Chosen Solution
Is it possible to use the same sata cable, the one already used for connecting the optical drive, for connecting an SSD drive bay? I mean without detaching the logic board for plugging the sata cable in a different sata slot. My intention is to install an SSD just removing the screen and the optical drive, using an ssd drive bay and an external usb case for the OD.
You do realize you have three SATA ports in your system: HD, Optical drive & Spare So you don’t need to take out your optical drive to add the SSD (it will use the spare port). If you wanted to have three drives (HDD, SSD1 & HDD2 or SSD2 for the optical drive) then I could see that might make sense! Here’s the IFIXIT guide to add in the Spare port SSD: Installing iMac Intel 27" EMC 2429 Dual Drive Kit (HDD or SSD). If you want to push your system to the max then you could do this: Installing iMac Intel 27" EMC 2309 and 2374 Dual Drive The part cost for either is the same ($20 US), yes the first is a bit more work but you don’t loose your optical drive and you still need to add in the cost of the case to hold your drive. Lastly, the optical drives SATA port is only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s). So in my option I would do the first way as it will give you the higher speed I/O SATA III (6.0 Gb/s). And I would set it up as the boot drive.
