Chosen Solution

Hey all, I’ve made a tentative list of components (available as of May 2015) needed to put a SSD in where a HDD would go in the 5k iMac–Fusion or Flash So to review I personally went with the 256gb Flash option so my iMac doesn’t have a harddrive OR a SATA harddrive cable (connector & power). The Flash storage option ONLY comes with 256gb PCie storage mounted onto the logic board, where the Fusion option comes with BOTH a 128gb PCie storage mounted onto the logic board AND a 1TB Hard Disk Drive that is configured to appear as a “Single” drive. The main issue with installing a 3rd party ssd into your retina iMac is that it can’t read the temperature of the drive so it forces the fans to run at full speed. When the 5K iMac first came out, there weren’t many solutions to this as the parts for it didn’t exist (as you can see from the lack of parts listed on the 5k iMac product page) I believe this can be solved with this. OWC in-line digital thermometer http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIDIM… Since I got the 256gb+ flash storage upon purchase, I believe I will need these parts in addition to the Thermometer SATA Connector & Power Cable:iMac Intel 27" 5K (Late 2014-Mid 2015) Hard Drive Cable HDD Bracket: http://www.impactcomputers.com/922-9135…. Adapter Caddy 3.5" to 2.5":http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/84… (All parts listed available as of May 2015) So My Question Is…. Does this all look correct? Have I glossed over concerns I should have? Thanks for reading this UPDATE So I just got my iMac today and I cracked it open within the hour I got it. I installed a 1TB ssd where my hard disk fusion would have been if i hadn’t gone with the flash option. Also threw in 32gb of RAM. All the stuff I mentioned worked really well and i actually didn’t need the HDD bracket, Apple gives you the bracket but not the Sata cables. Here are some pics of the install

(image 1)All of the guts ripped out for the most part

(image 2)Apple was nice enough to give us a HD bracket, but not nice enough to give us the cable.

(image 3)SSD in 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. Also, shot of inline OWC thermometer from above.

(image 4)Cut out a portion of the sticker label so the thermometer would have direct contact against metal

(image 5)Everything in place getting ready to seal it back up. Praying it all works still

(image 6) WORKS!

(image 7) More info :)

Everything went really smoothly–getting the screen off is actually really easy if you’re patient. DO THIS WITH A FRIEND I was lucky enough to have a buddy of mine as my screen holder while I was making sure the drive could be read/partitioned and the thermometer was working alright. Crack those iMac’s open, they’re really not that difficult to work on

UPDATE So I just got my iMac today and I cracked it open within the hour I got it. I installed a 1TB ssd where my hard disk fusion would have been if i hadn’t gone with the flash option. Also threw in 32gb of RAM. All the stuff I mentioned worked really well and i actually didn’t need the HDD bracket, Apple gives you the bracket but not the Sata cables. Here are some pics of the install! ABOVE IN QUESTION

Hi Dan, I have iMac 27inch Retina 5k 2015 with 1TB SATA installed. I would like to replace it with Samsung 850 Pro 500GB SSD. Since my iMac came with SATA drive, i think i don’t need to buy connector and power cable. I would need to buy adapter caddy and digital thermometer. Also when you removed and reinstalled back display, did you replaced the adhesive strips?