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3TB HD, triple SSD iMac turnkey drive upgrades available from OWC

In the never-ending search for bigger and faster storage options, Mac users have a number of sources for hard drives, but OWC has been a favorite for many Apple fans since the late 1980s. Now the company is offering a set of turnkey eSATA add-ons and upgrades for mid-2010 27" iMacs that should make almost any space-challenged Machead happy.

The upgrade paths are all outlined on a special configuration web page on OWC's site. It all starts with an internal boot solid-state drive. If you already have the 256GB internal SSD option installed in your iMac, then you're ready to go -- if not, then you move on to the next step, which is to add either an eSATA port or an internal SSD.

You then have the option of adding more SSDs (up to a total three 480GB drives) and/or a big 7200 RPM hard drive. Adding the "last" SSD disables your internal SD card reader, but never fear -- OWC throws in a USB card reader to replace it. The capacity of the 7200 RPM hard drive can be up to 3TB, making for a lot of built-in storage.

My personal dream configuration, if money was no object (and it is), would be to get a 480GB SSD installed for a boot and applications drive, a second 480GB SSD for mirroring the first drive, and a 3TB drive for all of my data. Then I'd have the eSATA port installed and put my original 2TB internal drive into an OWC eSATA enclosure for doing some backups. Throw in a 16GB RAM upgrade, an external Blu-Ray read/write drive, and a three-year extended warranty, and the cost would be right around $3,000.

It is great to see these kinds of storage options available for iMacs, and tremendous fun to price out the different configurations. If money was no object, what would you have OWC install in your 27" iMac?

[via Electronista]