Chosen Solution
HI, I have bougth, back in 2016, my Imac 15.1, mid 2015 with 1TB 7200HDD, but i now find it very slow. Having searched the internet over a solution i came across of the possibility of upgrading the machine with an SSD drive in the PCI slot in the logic board. The main problem I find is wether my machine have the PCI slot to accept the SSD or not? I went to the system reports and under PCI it says that the machine does not have any PCI slots or devices. I remain with a series of doubts: Why this machine logic board do not have any PCI slot if when we buy the imac apple ask us if we want the fusion drive or not… I do not know but perhaps the PCI is built inside of the logic board but is not in use.Can I replace the logic board of my device for one other from same model fusion drive that have the PCI Slot?Can I install a PCI Slot in my device logic board? I use now an external SSD 2.5 hard drive through USB 3.0 and runs better but now so fast as i would like. My device has two thunderbolt slots but unfortunately there arent any M.2 or NVMe SSD enclosures that support thunderbolt 2 connections. Any suggestions?
All of the 2012 onward 27” iMac’s have the PCIe slot, the 21.5” systems was a hit or mis issue in some models.
Here is a very useful guide on the slots interface: The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs While one can use a real Apple Blade SSD they are often just not available as they are no longer being produced in some sizes and interfaces. I would recommend just going with OWC blade SSD. Here’s the guide to put it in iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement To put your concerns aside: Why this machine logic board do not have any PCI slot if when we buy the iMac apple ask us if we want the fusion drive or not… I do not know but perhaps the PCI is built inside of the logic board but is not in use. A Fusion Drive was something Apple pushed to offer more performance without adding a lot of cost. The PCIe slot SSD was quite small and just used as a cache drive. I recommend people skip them and just get a blade SSD model with the largest drive that can afford. Can I replace the logic board of my device for one other from same model fusion drive that have the PCI Slot?Can I install a PCI Slot in my device logic board? Not needed! As your system has it! If it’s not populated with a SSD drive it will report its not present. Your last question was on external Thunderbolt SSD drives: OWC External Thunderbolt 2 drives as an example there are tons of other makers as well as case makers which you can put in your own SATA or PCIe drives into.
