iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019) Format of Macintosh HD in Big Sur
I maintain three desktop Macs. All run the latest version of macOS 11.
They are:
- iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)
- iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch 2014)
- Mac mini (m1, 2020)
All have an internal 1T SSD.
This question regards Number 1 on the above list.
After I did a clean install and restored the boot drive from Time Machine, Disk Utility reported its structure as follows:
- iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)
Disk Utility Reports: PCI-Express Internal Physical Disk - GUID Partition Map
I did the same for the older iMac, and Disk Utility reported its structure as follows:
2. iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch 2014)
Disk Utility Reports: APFS System Snapshot - APFS
Finally, the M1 Mac mini, which is formatted as it came from the factory, is as follows:
3. Mac mini (m1, 2020)
Disk Utility Reports: APFS System Snapshot - APFS
NOTE: "1. iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)" has an internal 1T SSD, not a Fusion Drive. I do not know why Disk Utility reports it as having a "PCI-Express Internal Physical Disk."
I ran Apple Hardware Diagnostics on the iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019), which reported it as being fine.
"iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)" suffers the occasional kernel panic, which I generally find to be a very rare occurrence on Macs. The last kernel panic was about five days ago.
Questions:
- Is, as I suspect, "1. iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)" defectively formatted, and should I wipe it and reformat it yet again?
- If yes, how best should I do that?
If the answer is yes, I will leave to philosophers the question of how this happened.
P.S. For the record, "1. iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)" ran very well until I upgraded it to Catalina last year. The SSD suffered a weird formatting issue that drew in ever-increasingly senior Apple help personnel, until they found a solution. I do wonder if this problem is related to that one.
iMac 27″, macOS 11.0