SSD swap on late 2013 27" iMac - SATA drive?

[planetb00m]

With the price of SSDs dropping I thought I would swap out the 256gb SSD on my iMac. Having watched numerous youtube videos I noticed they were all for HDD being swapped out for SSDs. I wanted to swap out my existing 256gb SSD (from new) to a 1tb Samsung Evo.

Not sure if the process would be the same in terms of swapping out, I reached out the the r/iFixit sub-reddit to be told my iMac would have a standard sata drive. So I happily purchased the SSD upgrade kit from iFixit. The kit arrive and I open up my iMac only to notice there is not sata drive (in the same place as all the youtube videos I have watched). So now I'm at a loss.

I've read a little about NVME upgrades, but sounds like that is flakey at best unless you get the right adaptor.

Is it possible to run the 1tb and 256gb together in the iMac? If so, what else do I need to make it happen? Obviously there is no connector where a regular HDD would be.

Please help!

 

[mmomega]

If the iMac you have physically has a SATA connector then you can 100% put in an SSD.
If it only has the Apple nVMe connector, you can install an m.2 drive with the correct adapter. I did this back on the 2013 Mac Pro with a Samsung 970 Pro nVMe drive. 1st adapter had 'some issues' newer version of the adaptor had zero issues.

And yes, if there are connectors for both drives, you can use both in macOS if they are formatted correctly.

Some 2013 iMacs have both connectors, some do not. So getting inside the machine would be part 1 of the process to find out what you are working with. Once you 100% know the connectors available, you can put it back together for the time being and plan out the drives to order and get installed.

 

[planetb00m]

How would I know if I have a SATA connector? There is no cable showing like I saw on the videos i've been watching.

THanks for getting back to me.

 

[planetb00m]

Needless to say this has been a complete disaster. Went to put my screen back on. Went to give it a quick test before sticking everything down and i have destroyed my screen.

Anyone know what has likely cause this? Completely destroyed?

 

[TwoH]

Yep, LCD is screwed after that