Get a super fast iMac with the external Samsung X5 NVMe Thunderbolt 3 SSD without opening your iMac
Channel: Dutch Travel Couple
Date: 2021-05-02

If you are not happy with the performance of your iMac and you don't want to crack open your iMac, watch this video!

After installing the Samsung X5 as boot drive of my iMac boot times improved from 3 minutes to less than 30 seconds! Also applications perform much better.

In this video I explain to you step by step how you install the Samsung X5, how you install MacOS on it and how you configure it as a bootdrive. I will also show you the difference in performance between the original Fusion drive and the Samsung X5 using Disk Speed Test application of BlackMagicDesign
 
This video can also be used as a full tutorial on how to perform a clean MacOS installation on your iMac.

Alternative title : Samsung X5 SSD Fast and easy iMac HDD replacement

Chapters :
Introduction 00:11
The Samsung X5 product view : 00:50
Disk Speed test 1TB Fusion drive : 01:22 
Background : 02:04
Installation of the Samsung X5 (done in 10 seconds :-) ): 02:53
Installing MacOS Big Sur on the Samsung X5 from the macOS Recovery-systeem : 03:06
Restart of the iMac booting from the Samsung X5 : 08:04
Disk Speed test Samsung X5 : 09:07

Links to buy the Samsung X5:
The Netherlands : https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1237141/samsung-x5-500gb-zwart.html

I bought it at iBood but it was a one day offer so not available anymore : https://www.ibood.com/

I have an Apple iMac model Retina 5K 27-inch of 2017 with a 1TB fusion drive. With the upgrade to BigSur the performance of the iMac became really disappointing. For example booting the iMac took about 3 minutes and applications where very slow.

Looking for a way to improve the performance of the iMac I found different video's on how to open the iMac and replace the fusion drive (the HDD part) with an SSD drive. Opening the iMac and replacing the drive doesn't even look that complicated. But still there is a risk!
Also you will loose your (Apple) Warranty when opening the iMac yourself.

I didn't want to take the risk. Also when you choose to use good tools and good equipement to replace your internal drive yourself it will not be much cheaper than the option that I present to you here with the Samsung X5 NVMe SSD external Thunderbolt 3 drive.

Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) allows for connection speeds up to 40Gbps (5 GB/s) which is more than enough to support the transfer speeds of the fast NVMe drives. You can choose to built an External NVMe Thunderbolt 3 drive yourself. Or you can do what I did and buy the Samsung X5 which is the fastest external drive at this moment.

Links:
BlackMagicDesign Disk Speed Test :
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20190808-04
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550?mt=12

Want to use an USB-C drive as boot drive (not as fast as Thunderbolt 3)?
https://youtu.be/QHgs3XRPJiM

Still want to replace your internal drive including the NVMe?
https://youtu.be/PpXl529RFBg