older iMac upgrades

[adrian0883]

I'm going to purchase an older 27'' iMac (A1312, possibly late 2012 model since it runs Catalina) next month and I'm needing to know a few thing before I buy it.


1. How much ram can it hold?

2. I have an internal slim Blu-ray drive in my old Lenovo all-in-one that I would like to use. Can I put that drive into the iMac?

3. Can this model use an SSD or do I still need a mechanical drive?

4. Could this iMac possibly handle 4K video?

 

[zgagato]

1. How much ram can it hold?

4x 8 gb = 32 gb

2. I have an internal slim Blu-ray drive in my old Lenovo all-in-one that I would like to use. Can I put that drive into the iMac?

no.
3. Can this model use an SSD or do I still need a mechanical drive?

usb drive for pc. blue ray or dvd

4. Could this iMac possibly handle 4K video?

play it? probably. edit, no.

 

[adrian0883]

Thanks for the quick response and answers!!

 

[Fishrrman]

Make sure it's 2012, and not "earlier".
The 2012 models were the first that came with USB3. Earlier models had only USB2.

Put the bluray drive into an external enclosure, and use it that way.

It can probably accept a 2.5" SATA SSD. However... you can boot and run from an SSD by putting it into an external USB3 enclosure. It will run at about 80% of the speed of "internally installed" -- but you DON'T have to open the iMac, which can be a risky procedure.

 

[ignatius345]

I'm going to purchase an older 27'' iMac (A1312, possibly late 2012 model since it runs Catalina) next month and I'm needing to know a few thing before I buy it.

You'll get a lot of info about it on Everymac.com -- they have really complete specs on (as the name suggests) every Mac that's ever been released.

 

[curnalpanic]

A1312

If that number is correct, it is from 2009-2011.

 

[adrian0883]

Ok so I decided to get it early since it was cheap and sadly it's a 2009. I see some upgrades can be made so I will do that after I fix my issue. The guy I go it from was using some patcher program to get Catalina on the system so I erased the hard drive and I'm installing High Sierra now.