6GB 2.5in to 3.5in Internal SSD Hard Drive SATA Drive Converter

The Fenlink SSD/Hard Drive Adapter is incredibly high quality in terms of materials. It actually feels more high quality than some of what’s in the iMac in terms of the connectors Apple chose, which are generally very brittle. I have a late 2010 i7 iMac 27”, and a late 2018 i7 iMac 27”. Since the late 2010 iMac is larger in terms of depth, it’s much easier to work with internally, and this was used to add a 960GB SSD, as well as a secondary 2 Terrabte traditional laptop sized hard drive where the disc drive used to be.While the 2010 iMac doesn’t support the fastest SATA data speeds, the increase in speed overall is phenomenal. The start up times are 20 seconds, and outside of loading complex audio plugins in GarageBand on an initial program boot, the last supported version of Logic Pro for OSX High Sierra starts up in 8 seconds. Compared to the 2018 iMac, which takes 3.5 seconds to load Logic Pro, as well 10 seconds to boot into a clean install of OSX Catalina, the boot times for the 2010 iMac are impressive.Installing the Fenlink SSD/Hard Drive Adapter requires an iMac repair kit with dual suction cups to remove the protective glass frame, as well as a PC screw driver kit with set of Torx skrew driver bits to unscrew the LCD panel. Once you do that, you have to be very careful with removing the very short cables such as the V-Sync Cable, and the LED Light cable, as well as the LCD Monitor, and the temperature sensor cables that need to be removed to fully lift the LCD panel away from the iMac Logic Board. The environment should also be fairly sterile and static free, to prevent dust from getting on the glass that protects the iMac LCD panel. For anyone that’s not well versed in computer building or repair, it’s not like simply replacing, or adding a hard drive in a tower PC, or HTPC build. You need to have a complete OSX Time Machine backup, or an external drive with the latest supported version of OSX ready to install when you boot up the iMac with the new hard drive.The other important thing to note is that all current hard drives have internal temperature sensors. Once you remove the original iMac hard drive, the original sensor cable will not work on the new SSD because the extra sensor port on the new, non Apple supplied hard drive isn’t present. Once a clean copy of OSX is installed, if you’ve added an SSD, you’ll see an insane speed boost, but then you’ll hear a very loud, persistent fan noise shortly after that. Apple tends to like to run all of thier computers at high temperatures due to how thin they make them. This means that both the Intel MacBook Pros and iMacs typically don’t allow for boost clock CPU speeds to occur. This problem was well documented and present even on the first release of their extremely expensive 2019 i9 MacBook Pros. The stock temperatures were so high that it throttled the i9 CPU to a point where it ran much slower than the significantly cheaper i7 MacBook Pro model that was just bellow it in terms of specs.To address the issue of the loud fans once your SSD or traditional hard drive is installed on an older iMac, all you need to do is buy the relatively cheap HDD Fan Control app. Given that I replaced the original hard drive and the disc drive, none of the thermal sensor cables work. HDD Fan Control is able to read all of the internal SSD and traditional hard drive sensors, and it actually has an included profile to prevent thermal throttling. Before that, with the original iMac 2010 hard drive, on a clean install of High Sierra, in a well ventilated space, with no dust inside the iMac, on idle, the iMac was at 65 degrees Celsius. With Photoshop, iTunes, and Firefox open, it would hit over 95 degrees Celsius at times. After installing both new hard drives, and using HDD Fan Control, the iMac is still very quiet, and it’s idling at 44 degrees Celsius, and on load, it’s 60 degrees Celsius. Even with a high CPU load, the internal fans are barely audible. On my 2018 iMac, without any modifications, or HDD Fan Control, it’s 50 degrees Celsius on idle, and 80 or more on load, largely because the case is razor thin by comparison. My i7 9700k Nvidia 2080 Super PC build, clocked at 5.5ghz, runs at 22 degrees Celsius on idle, and 55 on load, so the high Mac temperatures really aren’t ideal at all. In a strange sort of way, upgrading the ram to 32GB, which the late 2010 iMac 27” can take, despite saying its limit is 16GB, adding the SSD, and another hard drive that’s setup for iTunes and Logic Pro sound libraries, as well as a cache for Photoshop and music programs, then having HDD Fan Control, the iMac feels almost as fast as the 2018 iMac.In closing, if you know what you’re doing, and are comfortable with working on a Mac or PC, the Fenlink SSD/Hard Drive Adapter is incredibly high quality in terms of its solid materials and metal frame. Installing it has breathed new life into my iMac.

Adapter work well?Everything on this adapter was made great, I was trying to get a bit more time out of my old Lenovo M90Z AIO, and I bought a crucial 500 GB SSD. The problem is/was the Lenovo uses a drive caddy for the 3.5 drive and it slides into place, the SATA connections made on the motherboard and clamps down- I thought for sure there would have to be some adaption to make it work- Eh NO NADA not a problem one- the drive adapter fit perfectly in the caddy where the old drive was, it was made to line up with the SATA connection and snapped into place without any problem. It is made of a cast metal it is light ,strong, and well made...KUDOS to whoever designed and built this.

This review is for: Fenlink 2.5" to 3.5" Internal SSD Hard Drive SATA Drive ConverterEvery once in a while you make a purchase that is orders of magnitude better than you thought it would be. This is one such purchase for me. This item is a robust yet light aluminum converter 2.5" to 3.5" drive tray with SATA power and data connectors built into the precise position they would be if this were a 3.5" HDD. This allows you to mount a 2.5" drive and have the connectors line up with a second drive. This is important if you will be using the drive in a case with double SATA power connectors at a fixed distance along the cable and you're attaching one to an HDD and the other to an SSD. Holds the drive securely, all hardware screws are included and the skeleton frame allows cooling airflow around the drive. Was needlessly concerned about the quality of the offset connectors - they're fine. All in all a brilliant piece of engineering and manufacturing. If you're converting to a 2.5" SSD and placing it in a 3.5" drive bay you need this.

This is a great high quality product. It worked very well for my needs.

Installing the 2.5 SSD to the bracket was very simple. Fitted like a glove. When attempted to add it to my computer's caddy. This is where i ran into problems. the bracket doesn't fit into the caddy. it seems the screws are slightly too small. the doesn't stay in the caddy. Finally, i just put the bracket into my computer (because it doesn't Vibrate). I'll ordered slightly larger screws, then what came with the unit.

Does what it's supposed to do. It allowed me to replace the 1TB 3.5" mechanical HDD in a 12-year-old Cavalry external drive enclosure. Weight, heat dissipation and power consumption were reduced; access speed and reliability were increased.I don't remember if I found this in other reviews before purchasing, but the frame of the adapter is not plastic. It's actually powder-coated cast aluminum, or some alloy thereof. It's sturdy but also quite heavy. Not as heavy as the 3.5" mechanical HDD that it replaced, but it definitely weighs more than the SSD itself.There are 8 screws included in the package and no instructions, so to clarify for anyone wondering:The washer-head screws are metric (M2.5 or M3, I believe) and secure the SSD to the frame. The pan-head screws are #6-32 and attach the frame to whatever mounting points would have secured the old 3.5" mechanical drive in the computer chassis. All of the mounting points of a 3.5" drive are retained, which contributes greatly to ease of installation.The fit is exact and, as others have pointed out, this adapter positions the SATA connector in the same place it would be on a mechanical hard drive. This is critical if you're replacing a drive that plugs directly into a connector without cables.This would probably not work for those "tool-less" hard drive bays that pop the drive out when the door is opened (such as in a server or NAS device), since those rely on the thickness of the HDD as well as its length and width for the lever mechanism to engage properly.