iMac's latest 27-inch iteration requires special parts for your own SSD in second drive bay

One of the few highlights of the refreshed 27-inch iMac is the new SSD option for its second drive bay. This sure is good news for performance addicts carrying some spare cash, but with the 256GB SSD addition costing from $750, some may prefer the DIY route to save a few pennies for that gold iPad. Sadly, it won't be as straight forward as sliding in a new drive -- e-tailer OWC noticed in its teardown that you'll be needing a mounting bracket and a couple of cables that are only supplied with Apple's own SSD. That said, if you can find a way to secure the drive in the bay, all you'll need are a SATA male-to-two-female splitter plus a left-angled SATA connector cable, and then a way to partially remove the logic board to access the free port. Yup, it's as easy as really complicated pie.

[SlayerHD Posted Jul 30th 2010 4:01AM]

OHH NOOO.................You broke it :'(

[beefiron Posted Jul 30th 2010 9:25AM]

"a SATA male-to-two-female splitter"

Damn SATA drives having all the fun!

[IEBA1 Posted Jul 30th 2010 10:12AM]

The iMac (aside form the very first one) is not meant to be user friendly aside from adding RAM. Unfortunately for Mac users, the only alternative for customization is the way to friggin huge and expensive Mac Pro.

http://ieba.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/openlet/

If Apple really wanted to throw Mac users a bone, they'd make a Mac Mini Pro, with a full size (and replacable) optical drive, a startup drive and room for one removable optical drive. And then either have room for a PCI sot, or have an ExpressCard 2.0 slot on the back, or two of them. Let users augment their computers without all this "missing cable" nonsense.