Mac Mini SSD upgrade

mark66

mark66

mark66

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Hi,

We have a Late 2012 Mac Mini 2.3 i7 with 4GB memory and 1TB drive, which is used primarily for iTunes and iPhoto but which has always been pretty slow to use - to the point of being quite frustrating (long boot times, lots of spinning cursor etc).

I've read that the drives supplied in these are pretty slow and that the SSD upgrade can transform the mini. I know there are lots of guides and videos on the net about doing this popular upgrade but I would like to get some advice from those that have already done it. I did a Crucial scan on it and it has recommended:
  • 16GB kit (8GBx2) DDR3 PC3-12800 upgrade kit for £58.
  • Crucial MX200 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal SSD for £119.
Would our day to day usage of iPhoto etc likely benefit from more ram?
I assume there could well be better and cheaper SSD's to consider? I would prefer to not spend more that £120 on the 500gb SSSD.

As for the kit, I have found this one on Amazon. Would this be ok?

I have read that fitting two drives into the mini is really quite tough - would people recommend leaving this and dumping the 1TB drive and just keeping the SSD? I haven't really considered how to transfer my data, perhaps a restore from Time Machine? Or would a clone be better, in which case I would need to install both drives?

I'm considering doing this over the Christmas break so would like to order the stuff soon, so any advice or encouragement appreciated - and needed!!

Thanks :)
 
Just done this for the second time this weekend, put a 480GB SSD drive and 2TB harddrive in the mid 2011 mac mini I5 model.

The first time I did this I got the second harddrive kit which came with the tools to take the mini apart. I put a 64GB SSD (OSX drive) in and left the 500GB drive (storage) in plus 8GB memory. Having the kit made it a lot easer just take your time and you should be fine. The only problem I ran into was the IR connector was very stubborn to remove the seconded time round.

The SSD upgrade made a big difference to my mac mini, it still runs great thats why I've just upgraded it.
 
Hi,

Thank. Which SSD did you use out of interest? Can I pick any or do is it need to be of a particular spec?

How did you go about putting OSX onto the new SSD? Clone from the original HD?
 
I think all SSD's work but without trim, there is a program to enable trim but I've not used it as there were problems with it on the latest OSX. I have just put in a 480GB Sandisk ultra 2 was the cheapest at the time.

I just did a fresh install of OSX from a usb drive as the only things that I needed backing up were my emails, everything else was on my other harddrive.
 
Dont need Trim with El Capitan already enabled. I have a Sammy 830 250GB SDD with my OEM 1TB drive. I also did a fresh install with a bootable OSX USB drive.

Forget that Amazon one, get item 361036690339 from that auction site
 
Last edited:
hartgeh3 said:
Dont need Trim with El Capitan already enabled. I have a Sammy 830 250GB SDD with my OEM 1TB drive. I also did a fresh install with a bootable OSX USB drive.

Forget that Amazon one, get item 361036690339 from that auction site
Click to expand...
You have just saved me £25....thanks!! :):)
 
Hi all,

Got the kit and a 480GB Crucial BX200 SSD and am nearly ready to go, could just do with some advice regarding getting the software up and running.

To save me the hassle of locating old programs and installing starting from afresh, my hope is to clone my existing 1TB drive which currently has about 300GB of data on it. I have seen one video which uses Disk Utility and its 'Restore' option to effectively clone my current drive to the new one. Is this recommended or would I best be going another route?

Thanks
 
Yeah I had forgotten I could do that. Ideally I would like to be able to switch between both my current install and the copy of current install on the SSD - should this be possible?

I would like to do this so I can then try the upgrade to El Capitan on one and see if it all goes ok (concerned about the iPhoto to Photos switch).
 
Not sure how unless you have two bootable operating systems you choose on startup or create two partitions.

I had no issues with El Capitan and iphotos change over but you never know.

http://osxdaily.com/2015/04/17/move-iphoto-library-to-photos-mac/

I would install the new SSD, format and restore from Time Machine (latest backup) then upgrade to ECap and see how it goes.

OR

Make a TimeMachine backup, install El Capitan and see if all OK, if so Backup with Time Machine again and then copy to new SSD.
 
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