After reading through OWC’s new iMac teardown, I’ve come away depressed. Why? I really wanted at 27″ iMac so I could get a speedy SSD and slap it in myself, saving a couple hundred bucks in the process. But lo and behold, Apple’s our way or no way policy shines though yet again.
If you object to the SSD drive bubble on the ordering page, it’ll be a nice little test of your ingenuity and resourcefulness when it comes time for you to install your own SSD. You see, Apple designed the new iMacs to require proprietary cabling and mounting hardware to fit an SSD into the iMac’s body if it wasn’t originally ordered with one — in which case, the required hardware is obviously included. Furthermore, end users have to remove part of the logic board just to plug in the SSD. Seems like an awful lot of work for a simple hard drive upgrade/addition. Honestly — that’s because it is. Some will flame me for needlessly bitching, pointing out that the iMac isn’t a tinkerer’s machine, and if more power is warranted, upgrade to a Mac Pro. Ya, ok, let me just pull $3,500 out of the couch.
The most disappointing, though unsurprising move with the new iMac SSD option is the choice of drive itself. For an anal leaking $600, Apple will proudly sell you a low-end 2568GB Samsung SSD. People will immediately gravitate towards the storage size of 256GB. But it’s pretty useless. If you’ve read your SSD reviews thoroughly, you’ll know the Samsung drives are some of the slower SSD’s on the block. Drives featuring either Indilinx or Sandforce controllers are leaps and bounds better — even “lower-end” drives with said controllers. Even worse, a drive of that size needs TRIM to keep it performing optimally over the life span of the drive. Seeing as how this drive is both slow and can’t make use of TRIM (OS X doesn’t support it yet), it’s a no-brainer — Don’t buy this option! A solid year down the road, Apple’s only SSD offering is going to c.r.a.w.l.
Again, it’s nothing revolutionary that Apple empowers complete control over their products and aims to make the most money possible with proprietary hardware and software. It’s just that I thought with as much attention (both good and bad) and increased market share Apple is acquiring, they’d look at listening and catering to customers’ best interests a little more. Guess i was wrong.
