find out there's no SATA connector in there, or that it wouldn't be compatible with what I'm proposing.

Thanks

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Feb 19, 2023 1:23 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,368 points

Feb 20, 2023 8:12 AM in response to DMYoung

Would there be any speed advantage over my current set up?

No. Your current factory SSD is probably doing writes/reads at least 1500MB/sec—maybe more—on the NVME bus. The factory SSD in my 2017 5K does writes: 2100 MB/sec, reads: 2700MB/sec

A SATA 6g SSS on the HDD tops out at 600MB/sec, with 500MB/sec more likely. It would be a downgrade if used as the boot volume but OK for extra storage.

If your factory SSD is slower than that, you should troubleshoot that first. An EtreCheck report will should drive performance plus anything that could be slowing your computer, like anti-virus or so-called "cleaning" software.

Get EtreCheck here:

https://etrecheck.com/index

The free version will do nicely for this purpose, although the app is worthy of our financial support.

We can see hard data about drive performance, software issues, and RAM usage. Etrecheck is the development of a long-serving and trusted contributor here expressly for displaying information in these forums to help us help you. It will not reveal any personal or secure information.

See this excellent user tip on posting text reports like EtreCheck.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

⚠️ Please DO NOT highlight the text in the report before using Etrecheck’s “Copy report” command—that will garble the formatting and make the report slower and harder to evaluate.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

245,393 points

Feb 19, 2023 3:35 PM in response to DMYoung

Judging from the Install videos...

Thrilling speeds up to 3316MB/s read and 2445MB/s write
Up to twice as fast as the original SSD

OWC SSD Upgrade Kits for 21.5-Inch iMac (2013 - 2019) (macsales.com)

Upgrade/Install a PCIe SSD in a 27-Inch iMac (2014-15) (macsales.com)

Upgrade/Install a SATA Drive in a 27" iMac (2012-2019) (macsales.com)

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Answer 3

DMYoung Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2023 7:27 PM in response to BDAqua

Yes, the description from the OWC website is what drew my attention. I'm wondering if people are as happy with it in everyday situations.

Also, my main question has to do with whether I can add a SATA HDD to this setup, which has never had one. If so, I'd rather buy both hard drives and install them at the same time.

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Answer 4

MartinR

Level 7

21,697 points

Feb 20, 2023 6:48 AM in response to DMYoung

The Late-2014 27" iMac models could be configured with either a Fusion drive (1TB or 3TB) or an SSD (256GB, 512GB or 1TB). While the logic board is almost certainly the same in all configurations, it is unlikely that the SSD models included the necessary cable to connect to a standard SATA drive. The only way to find out would be to open the iMac.

If the cable is not present, the challenge will be to find the correct cable & even then it will be necessary to disassemble the entire iMac and remove the logic board. The cable connects on the underside of the logic board.

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Answer 5

DMYoung Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 20, 2023 12:52 PM in response to MartinR

Martin R,

Thank you so much for detailing what would be involved in adding a SATA cable. From Allan Jones' answer, it sounds as though there wouldn't be any speed advantage over an external Thunderbolt RAID. I'm not sure about the bus or transfer speed differences between an internal SATA drive and an external Thunderbolt RAID. I currently have my home folder on the RAID and would like to get it back internally for some of my larger projects. I set this up eight years ago, so maybe there's a workaround I'm overlooking that would give me the RAID speed but keep everything internal.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

245,393 points

Feb 19, 2023 8:19 PM in response to DMYoung

Yes, the last link I posted was for installing SSD or HDD.

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Answer 7

DMYoung Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 19, 2023 9:42 PM in response to BDAqua

I've seen the videos and the links. I'm asking here to confirm that an iMac that shipped with ONLY an SSD has the proper connections inside to allow me to install an HDD.

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