I have upgraded my iMac to a Crucial SSD but now the internal fans are noisy as the fan speed has significantly increased.   Some earlier iMacs use a separate plug-in temperature sensor cable, which attaches to a socket on the original hard disk drive (HDD) to determine the drive temperature and adjust the fan speed accordingly. Solid State Drives (SSDs) and the accompanying 2.5” to 3.5” converter bracket do not use this type of socket, meaning that the cable cannot be reattached. When you power on your iMac, the temperature will incorrectly register as much higher than normal and the fan speed will increase as a result.   *Note that any iMac that uses a ‘sticky pad’ sensor can simply be re-attached to the new SSD and fan speed is unaffected*   One of the benefits of SSDs is that they generate significantly less heat in comparison to a traditional HDD, so the increased fan speed is unnecessary. You will probably want to reduce the speed of the fan, as well as the noise, so one solution is to use a 3 rd party software such as ‘SMCFanControl’. This allows the user full control of the fan speed to set it to an acceptable level.   SMCFanControl - https://www.eidac.de/?cat=40 Micron is not responsible for the contents of the above website, and does not assume any legal liability for the products or information offered at this site. The website link is provided for informational purposes and for the convenience of our customers.   An alternative solution is to purchase an aftermarket sensor adapter. This type of cable converts a plug-in sensor to an adhesive one, which allows the fan speed to be automatically controlled by the iMac's System Management Controller. When using the sensor adapter, no additional software would be required. ... View more

  I have installed my new SSD into my Mac for the first time and a flashing question mark appears on screen   If you have purchased a new SSD and installed it into the main drive bay of your system, the first thing you need to do is to initialize it for first use. If you attempt to boot from an SSD without an operating system installed, a flashing question mark appears to indicate that there is no bootable device. To initialize your SSD for first use, please follow the steps found here. Once your SSD is initialized and picked up as usable drive in Disk Utility, you are ready to reinstall OS X. This can be done by using the Apple Recovery Mode (Command + R) or using the Recovery CDs that came with your Mac. You can also restore from a backup, described here.   My SSD was working fine or cloned/restored from a working drive but now a question mark appears on screen every time I power on and it doesn't boot   If your system was working but you are now suddenly seeing a flashing question mark, you can try the following to restore things back to normal. 1. Power off your Mac by holding the power button until it turns off. 2. Power on your Mac again and hold the Command and R keys to boot into the Mac Recovery Mode. - If you have an earlier Mac (pre 2011) you may need to use your Recovery CDs that came with your system to access recovery. 3. Once the Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility from the menu 4. Click on the name of your SSD on the left hand side of Disk Utility. - If your SSD is not listed here, double check the drive bay to ensure the SSD is seated correctly. In rare cases you may need to perform a power cycle to allow it to be detected again. 5. Click on the First Aid tab 6. Select Repair Disk to repair any problems that may have occurred on OS X. 7. Once complete you can close the window and restart your system.     My SSD was working fine but now a question mark briefly appears on screen and takes longer than normal to boot   This suggests that you may need to reselect your SSD as the main startup disk in the System Preferences. The flashing question mark means the system cannot immediately boot using the SSD and is looking for other boot devices before loading. You can try the steps below to resolve this: 1. Click on the Apple menu (Apple logo) and select System Preferences, then click Startup Disk. 2. Click on the name of your SSD under the "select the system you want to use to start up your computer" heading. 3. Click the restart button and your Mac should no longer show the question mark during startup.   If the above methods do not resolve your startup error, please contact us for further support. ... View more

All of our 2.5” SSDs can be used externally as data storage drives, where they can be installed in an enclosure and connected via USB. We offer a USB 3.0 enclosure for this purpose, which can be purchased separately: USB3 Enclosure - UK / EU / US When connecting externally, the data transfer speeds of the SSD will be limited to the maximum performance of the USB connection but you will still experience the added benefits of SSD technology, such as their unbeatable durability and reliability. ... View more

Question The System Scanner opens a notepad file. How do I run the scan to see my results? Answer The System Scanner should open in your default web browser immediately after running the .exe file downloaded from our website. If Windows Notepad opens (usually opening a file named sysprofile.htm) when you run the downloaded file, we recommend setting (or resetting) Internet Explorer as the default browser. The scanner is fully functional with all popular browsers but the steps below can be followed if you encounter problems:   Make Internet Explorer the default Browser: 1. Open up the Control Panel 2. Select "Default Programs" icon 3. Select "Set your Default Programs" 4. Select "Internet Explorer" 5. Select "Set this program as default" 6. Select "OK".   You can now double-click on the System Scanner file if you have downloaded it to your computer, or run it from Crucial.com. ... View more

At Crucial, we offer different SSDs to match your needs, ranging from cost-effective SSDs to our highest capacity cutting-edge version. To find out which SSD upgrade suits you best, the page below outlines the specification details and advanced features of each:   SSD comparison chart  - US / UK / EU   When deciding on a Crucial SSD model, it’s also important to note that the maximum performance from your Crucial SSD is dependent on installing the drive into a system with the latest SATA connection (SATA III 6Gb/s). This type of connection ensures you would see speeds of around 500MB/s when you ran a benchmark speed test. You would generally have a SATA III connection in your system if it was manufactured in 2010 onwards.   If your system has an older SATA II 3Gb/s connection (pre 2010) then you will see around half of the advertised speed – usually around 250MB/s. In this case, our SSDs would still be fully backwards compatible but you may wish to focus more on price rather than the SSDs maximum performance.   If we have information on which connection type your system has, we will list it on the left hand side of the System Scanner or Advisor Tool results page, just to give you an idea on what speed to expect. Remember, all of our Crucial SSDs are capable of vastly improving the performance of your system versus a conventional Hard Drive, so why not upgrade today. ... View more

Recovery Mode   Recent Mac systems will have an OS X Recovery mode built in allowing you to reinstall a fresh version of OS X that is currently installed on your system. To do this, you can follow the steps below with your Crucial SSD installed in the drive bay of your Mac:   Power on or restart your Mac. As you hear the startup sound, hold the Command and R keys on the keyboard.  Release the keys after the Apple logo appears. After the Recovery menu appears titled, “OS X Utilities”, you can initialize the SSD for first use by selecting Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and follow our "How to Initialize your SSD"  guide. If your SSD is initialized, select the option to Install OS X from the main Utilities menu, follow the onscreen prompts to select your Crucial SSD and start the installation.        Time Machine Backup   If you have backed up your system using Time Machine, you can restore your current OS X version along with all of your personal files using this method. To do this, follow the steps below with your Crucial SSD installed in the drive bay of your Mac:   Power on or restart your Mac. As you hear the startup sound, hold the Command and R keys on the keyboard.  Release the keys after the Apple logo appears. After the Recovery menu appears titled, “OS X Utilities”, you can initialize the SSD for first use by selecting Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and follow our "How to Initialize your SSD"  guide. If your SSD is initialized, select the option to Restore From Time Machine Backup from the main Utilities menu. Select your Time Machine backup disk. Select the Time Machine backup you want to restore. Select Continue and follow the instructions to reinstall OS X and your files onto your Crucial SSD. ... View more

You may have noticed that when you check the maximum amount of supported memory for your Mac, that we recommend more than Apple has listed on their technical specification. The good news is that this is not a mistake! On occasion you will find that due to system updates and technological advances, some Macs may be able to support more memory compared to when it was originally manufactured. At Crucial, we ensure that the higher amount of RAM is rigorously tested and is backed by our compatibility guarantee. We recommend that you run our System Scanner, or use our Advisor Tool, so you can accurately check the amount of memory your Mac can support. We have had thousands of happy and surprised Mac users, so why not upgrade today. ... View more