Chosen Solution
I’m currently considering options to improve the performance of my iMac Intel 27" 3.5 GHZ i7 16GB RAM 3TB HDD - EMC 2639. Essentially, I find programs slow to start up and I am considering upgrading my HDD. An IT colleague of mine, suggested installing an SSD or SSHD but I am uncertain of how much of a performance improvement this will be? If this would improve the speed significantly … which drive is best suited for this type of upgrade and what is the max capacity that I can consider? I have about 4TB of personal data split between an external drive and my existing hard drive. Additionally, I have considered upgrading the RAM (a fairly straight forward exercise) but with 16 GB RAM, my Activity Monitor suggests that my RAM is not overly stressed. I kind of think that this would be overkill and would not improve things that much. I have also considered buying a new iMac and selling my old one but I am not convinced that the newest model is all that much different from what I already have … apart from the graphics card and resolution. In any case, your thoughts and insights are greatly appreciated. Curious to hear what you have to say. Thanks,
Your system has two drive ports: SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) and a custom PCIe/AHCI x2. While a SSHD is a good option it will only really improve the boot up time and if you are constantly using the same program over and over again. I would recommend installing the custom blade SSD following this guide: iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639 Blade SSD Replacement as the best solution while a bit more work the SSD performance is more than twice what the SATA III interface can offer. If you have a Fusion Drive you’ll need to break it first before altering either drive.
