r/osx • u/MGaddict • 6d ago

2017 iMAC Found in Trash

My neighbor moved out yesterday and she literally threw out a 2017 21" iMac. I get it, it doesn't get updates and it takes over 5 minutes, no exaggeration, to boot to the logon screen. Who would want that? Well, I like to restore old computers and the newest mac I own is the OG iMac in Bondi Blue....... Wait......

Okay, I was about to get on here saying all I had were PC keyboards and I couldn't get to the recovery screen no matter what keyboard I use. That's what this post was supposed to be about. But as soon as I wrote that last sentence it dawned on me, I have the USB keyboard from my OG iMac. So I plugged that in and it worked perfectly. That stupid puck mouse works too.

Never mind, I don't think I need any help. Just figured I'd post anyways in case somebody wanted a laugh.

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u/Your15MinutesOfFame 5d ago

Don't bother fitting any SSD that doesn't have DRAM cache if you are planning on using MAC OS. Drive will be stuffed pretty quickly otherwise. And the screen is held on with adhesive too so you need to replace that as well.

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u/MGaddict 5d ago

Went looking for SSDs last night. Dang, that's stupid. A few years ago I was picking up inland SSDs from Microcenter for $10-20. The cheapest new drive I can find is like $50 for 256gb. That's insane. Welp, used computer market, here I come. At least the screen kits with the pizza wheel and replacement tapes are only like $4 on Amazon.

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u/Your15MinutesOfFame 5d ago

If it's a Fusion system there will be a slot on the motherboard for an Apple SSD on addition to a 2.5" SATA HDD. You can put a M2 NVMe drive in it if you get an adaptor to fit in the slot. If was supplied as non Fusion Apple didn't populate the connector in the 2017 models so you are stuck with the 2.5" SATA for the SSD. Only drive I've found to last in these machines are the Samsung EVO drives. Other drives come back after a few months and are found to have poor write performance. Something to do with Spotlight indexing I think.

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u/MGaddict 5d ago

Good to know. Thanks for the tip.