I ve booted from an el capitan installer flash drive formatted the ssd and am installing el cap as i write this.
Imac 2011 ssd upgrade temperature sensor.
No fan noise at all so far.
Simply shorted out the hd connector with a home made jumper wire as shown here.
2011 imac ssd upgrade tutorial with owc thermal sensor kit.
Owc 1tb ssd upgrade bundle for 2011 imacs owc mercury electra 1 0tb 6g ssd adaptadrive 2 5 to 3 5 drive converter bracket in line digital thermal sensor cable installation tools owckitim11he1tb.
I just installed a 480gb sandisk ssd plus in a mid 2011 imac with no external thermal sensor on the old drive.
Owc in line digital thermal sensor for imac 2011 hard drive upgrade.
How to clone existing harddrive to nvram reset which enables imac to acknowledge there has been h.
Don t waste your money on that owc or similar temp sensor.
I m hesitant to clip wires on the power cable so i m really hoping my luck holds.
I d been planning to sell my mid 2010 27 imac and purchase the new 2019 model as the performance had significantly dropped off despite doing an os clean install.
Ultimately it is possible to upgrade the hard drive in these 21 5 inch and 27 inch aluminum imac models or upgrade or install a secondary ssd in the mid 2011 21 5 inch models and mid 2010 and mid 2011 27 inch models but opening the case is a challenge and it is definitely not for those without significant upgrade experience.
Anyway really easy to install.