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Apple's New 27-Inch iMac Supports Secondary Solid State Hard Drive

Tuesday July 27, 2010 11:00 am PDT by Eric Slivka

Several MacRumors readers have pointed out that Apple's new 27-inch iMac released today offers support for dual hard drives: one traditional Serial ATA in 1 TB or 2 TB capacity and one 256 GB solid state drive (SSD). Alternatively, customers can opt for a single 256 GB SSD, as described on the iMac features page.

To give your iMac a real performance boost, configure your 27-inch iMac on the Apple Online Store with an optional 256GB solid-state drive. You can choose it as your only drive or have it installed in addition to the built-in hard drive, allowing you to store the operating system, critical applications, and important files on the solid-state drive and your other files on the hard drive. Because solid-state drives have no moving parts, the computer can access data at over twice the speed of hard drives. Which makes starting up your iMac and launching applications faster than you ever thought possible.

The new offering marks the first time Apple has offered dual hard drives as build-to-order options for its iMac line, taking advantage of the space available in the 27-inch iMac's chassis to squeeze in another drive bay. The SSD options do not come cheaply, however, with a simple swap of the standard 1 TB traditional drive for a 256 GB SSD coming in at a $600 price premium. Customers looking to add the SSD as a second drive on top of the 1 TB traditional drive will find themselves looking at a $750 price boost.

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