Hardrive upgrade for Mac mini

Macarc · Feb 12, 2010

I have a 2009 Mac Mini 2.26 with the stock 160 Gb hardrive. I'm quickly running out of space and want to put in a bigger drive. I also like to have a faster drive, since I think it would make a difference in Photoshop and just make the mini feel a bit snappier.

I originally was going to but in a 7200 drive such as the WD Scorpio black, but then I got concerned about the additional noise. I really like how quiet the Mini is. Therefore I started looking into 5400 drives. I even considered putting in a sdd plus an external am not sure it is worth the extra expense.

I have been looking though the forum but still can't figure out which option to go with.

My specific questions are.

1. Would a 7200 drive be significantly faster than a 5400 drive?

2. Would a 7200 drive be noticeable nosier that a 5400 drive?

3. Which specific drives are recommended for speed and quietness.

Thanks

flopticalcube · Feb 12, 2010

1. A bigger but emptier 5400RPM drive will be nearly as fast as a smaller but fuller 7200RPM drive.

2. Not really in a mini. I barely noticed the noise in my old MacBook but it does vibrate more (not really an issue in a mini).

3. WD or Seagate seem to be the market leaders.

ziwi · Feb 12, 2010

I have tried both. Went from an original 80 5400rpm to a 200 7200 rpm and now have once again gone to a 500 5400rpm WD blue - performance differences were not noticable IMO.

alent1234 · Feb 12, 2010

the RPM's aren't as important as having a hard drive with NCQ. it stands for native command queuing. you regular hard drive will rely on the CPU to process the I/O commands. a hard drive with NCQ has a chip on board to process those commands and will give you the biggest performance boost. i've read hard drive benchmarks since the 1990's and going from 5400 to 7200 won't give you any noticeable difference.

Macarc · Feb 12, 2010

Thanks for the good info everyone. I think the WB Scorpio Blue 640GB seems like a good candidate. Does anyone have experience with this drive?

alent1234, how do I know if a hard drive has NCQ? Can't find it in the specs of the drives I have looked at. Does the Scorpio Blue have it for example?

alent1234 · Feb 12, 2010

i think only the velociraptor line have it. not sure. check anandtech or tomshardware

Cave Man · Feb 12, 2010

Macarc said:
Thanks for the good info everyone. I think the WB Scorpio Blue 640GB seems like a good candidate. Does anyone have experience with this drive?

I have this in my Mini and it's just fine. I'm thinking about putting it into my Apple TV, though.

Macarc · Feb 12, 2010

Cave Man said:
I have this in my Mini and it's just fine. I'm thinking about putting it into my Apple TV, though.

Did you notice any difference in speed or noise compared to stock drive?

Cave Man · Feb 12, 2010

Macarc said:
Did you notice any difference in speed or noise compared to stock drive?

No noise difference and it's a lot faster. After all, the stock drive was a 60 gb.

Kissaragi · Feb 12, 2010

I put a 320gb 7200rpm drive in my mini (1.8ghz) about 9 months ago and it was and still is much snappier than the old stock 80gb hdd with no extra noise or heat.

Max(IT) · Feb 13, 2010

Go for a WD Scorpio Blue 500 Gb. It's on par with most 7200 rpm.

MacHamster68 · Feb 13, 2010

always remember opening a mini voids your warranty , as its not user upgradable

Macarc · Feb 13, 2010

MacHamster68 said:
always remember opening a mini voids your warranty , as its not user upgradable

I thought that the warranty was still valid when you do ram or hard drive changes as long as you don't break anything. This used to be the case. Have it changed recently?

Max(IT) · Feb 13, 2010

MacHamster68 said:
always remember opening a mini voids your warranty , as its not user upgradable

not as long as you don't break anything

jw2002 · Feb 13, 2010

MacHamster68 said:
always remember opening a mini voids your warranty , as its not user upgradable

Not true. Please don't spread this misinformation. It's been refuted over and over and over...

Gordy · Feb 14, 2010

jw2002 said:
Not true. Please don't spread this misinformation. It's been refuted over and over and over...

Quite, it's utter nonsense.

I've got a 320GB 7200RPM drive in my mini, I'm considering a 7200rpm drive or even a SSD. Not sure whether the money is worth it on either option though.

ANDYMILLMAN · Feb 15, 2010

Hi guys,

Im about to take the plunge and buy my first mac mini...

Going to go for the 2.56 ghz 4gb ram option....

From doing a lot of reading up, I hear that the biggest gripe with the machine is the slow stock hard drive...

What speed does the stock hard drive run at ? is it 3200 ?

What is the best drive to replace it with? Any problems with over heating, noise etc?

MacMini2009 · Feb 15, 2010

ANDYMILLMAN said:
Hi guys,

Im about to take the plunge and buy my first mac mini...

Going to go for the 2.56 ghz 4gb ram option....

From doing a lot of reading up, I hear that the biggest gripe with the machine is the slow stock hard drive...

What speed does the stock hard drive run at ? is it 3200 ?

What is the best drive to replace it with? Any problems with over heating, noise etc?

It runs at 5400RPM.

Here a couple of good hard drives.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/YST9500420AS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/YWD6400BEVT/

ANDYMILLMAN · Feb 15, 2010

MacMini2009 said:
It runs at 5400RPM.

Here a couple of good hard drives.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/YST9500420AS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western Digital/YWD6400BEVT/

Thanks for the reply

I see from your sig that you have already upgraded to a 7200 mate

Did you do it yourself? Can you see a notable performance increase from doing so?

MacMini2009 · Feb 15, 2010

ANDYMILLMAN said:
Thanks for the reply

I see from your sig that you have already upgraded to a 7200 mate

Did you do it yourself? Can you see a notable performance increase from doing so?

Yes I did it myself. There is somewhat a performance increase but not much.

ANDYMILLMAN · Feb 15, 2010

MacMini2009 said:
Yes I did it myself. There is somewhat a performance increase but not much.

Hmm Just wondering whether it is really worth the extra expense.

On a more general mini related grounding..

Is there anything you have found that the mac mini particularly struggles with in your current set up ? Can it playback hi def mkv's avi's OK?

MacMini2009 · Feb 15, 2010

ANDYMILLMAN said:
Hmm Just wondering whether it is really worth the extra expense.

On a more general mini related grounding..

Is there anything you have found that the mac mini particularly struggles with in your current set up ? Can it playback hi def mkv's avi's OK?

Well when I had 1GB of RAM, 1080p sucked. Now everything plays fine.

Max(IT) · Feb 17, 2010

it's definitely better to buy 4 Gb of RAM than a new hard drive, in term of performance gain

HDH · Feb 18, 2010

I replaced my HD with a Seagate 500GB 7200RPM ..... it's not noisy at all, and it's running perfect.

Raima · Feb 18, 2010

I stalled 4gb of ram with a 500gb 5400 hdd. I wasn't too impressed with the performance. I then later replaced the drive with a g.skill falcon II ssd drive which made things much better.

Ended up putting back the 500gb in the mac mini when the macbook pro arrived. I don't know what it is, but the macbook pro with hdd booted up quicker than the mac mini when it had the ssd drive in there. The ssd drive now lives in the macbook pro

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