iMac frees you from the tyranny (and convenience) of servicing your own hard drives (update: not exactly a new problem)

Letting Apple control most facets of your computing experience is just a fact of life for the Mac faithful, but if you want to swap out the hard drive for a bigger or faster one with the most recent iMac refresh, well, you have somewhat limited options. Rather than a standard 4-pin SATA connector Apple uses a 7-pin configuration that keeps you from hooking up just any old hard drive, lest a temperature sensor go batty and your system refuse to cooperate. There are ways around it, but your warranty may not apply afterward...

Update: We've revised this post to clarify that this isn't exactly a new issue. The same problem existed in previous revisions, but the big issue now is that the separate thermal cable has been integrated into the SATA cable. It's similar to what was done before, just a little harder to get around now. But, you can get around it -- if you don't mind shorting out a few cables and running some custom software.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]