Chosen Solution

Hello, Thank You in advance for any answers I receive for this is an ancient Mac and I don’t want to trouble anyone over it. I own an iMac 20 inch Mid 2007 model with 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Although slow it still works and is currently used by my Dad for basic browsing and normal functions. To help speed it up for him I was planning to replace the HDD with an SSD. After going through the forums and many videos just wanted to confirm a few things,

  1. Was planning to get this SSD (Western Digital WD Green 240 GB 2.5 inch SATA III Internal Solid State Drive) which is SATA III, but since the iMac uses a SATA II connection will it work ? I won’t be spending money on a caddy or bracket for it, would instead go with the velcro trick.
  2. To reuse the internal 3.5 inch HDD which is in it already I was planning to buy a dock. Could not find any cases with Firewire Port so going with this one. Further questions unrelated to the SSD upgrade,
  3. The Optical Drive seems to be unusable, unsure whether there is a disk stuck in or there is some other issue, but it makes random sounds on bootup. Wondering if I can just remove it and keep the slot empty? Would that cause any issues ?
  4. There are these weird bubbles on the screen, I know it is a decade old Mac. Have any of you seen anything similar and know the reasons for it? Images here:

Thanks again for any answers to this question.

You would need to be sure the SSD is backward compatible to SATA II 3.0. Most are not. The couple I know that are are the Samsung 860 EVO & Samsung 860 QVO. I would also bump up the RAM: Standard RAM:1 GB Maximum RAM:6 GB* Details:1 GB of RAM is installed as a single SO-DIMM module. Apple officially supports 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 6 GB of RAM using one 2 GB and one 4 GB memory module. The 250 GB hard drive is 12 years old and not worth trying to salvage. Pre-Installed MacOS:X 10.4.10 (8R4031) Maximum MacOS:X 10.11.x that’s El Capitan https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/