The 27-inch Apple iMac Review (2011)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 27, 2011 2:30 AM ESTFunky Cables and SSDs
Apple doesn't just use the extra chassis volume in the iMac for heat dissipation, the system also comes equipped with a single 3.5" hard drive rather than the smaller 2.5" drives you find in notebooks. With the exception of the entry level iMac which comes with a 500GB drive, the remaining iMacs ship with a 1TB hard drive. By today's standards 1TB isn't anything to be excited about, particularly if you're storing a lot of music, photos and videos. The drives are all 7200RPM and come from either Seagate or Western Digital.
Retail drive cost is around $65 and the cost to Apple is likely even lower than that as an OEM ordering in bulk. With less than 3% of the cost of the high end 27-inch iMac being devoted to the hard drive it's clear that Apple doesn't view storage as anything other than a commodity. This philosophy extends to Apple's take on SSDs as well. While my review system didn't come with a SSD, Apple tells me that the 2011 iMacs use the same SSDs that the 2010 iMacs offered as an option (apparently a Toshiba based SSD - confirmed it's the same Toshiba SSD used in the 2011 MacBook Pro). The SSD isn't available on the $1199 iMac.
There's only one drive offered: a 256GB Apple branded drive for $500 in lieu of your internal hard drive. If you want it in addition to the 1TB hard drive it'll be $600 or $750 if paired with a 2TB hard drive. I don't have to tell you that while I believe an SSD is worth that much money, the drive Apple will sell you isn't exactly worth its upgrade cost.
While it's possible to add an SSD on your own, doing so requires a pretty lengthy teardown process. There are great tutorials online that help show you the way as well as provide you links to all additional cables that you'd need. There's no tray for the SSD to live in by default so you either have to cleverly adhere it to the inside of the chassis or order a part specifically designed to do so.
Apple opted for high quality fairly standard SATA cables for the iMac so I don't believe we'll see the compatibility issues on the iMac that we've seen in the MacBook Pro. In typical Apple fashion there are no spare power cables just laying around inside the iMac, instead you'll have to split power off from the hard drive to power both it and your aftermarket SSD. The whole process looks doable with a bit of patience and the right tools.
Apparently Apple likes to query HDD temperature quite frequently and uses that data in determining fan speed. In order to keep those requests off the SATA bus Apple supplies a custom power cable with surprisingly low gauge wires to not only power the hard drive but also return temperature data to Apple's fan controllers. The cable looks like this:
The standard SATA power cable is five pins. There's one pin for each voltage rail (3.3V, 5V and 12V) and two pins for ground. Apple's custom cable has seven pins, the remaining two are for temperature data. If you replace the iMac's internal hard drive with a drive that doesn't provide the appropriate temperature data, Apple's fan controller will go bonkers and try to cool what it assumes is an overheating drive.
When presented with this information, our own Brian Klug had a simple suggestion: short the two temperature pins to fool them into thinking all is good. It turns out that Apple provides a similar suggestion if you have a SSD-only iMac. Awesomely-named-site Hardmac.com has the scoop.
On the iMac, HDD power is provided through a proprietary connector on the motherboard. Short pins 2 and 7 (just connect the two using a simple wire) and you'll be able to run the iMac with no HDD plugged in and avoid the uber-spinning-fans. I'm guessing if you want to run with your own 3.5" drive in there that doesn't work with Apple's sensor setup simply short those two pins on the power cable itself (you'll have to tap into and modify the cable for this to work) and you should be good to go. Given that this is a review sample from Apple, and that Apple isn't too fond of me taking their review samples apart, I haven't tried the solution. But if shorting pins 2-7 on the motherboard header works, then shorting those two pins on the cable should work as well.
Now it's a pain that we even have to have this discussion, in fact it's the lack of easy upgrades that makes me so uncertain about the iMac. It's a fast machine with a great display but what happens in a couple of years when I need a faster GPU or even sooner when I want an SSD or larger HDD. At least the latter is possible.
With PCIe it's completely feasible to bring some modularity to these components. If anyone is willing to break the mold and explore something unique it's Apple, unfortunately I'm just not seeing that here.
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smithj - Sunday, May 29, 2011 - link
People not within the European Union do not pay the VAT tax. If you live outside of the European Union, you pay £369.00 which is around $570 USD/AUD so he's completely correct.Even if you live in the European Union, you're going to be saving a similar amount since I imagine Apple products get the VAT tax slapped onto them as well. Doesn't change anything.
On the Hazro website:
"If you are ordering from outside the UK and EU, you will not be charged VAT."
There are extremely good reasons for getting a iMac but from a parts point of view its terrible value. You can't measure the benefits of the iMac however with just plain figures and specs.
Kristian Vättö - Sunday, May 29, 2011 - link
Ahh, that explains it then. I didn't look any further so didn't know about the international price. Customs may be added to the price though (not sure about the US policy as you don't VAT. If I buy something from the US, I will have to pay the Finnish 23% VAT before I can receive it).The Hazro looks very good though, thanks for linking it. Something to keep in mind when this oldish iMac needs to go. 500€ for a 27" 1440p display doesn't sound that bad, could get two of them for the price of one 27" ACD
repoman27 - Sunday, May 29, 2011 - link
I took issue with OWC's blog posts about the HDD upgrade issues in the 2011 iMac, and was hoping to find a better clarification here than the one in this review. OWC insisted on using the terms "standard", "leads" and "pins" in odd ways, and some of that seems to be echoed here.The HDD power cable in the iMac (Mid 2011) has 7 conductors, a standard 15-pin SATA power connector on one end, and a small 7-socket connector on the other which attaches to a header on the logic board. This assembly, while proprietary, is not necessarily any more so than the ones that ship with modular PSUs. It is more common to see SATA power cables with only 4 conductors (GND, 5 V, GND, 12 V) or 5 conductors if 3.3 V is also supplied. Several pins are then ganged together in the 15-pin connector to support the specified current requirements. As noted in the article, Apple is using relatively small conductors, and thus 2 are used in tandem for 12 V, they also elected to use the reserved pin 11 of the 15-pin SATA power connector for temperature monitoring. Pins 10 and 12 must both be connected to ground, although most of the time one conductor is used and pins 10-12 are all ganged together. Apple couldn't do this, so instead their 7 conductors are for GND, 5 V, GND, Temp, GND, 12 V, 12 V.
It is not common behavior for HDDs to output a temperature signal on pin 11 of the SATA power connector. While the model numbers and controller boards of the drives that ship in the 2011 iMacs look to be no different from retail ones, there would appear to be differences in the firmware that allow for this functionality. I would imagine that patching the firmware of a retail drive is possible.
If you ground pin 11 of the 15-pin SATA power connector, SMC will act as if there is no 3.5" drive installed. This means that the speed of the HDD fan will not increase above a certain baseline, and if you really do have a 3.5" drive in that bay, it will not properly dissipate the heat generated by it. If you use this trick to swap out the stock drive for an after-market one, you should also use S.M.A.R.T. based fan control software.
There are separate, clearly labeled power headers for HDD, ODD and SSD on the iMac's logic board. It is probably a better idea to use the dedicated SSD power header than a Y-splitter if you add a 2.5" drive to an iMac that didn't ship with one installed. The HDD cable was more than likely not designed to support two devices, and most Y-splitters for SATA power cables gang pins 10-12, thus grounding pin 11 and preventing the SMC from receiving HDD temperature data. The SSD power header on the 27-inch models is a standard 6-pin slimline SATA power connector, but on the 21-inch it is just a small 4-pin header.
The design of the iMac in general deters the casual from servicing their own hardware, and while some are discouraged by this, it's a ridiculous stance to take. Most people who purchase a new Mercedes S-Class don't worry about the fact that they probably won't be able to service it themselves (even if they are a fairly competent mechanic), or that it contains proprietary cable assemblies. If you don't feel comfortable servicing or modding your gear yourself, just take it to someone who does.
MadMinstrel - Sunday, May 29, 2011 - link
A 512MB <i>framebuffer</i>? Really? So that's all you think GPU memory is useful for? That might have been the case in the good old S3 ViRGE days, but right now it <i>really</i> doesn't work that way and I would expect someone writing for AnandTech to know that. In fact, GPU memory holds at least two framebuffers and sometimes as many as 6. More if you count all the intermediate rendering steps such as depth buffers, accumulation buffers, G-buffers, albedo buffers, etc, as used in modern deferred rendering engines. Textures, geometry, physics data, and sometimes even some of the game logic also go into GPU memory. Maybe I'm just being pedantic about this but I guess it really annoyed me because I actually <i>care</i> about Anand being accurate.Sunburn74 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link
Not for me thanks. Too pricey and lousy specs. I also don't care about TN vs IPS panels. Most people don't care. Some enthusiasts do, but you can't really argue that iMacs are targeted for the average joe who don't know a ton about pcs and just wants it to work whilst arguing that the average joe can appreciate a 500 dollar difference between an IPS panel and TN panel. The truth is most people don't even know there are 2 types of panels floating about.I consider myself an enthusiast. I've spent a couple months working on a last gen 27inc iMac in the past as a reference point, with a lot of adobe studio stuff. Long story short, I wasn't impressed. I found the machine to be slow to average in terms of performance (compared to the HP tower workstations we had down the hall for "real work" haha). Throw out the nicer display (who's value is questionable depending on who you talk to. Again I've read in the comments how imacs are great for your dad and mom and your granny.Your granny is not noticing a difference between a 27inch HP tn panel and a 27inch mac IPS panel) and I don't really see what the iMac brings to the table that all the other all in ones don't have. I just don't really see a good target audience outside of mac enthusiasts who just gotta have it.
Its not great for people who need a pc that just works without hassle but are limited by budget (your mom, your dad, your granny, your girlfriend in college)
Its not great for the power users like myself who render and process in different ways thousands of high def images a day for scientific purposes. The HP workstation crushed the mac with its superior specs and apparently less aesthetic screen (a high end HP 30 inch TN panel).
Its not great for the true computer enthusiasts who likes to know whats in his pc and enjoys servicing his own box.
the iMac is truly like the mercedes benz and not in a good way. Mercedes make nice cars, but no one can disagree that those cars (just like the iMac) are
1)For the rich for whom cost is not truly an issue
2)for those who don't have an interest in servicing and maintaining their own cars and will have the dealer do it all,
3) For those who don't use their cars for actual work where the performance of the car actually matters (otherwise they'd go with the mac workstation or any othre workstation or build their own).
The imac just puzzles me and yet it sells so well apparently.
JFA - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - link
It would be great to see comparison with previous generation of iMacs. Nowadays one can find quite a discounts on previous gen.javaporter - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - link
I didn't read all 14 pages of comments, someone probably mentioned this, but you might want to look at dropbox. I have the 50GB option. It's enough for core project folders, my 1Password keychain, and various things I want to always have access to.I had the same issue as the author when deciding to leave a Mac Pro for a Macbook Pro. I did and worked that way for a while, however, recently I went back from a MBPro to an iMac and a Macbook Air.
With dropbox, I don't really have to worry about moving files anymore. It's still not perfect; I still have to worry about 2 machines to update software on and my photos won't fit on my MBAir of course (nor will iTunes), but for me, it's still worth it to have a desktop. I liked my MBPro, but it just never seemed to be as fast or easy as the desktop or as portable as the Air (I had the 17" — pretty unusable when flying coach).
timmillea - Monday, December 19, 2016 - link
So, five years later and this is still a very attractive machine. It is the last in the line of iMacs that do not need a 'pizza cutter' and replacing double-sided tape to obtain access to upgrade. Also the last with an optical drive which is still handy for ripping movies, music and sharing the same with people who are not riding the Apple wave. A 3.4 GHz quad-core i7 with a (ideally) 2GB GPU is still a very serious amount of computing power. Upgrade to 2 x SSDs with guides freely available on the net and configure them as Raid 0 and you have Mac-Pro challanging performance with a superb display in the size of the display alone available on the Bay for a third of the original price.Rendell001 - Sunday, July 29, 2018 - link
Thats very reassuring to know timmillea, I have the same model too which I picked up on eBay back in 2014 for £900. I love it for the same reasons you do though I've not tinkered with the insides yet. Needed to know if it would still hold up even now in 2018.