2011 imac hard drive replacement program

Rest assured that proprietary SATA cables and hard drives are just the beginning. Now, it might sound crazy, but when you upgrade your Mac - when you slot in more RAM, or install a mega-fast SSD - you are effectively stealing money from Apple.

In an ideal world, in fact, every Mac user would simply buy a new desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone every 12 months. Apple’s business model revolves around hardware the software is very important, but it is only a vehicle for selling hardware. What we’re seeing here is the beginning of forced obsolescence. If your system drive dies, you either get it fixed by an Apple Authorized Service Center, or you find a nice bookshelf for the whitest, chicest, and most expensive bookend in the known universe. Now, feeling thoroughly bored and disenfranchised by people upgrading machines they own, Apple has simply done away with any pretense of openness. The iPhone has a hard-to-replace battery, for example, but it’s still replaceable - and last year’s iMac also had a complicated hard drive setup, but you could still circumvent it with enough effort. Historically, Apple has always kept a very tight leash on its hardware - but it has never been quite this bad. You can install any drive you like in the second hard drive bay, or use the eSATA port without issues - but you’re stuck with the 7200RPM system drive, whether you like it or not. There’s some good news though: only the primary, system drive is crippled in this way. If you touch the drive in any way, or change the cable, the cooling fans instantly increase to warp speed. These extra pins, in combination with some proprietary firmware that Apple installs on its system drives, are used to monitor and control hard drive temperature. Instead of using a standard 4-pin power configuration, Apple’s new connector uses 7 pins.

If you try to move, remove, or replace the main system hard drive, your system fans will spin up to their ear-splitting max speed, and the Apple Hardware Test will automatically fail.Īpple, in its search for the perfect closed system, has replaced the new iMac’s standard SATA connector with a custom solution. Research by Mac specialists Other World Computing has uncovered a damning and disturbing feature in the 2011 range of Thunderbolt-equipped Apple iMacs. This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page.

2011 imac hard drive replacement program