Replace DVD with SSD in iMac A1224 Early 2008

mmm… I think you need to rethink this.

The optical drive connection is the older PATA interface which is why you can’t directly connect the 2.5” SSD into the optical drive port on the logic board. You also loose the performance the SSD could offer so I think you need to look at swapping out your current HDD.

But even that has its own issues! First off the version of SATA interface this system offered is SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) today most SSDs are SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) and as the demand for dual speed drives is mostly gone (you being the exception here) todays drives are not able to auto sense the lower I/O speed so they will drop data in spits and spurts when the buffers run out. So while it will appear to work the system will hobble along with issues.

So lucky there is a few dual speed drives still being sold Samsung 850 EVO spec sheet note the Interface clearly states the drive supports the older SATA spec’ed systems. So what ever drive you use needs to state it clearly, if not don’t use it.

OK, that’s only leaves the size difference between the current drive and the new SSD. You’ll need an adapter frame and that should do with the needed screws to mount it to the current mount points.

Last issue is the cobblers dilemma! You’ll need to setup a bootable external drive (FireWire or optical) if I remember correctly this system won’t boot from a USB drive. So hopefully you have your original CD/DVD’s or have a FireWire drive which you can setup as a bootable drive with the needed OS installer files. The highest Mac OS-X this system supported was OS-X El Capitan (10.11.6) if upgraded to at least 2 GB of RAM.