Which parts for upgrading an older iMac?

April 7, 2020 8:09 AM

Hi. I'd like some help regarding parts and tutorials for upgrading my old iMac.

I used to be the kind of person who would gladly assemble an entire computer back when DIP switches and IRQ jumpers were a thing, but that feels like a lifetime ago. I just mention it to say I'm not afraid of a screwdriver or a RAM slot, I'm just ignorant of methods and best practices and terminology for modern computers.

I have a 2013 21.5" iMac. I would like to upgrade the RAM and hard drive. Right now I have 2 sticks of 4 gigs each for a total of 8 gigs of RAM and I have a 1 TB HD.

I would like to move to 2 sticks of 8 gigs each for a total of 16 gigs of RAM and a 1 TB SSD.

My local shop wants $300 to do the RAM and $599 to do the SSD and that seems extravagant.

Here are my questions:
- which RAM to buy? From what I shopped I thought I could get it for around $100 total but I want to make sure I'm buying the right RAM.
- which SSD to buy? Again, looks like I should expect to spend $100.
- which pry tools and suction cups to buy? Someone once recommended cheap cell phone window suctions but if you have a better recommendation I'm all ears.
- which online video to watch to best understand the process?
- which method to best clone my old HD to the new SSD? I have an external Time Machine backup drive if that is my best option.

I appreciate your help, and of course if I can buy all the components from one ethical shop that's not Amazon I'm willing to pay a bit more to do so.

posted by komara to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

The go-to for tools and takeapart guides and such for these sorts of things (and many others, really) is iFixit. This might be your machine. Or, it might be the Early 2013; you'll have to figure that one out (System Profiler will tell you). Be advised that working inside iMacs is non-trivial - lots of screws, you have to remove the screen, taking the glass off isn't particularly pleasant, etc.

As for parts, Other World Computing is a good, reputable source of parts that really only does Mac stuff, so the things they sell (especially their own-brand stuff) is made to work with Apple equipment. Other than that, NewEgg is also a good option - I like them as their prices and ship times are comparable to Amazon (and, personally, I like that they've had a history of going after and defeating patent trolls). Note that the OWC SSDs may be more expensive than other places and brands but they tend more towards the higher end of SSDs, so you really need to compare an OWC SSD against a, say, Samsung 860 PRO, not the cheapest Apacer or whatever drive.

SSDs are generally SSDs - you're going to get a 2.5" SATA one for that machine, and unless you're really stressing it out (which you aren't in a 7 year old computer) performance is more or less a wash - but you do need to pay attention to making sure the RAM hits spec for the computer. Macs still tend to be more particular about the RAM timings and such, and you don't want to have to pull apart the iMac any more than you really need to. I would honestly just get everything from iFixit (tools) and OWC (parts) - it'll be the easiest. (That said, I have had good luck with Timetec for cheap RAM. My favorite SSD though is one by the brand "ALERT SEAL" which I bought because it literally has a seal on it and was cheap. Works fine, can't vouch that any other drives by that "brand" will.)

For cloning: SuperDuper! by Shirt Pocket Software is still the gold standard. Use it, buy it, let it do schedule clones of your disk. It's been around forever and works great. The free version will get you going, but the scheduled (bootable!) backups it makes are super nice to have too. Get a cheap USB-to-SATA case and put the new SSD in it, plug it in, clone it, and it'll be like you've always had an SSD on that system.
posted by mrg at 8:32 AM on April 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've always had good luck buying RAM from Crucial. They have an app you download and it scans your system and then takes you to a page which shows what your memory options are. Just last week I ordered 16 gigs from Crucial to upgrade to 32, and it was $97, so $300 is definitely extreme. Now, that's assuming that your 21" has the same little RAM access door on the back like my 27" does. I know they got rid of that at some point a few years ago.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:47 AM on April 7, 2020

Short summary: check ifixit for your model and see what you make of the instructions. At least on the 27", the ram is totally trivial to do, and worth doing right away. The hard drive is apparently a barrel of hurt that even I as a relatively experienced person have little interest in trying.

If you insist on doing the hard drive, I'm pretty sure you need to get the temperature sensor kit from OWC, and they'll have an iMac opening kit that you might as well purchase. Get a 1tb 860 evo (500gb if you're on a tight budget) SSD, or you could order something from OWC, but while their prices are probably fair, they're quite high.
posted by wotsac at 8:49 AM on April 7, 2020

Best answer: Can you buy an external HD, and just install OS X on that, and kind of ignore the internal HD that's such a pain in the neck to replace?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:02 AM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've take iMacs apart many times. For the screen glass I use those cheap shower hooks that come in a 4-pak on a blister card. The first one I serviced, I didn't realize I'd need a suction cup and just happen to have these shower hooks in the house. I just used them every time in the future.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:28 AM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

My reference for my laptop is EveryMac. It tracks memory and storage specs and capacity, along with some details on upgrading and a bunch of other details, though I think I usually refer to iFixit first for details on swapping hardware.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:19 AM on April 7, 2020

I suspect the primary reason the shop wants those prices to do the RAM upgrades is because, generally speaking, the RAM in your iMac isn't meant to be accessed. One needs to remove the screen (which is attached by adhesive, not magnets as in earlier iMacs) and then one needs to remove the motherboard. On the upside, the RAM in a 2013 21.5" iMac still resides in slots. In 2014, Apple went to soldering the RAM in.

There are also caveats about replacing the HD depending on whether your iMac is an early-2013 or late-2013 model.

This page and this page have some details as to what is involved in replacing RAM and HD in your iMac.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:32 AM on April 7, 2020

Also, the risk of dropping a giant screen accumulates, and every so often they need to replace one they mess up -- so they pad the price of every iMac job enough to juuuust cover the odds.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:29 PM on April 7, 2020

Once you identify your *specific* 2013 model using the provided link, iFixit will give you links for products and repair guides. Each have links to parts (SSD and RAM in your case) that are compatible with that specific model. It also links to other parts for that model that you'll need, like adhesive strips for reattaching the screen, for instance. The repair guides are pretty clear. I did the SSD upgrade on my late 2012 iMac and brought it back to life. Also, watch rando youtube videos and you'll see you dont really need some of the tools. I didn't use suction cups or the screen removal tool. A guitar pick worked just fine. You just have to remember not to push in too deep around the camera if you're using something weird. Oh - and you're not prying anything, just breaking an adhesive seal is all.
posted by whatisish at 9:09 PM on April 7, 2020

Response by poster: Well, before this post I had literally no idea that an external SSD could be faster than an internal HDD. I decided to take the tack of trying to boot from external SSD (thanks, wenestvedt). I already own SuperDuper so I bought a Western Digital SSD, copied my HDD to it, and booted from it. Immediate results, far faster system.

Follow-up question: any thoughts about using SuperDuper to clone my boot SSD to my internal HDD say, twice a day? So that if the SSD dies I still have a bootable drive with minimal file loss? Or is there some other best practice that I should be following re: running an entire OS off of an external drive?
posted by komara at 9:06 PM on April 8, 2020

You know that you can replace the internal hard drive with an SSD, right?
posted by whatisish at 12:12 PM on April 9, 2020

You know that you can replace the internal hard drive with an SSD, right?

That was the OP's original plan, but for reasons discussed above they decided to go the easier/cheaper route.
posted by terrapin at 7:37 AM on April 10, 2020 [1 favorite]