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Looking to buy a used 27” Retina iMac and am a little confused about the different configurations. Do all models have all ports? Also a supplemental question: for those having an old retina iMac since 2014 and up, how is the display holding up? Any change in image retention and brightness?

All 27” ‘Thin Series’ have dual ports one SATA 3.5” HDD and one PCIe/NVMe custom SSD slot. The 21.5” models is where it can be tricky! To cut costs Apple doesn’t populate the logic board with the PCIe/NVMe parts when you buy a SATA based system (2.5” HDD). A SSD model or a Fusion Drive model will have the PCIe/NVMe SSD blade drive. Apple did have some issues with the early Retina displays. Unless the system is sitting in a closet it likely has some. Unlike a TV which has constant motion, PC monitors tend to have image persistence issues. This gets into the brightness and how harsh the image is. This effects larger displays more so than smaller ones, Apples as well as the others.