Yesterday, we noted that Apple's new 27" iMac for the first time allows users to configure their machines with a second hard drive, offering a 256 GB solid state drive as an option for the second bay.
Location of second hard drive bay in new 27" iMac
A number of consumers have wondered about the possibility of aftermarket installation of drives into this bay, should they choose to go with the single-drive option at purchase and perhaps add a second drive later as prices drop and/or capacities increase. To answer that question, Other World Computing has opened up one of the new iMacs and unfortunately found that the task would not be a simple one unless the machine originally shipped with dual drives.
The good news is that the SSD bay available in the new iMacs holds a standard 2.5" form factor drive, which means you can install a high-performance OWC Mercury Extreme SSD for the speed advantage over Apple's SSDs.
The bad news is that, unless your Mid 2010 iMac originally came with an Apple SSD, there's no graceful way to install an OWC one. The appropriate mounting bracket and connector cables are nowhere to be found on the non-SSD models.
The report goes on to detail one somewhat inelegant method in which a user of a single-drive iMac could add a second drive, but the solution is certainly not ideal.
