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I’ve just purchased a 2019 iMac, it has 28GB of Flash storage and a 1TB Sata disk.
Ive tried to upgrade from Big Spur to Monterey and it says storage is full, the flash drive is full but the sata disk is empty.
also tried to download MS Office 365 on to the Sata and it doesn’t let me as there’s no OS installed?!??
is there any reason why these two drives are working together?
The computer needs to be setup correctly! Please read and follow the instructions in What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac. If you do not you will always have a mess on your hands. My recommendation when buying a used Mac is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS buy from reputable reseller such as Macsales.com or even better buy an Apple refurbished Mac directly from Apple. NEVER EVER buy from E-Bay, Marketplace, your best friend, Craigslist etc..
If you are not sophisticated and do not know Macs extremely well you NEVER know what you are buying.
What your iMac has is a fusion drive. A separate SSD and conventional hard drive are coupled together via software to appear as one drive. The SSD acts as a cache to provide a drive that is "almost" as fast as a dedicated SSD drive.
So for some reason, that connection is broken. I could only guess that the prior owner wiped your iMac clean and in the process, it split the two drives.
Follow this article to re-connect the two drives. Make sure you back up any data as there is a high likelihood that it will involve erasing your machine to re-connect.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207584
Sounds like a fusion drive that has become split. If you want to join them:
+1 - Follow Keith Barkley’s advice.
2019 iMac Storage & OS Upgrade
