I got my 2.3 GHz i7 Mini up and running with my own Samsung 830 256Gb SSD and 16Gb of Crucial ram.
Had no problems at all installing the hardware. The mini is a breeze to tinker with. Coming from an iMac, this machine is a blessing in that aspect.
Had some problems with internet recovery though. I'm on a bluetooth keyboard and the mini refused to go into recovery mode when i held down command+r.
The trick that did it was patience. I had to wait until the chime passed and the screen turned on. Then the mini registered my pressed keys and jumped into recovery mode so I could format the SSD and download Mountain Lion. The download process took about 2 hours, which I'm considering to be ok on a 10Mbit line.
I fired up the mini before my SSD upgrade and did a geek bench, although in 32 bit mode. it said 10799. After the HDD replacement to SSD and 4 times more RAM, it says a couple of hundred LESS. Why is that?
I'm not worried at all though. The SSD writes at 450mb/sec and reads at 470mb/sec. And everything I click on starts at an instant. The experience is very snappy and feels so much more "today" than my old imac from 2009. Well, duh!
I did purchase the minidisplayport to DVI adapter, avoiding the HDMI flickering screen problem. Hoping it will get fixed so I can add another screen. The screen i'm on, 20" Cinema Display (aluminum) looks great though. No problems yet.
Not experiencing any heat from the mini as of yet either. Will see when I run it through its paces the next couple of weeks. But I don't think it will be a problem.
Oh, and god damn it's silent! Especially after the SSD exchange. I cant hear it over ambient noise now. Awesome!
Well, I'm a so far extremely happy Mini owner!
Had no problems at all installing the hardware. The mini is a breeze to tinker with. Coming from an iMac, this machine is a blessing in that aspect.
Had some problems with internet recovery though. I'm on a bluetooth keyboard and the mini refused to go into recovery mode when i held down command+r.
The trick that did it was patience. I had to wait until the chime passed and the screen turned on. Then the mini registered my pressed keys and jumped into recovery mode so I could format the SSD and download Mountain Lion. The download process took about 2 hours, which I'm considering to be ok on a 10Mbit line.
I fired up the mini before my SSD upgrade and did a geek bench, although in 32 bit mode. it said 10799. After the HDD replacement to SSD and 4 times more RAM, it says a couple of hundred LESS. Why is that?
I'm not worried at all though. The SSD writes at 450mb/sec and reads at 470mb/sec. And everything I click on starts at an instant. The experience is very snappy and feels so much more "today" than my old imac from 2009. Well, duh!
I did purchase the minidisplayport to DVI adapter, avoiding the HDMI flickering screen problem. Hoping it will get fixed so I can add another screen. The screen i'm on, 20" Cinema Display (aluminum) looks great though. No problems yet.
Not experiencing any heat from the mini as of yet either. Will see when I run it through its paces the next couple of weeks. But I don't think it will be a problem.
Oh, and god damn it's silent! Especially after the SSD exchange. I cant hear it over ambient noise now. Awesome!
Well, I'm a so far extremely happy Mini owner!