iMac A1419 27" Late 2013 - How would one find out what hard drive is in there?

[Standard Common Username]

Howdy, all. Thanks for reading.

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Early tl;dr - I need to find out if a guy's Late 2013 27" iMac A1419 has a SATA HDD in it or something more chip-like instead so I can use a spare 1TB 2.5" SSD in it instead, if it would fit. But I don't want to open it up and the guy's nowhere near me.
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I've got a buddy of mine that's only slightly computer literate. They just got a new 1 TB 2.5" SATA SSD for their old 2011 Macbook, but the Macbook's logic board died shortly afterward and they feel like their investment has gone to waste.

We want to see if there's a way to have them not have wasted their money on the SSD. They told me they have a 27" Late 2013 iMac. They even gave me the serial number.

Thing is, whenever I look up this particular model, I'm getting an equal number of hits regarding it having a standard mechanical 3.5" Hard Drive or a Fusion Chip that is very much not in the shape of a SATA 2.5" SSD.

I definitely don't want to ask him to bring it in so I can open it up, as that's a ton of work in and of itself.

I'd ask him to check in the disk Utility area to see what kind of drive it is, but it doesn't look like it'd be much help either.

Spoiler: Not quite enough information

The standard Disk Utility doesn't quite show enough information.

(This isn't his - I just took a random image from Google Image search to show folks why it wouldn't quite do.)

Would anyone happen to have a suggestion regarding being able to find out what kind of physical hard drive is in this iMac without having him bring it here?

I appreciate the tips!

 

[rm5]

Hey, @Standard Common Username! When you go into Disk Utility, you can see if you go View > Show All Devices, you can see what brand of disk is in the machine, by looking it up on Google. i've attached a screenshot below of what you want to look for. Also, in Monterey and older, go to About this Mac > Storage, and you can see what kind of drive it's booting from on the left-hand side.

I hope this is helpful to you... obviously let me know if you need more info!

 

[SamWijib]

You could mount the SSD in an external enclosure (make sure it's UASP) and install the OS on that. The speed difference between external USB3 SSD and internal SSD in the 2013 model is not much. The labour is minimal compared to opening the 2013 iMac and resealing it and the cost would be less (£10 for the enclosure vs £18 for the screen fixing kit - should only use original mac strips, not the thin stuff - plus a mounting kit for the 2.5" drive in the 3.5" bay) - Also, by using the SSD externally, you get to keep the original drive storage space and there's no risk of damaging your friend's iMac opening it up.

 

[Standard Common Username]

I appreciate the information, rm5 and Sam!

@ rm5 - That's a great idea. I've been on that panel many a time, doing an assortment of file system tomfoolery and such. I feel silly for having forgotten about it. I just hope the end user can navigate his Mac and find his way there, and then has a steady hand with his potato's camera.

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@ Sam - That's certainly an idea for something more semi-permanent. And I appreciate the awareness of UASP. That's some fun new information.

If his SSD was already used in a 2011 Macbook Pro, do you think it would be able to boot from that just fine? Because that would be very useful in case of operating system failure or something.

Otherwise, I'm not sure if they're the sort of people that would want to use a drive externally and have to hold a key each time to boot from it. I'll have to bring it up as a possibility.

Also, those Mac adhesive strips - Is there really no substitute for them? We've used them every time, yes, but I also have very, very thin (In all senses of the word.) adhesive strips that I can easily slice to size. Would that be such a disaster? D:

 

[SamWijib]

I've swapped external OS drives for the same model of mac and it worked fine, but I don't think it would work with different models. I've never tried it but I wouldn't recommend it.

There is some concern about the thin strips not being as reliable - screens falling off 6 months later - that could be down to conditions or technique, but the consequences of failure are pretty severe, cracked screen, torn ribbon connectors. Also the foam layer in the original strips is the material that gets torn / cut by the pizza cutter tool when removing the screen - if this is absent in the replacement glue strips, then removing the screen again might not be possible, or the closer fit means less room to insert the tool and more chance of cracking the glass.

I can't remember where I read it (it was on MacRumors) but speed-wise, USB3 vs the internal connection is not much different on the 2013, 2014 models - only when you get to the 2015 models is there a significant speed jump due to a faster internal connection. But the SSD on USB (especially with UASP), is a lot faster than the regular internal mechanical drive.

You can install the OS on the external drive without altering the internal drive, so when the external is plugged in it can boot from there, and when it's not plugged in, you can boot from the internal (old) drive / OS. You can then check the speed difference without committing. I've done this, it's a lot faster off the external SSD - faster boot and snappier to launch apps. If you're happy with the performance, you could clone the old drive onto the external and have the same system as the original - depends what you have on the iMac - I prefer a fresh install and save any important data for future reference. See here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-late-2013-ssd-upgrade-worth-it.2371184/

While you're at it, you could use OCLP and install Monterey or Ventura to the external drive and really bring it up to date:
Mr Macintosh OCLP Ventura
There are Monterey vids also.

Velcro strips to stick the external drive to the back of the iMac or cable tie it to the stand will keep it off the desk and out of sight.

 

[Fishrrman]

Here's the easy solution:

Tell the friend to get one of these:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

www.amazon.com

Put the drive into the enclosure (it just snaps in).
Connect it to a USB3 port on the iMac.

Erase the drive using disk utility.
You haven't told us WHICH VERSION OF THE OS your friend is using.

For High Sierra and earlier, erase to "Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format".
For Mojave and later, erase to "APFS, GUID partition format".

You didn't tell us HOW LARGE the friend's current drive is (in the iMac).
Is it 1tb?
Or is it larger?

If the drive sizes are the same (or if the iMac's is less than 1tb), have him download SuperDuper from here:

https://www.shirt-pocket.com/mint/pepper/orderedlist/downloads/download.php?file=https%3A//www.shirt-pocket.com/downloads/SuperDuper%21.dmg

SD is FREE to use what we're going to use it for.
Have your friend clone the contents of the internal drive to the SSD.
SD's user interface is very simple and intuitive.

When done, go to the startup disk preference pane.
Click the lock, enter password, then select the external SSD to be the new boot drive.

Reboot.
Done.

No opening the iMac and breaking something inside when you do it this way.

 

[passatgt]

If you replace the internal drive, the fan will spin at max RPM(thanks Tim Apple...). The fix is to install Macs Fan Control(free app) and pair the fan speed to a different temp sensor, this will lower and auto adjust the fan RPM. And obviously toggle the start on login option.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Howdy, all. Thanks for reading.

-------------
Early tl;dr - I need to find out if a guy's Late 2013 27" iMac A1419 has a SATA HDD in it or something more chip-like instead so I can use a spare 1TB 2.5" SSD in it instead, if it would fit. But I don't want to open it up and the guy's nowhere near me.
-------------

I've got a buddy of mine that's only slightly computer literate. They just got a new 1 TB 2.5" SATA SSD for their old 2011 Macbook, but the Macbook's logic board died shortly afterward and they feel like their investment has gone to waste.

We want to see if there's a way to have them not have wasted their money on the SSD. They told me they have a 27" Late 2013 iMac. They even gave me the serial number.

Thing is, whenever I look up this particular model, I'm getting an equal number of hits regarding it having a standard mechanical 3.5" Hard Drive or a Fusion Chip that is very much not in the shape of a SATA 2.5" SSD.

I definitely don't want to ask him to bring it in so I can open it up, as that's a ton of work in and of itself.

I'd ask him to check in the disk Utility area to see what kind of drive it is, but it doesn't look like it'd be much help either.

Spoiler: Not quite enough information

The standard Disk Utility doesn't quite show enough information.

(This isn't his - I just took a random image from Google Image search to show folks why it wouldn't quite do.)

Would anyone happen to have a suggestion regarding being able to find out what kind of physical hard drive is in this iMac without having him bring it here?

I appreciate the tips!

Normally the 500GB HDD inside an iMac 2011 is a Western Digital Blue HDD, 5400rpm because it's a base model.
1TB or 2TB may get you the WD Black (luxury model)

You can look at its details by clicking:
- About this Mac
- System Report from the pop-up wizard About this Mac.
- Then down to the line name "SATA" on the left menu. All information about SATA drive will show on the right.

To re-use the 1TB SSD, presumably the 2.5" SATA SSD, just put it in an USB 3.0 enclosure (5~10$ on Amazon or Newegg etc.) and plug the cable to one of the 4 USB port on the back of the iMac.
You can then boot from it.
Hopefully it was installed with High Sierra, then you don't have to do anything else.
If it's not with High Sierra, an OS upgrade is recommended.