In my last blog I showed how to get Big Sur working on a recalcitrant Fusion-drive iMac. The Mac was never the same after this crazy installation process, taking up to five minutes to boot up from cold. Totally unacceptable, it was as though the Fusion drive wasn't recognising its own SSD component at bootup. Once started it was OK but other processes were somewhat slow as well.
I decided to investigate removing the Fusion drive components & fitting an SSD instead. Too big & fiddly a job for one like me who suffers from "Essential Tremors," a condition in which the hands twitch uncontrollably. In fact, if I try to stop the tremors they get worse. Often I cannot hold a cup of tea or coffee that's more than half full without losing its contents should I have to move the cup from a serving area to a chair, for example.
So I contacted a couple of Apple resellers/approved repair localities & settled on one who quoted me AU$430 to install a 500 GB SSD or AU$490 to do the same with a 1 TB SSD. I chose the latter option, dropped off the iMac on a Friday and it was ready for collection on the following Tuesday. It was well worth the cost, the thing is transformed, bootup is quick, apps open after only a few bounces on the dock, a vast difference.