Chosen Solution
I have both a 20" and 27" iMac. I want to swap the hard drives and give the other to my daughter. the 20" has a 2tb hd that is partitioned using 1tb for mac and 1 for windows. I don’t want to lose my data and wonder if I could just take out the hd and swap it. Any thoughts?
May be here is the solution, please see it…. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/417…
So far both systems have SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) interfaces so you won’t see any speed difference. The 2010 model uses a custom thermal sensor cable for the systems SMC services. Unlike the 2007 model. Here’s the IFIXIT guides for reference: iMac Intel 20" EMC 2133 and 2210 Hard Drive ReplacementiMac Intel 27" EMC 2390 Hard Drive Replacement Review Step10 in the iMac Intel 27" EMC 2390 Hard Drive Replacement guide. Without knowing your exact drive we can’t aim you to the custom cable you need as each supplier of HD’s have a different cable your other option is getting this OWC adapter: OWC In-line Digital Thermal Sensor for iMac 2009-2010 Hard Drive Upgrade The last issue here is the OS your drive has on it needs to be one that the 27" model supported older OS’s may not allow the system to boot. You’ll want to create an OS installer drive following this guide: How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive. So you can re-install the best OS for your system. I do recommend you boost your systems memory to 8 GB or more.
