I'm using a fairly middle of the road 27" iMac at work - i5, 8GB, spinning HD. The machine itself is fine, but the lack of SSD is killing me. I wouldn't want to risk an internal upgrade on this ...

At $2699, it might be expensive, but the 27-inch iMac we customized with a 3.4GHz Core i7 quad-core processor and a 256GB SSD is the fastest Mac weu2019ve tested to date.

TLDR; yes, it is possible to add an SSD to a 2011 27" iMac without going through too much hoopla. Between everyone having issues finding parts, non-workable guides (due to parts), and general ...

The iMac Mid 2011 Dual Hard Drive Kit ($69.95) is available for both the 21.5-inch and 27-inch models and comes with a Custom SATA power cable, SATA data cable, custom-cut 3M VHB double-sided ...

21.5-inch 2.7GHz Core i5 iMac with SSD (Mid 2011): Speedmark 6.5 scores Longer bars are better. Blue bars in italics represent reference systems.

iFixit recommends adding a smaller, cheaper SSD and using that as your boot drive while using your HDD for media files and things of the like. Hard to go against that advice. [iFixit] ...

My "vintage" mid 2011 iMac is my daily driver. I have upgraded the RAM to 16GB and put an SSD as primary disk while keeping the HDD as second, removing the dvd.

But as several readers have noted, there is another way to add an SSD to your Mac: you can keep your old hard drive, and instead replace the Mac’s CD/DVD optical drive, also known as a SuperDrive.

If you want an internal SSD larger than 1TB, you have to start with the top-of-the-line 3.7GHz model, costing $300 more than the mid-range 27-inch iMac that’s the usual sweet-spot.