2020 27-Inch iMac Teardown Reveals The Empty Space Inside

Apple just announced a refresh of its largest iMac with some of the highest specs you would be able to get from that all-in-one computer family. Of course, you might not be able to tell just by looking at it because the very familiar face hides all the upgrades inside. It's not all upgrades, however, as Apple did remove something important and its absence leaves a literal empty spot inside this year's 5K 27-inch iMac.

It's a rather contentious change not because of the change itself but because Apple's own fans seem to be split on the issue. The behemoth of an iMac comes with at most 8TB of SSD storage but whatever storage configuration you bought it with, you're stuck there forever. Not only does it have no mechanical hard drive, it doesn't have any SATA connector either to let you upgrade in the future.

OWC's teardown of the 2020 27-inch iMac shows that in an almost melancholic way. Apple curiously decided not to utilize the space where the HDD should have been, which leads to a large, empty, and unused area inside the computer. Amusingly, that also makes the teardown faster, too.

Everything else about the 27-inch is similar to previous iMac models, which fortunately meant that RAM is at least still upgradable. There are a few interesting tidbits, though, like the use of a socketed CPU instead of a soldered one. A small but important change is that the camera is attached to the LCD, requiring extreme care when removing the display.

Some people have immediately decried Apple's decision to remove any storage upgrade option in the latest 27-inch iMac but there are also those who were quick to defend it. In a nutshell, they say that iMacs are meant to last for years and many buyers end up not upgrading their iMacs at all anyway.