I can't say that it won't work, but keep in mind that this unit is the earlier "thicker" 12.5MM hard drive. Western Digital has a newer one that is the standard 9.5mm height and is faster. Granted, it's a little more expensive at $127.00, but it seemed worth pointing out.
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Confirmed: Adding a 2nd Hard Drive to Non-Server Minis
- Thread starter slyseekr
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Make sure its the model WD10JPVT thats the 9.5mm version.
Here is the one i bought....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DVJJWQ
Here is the one i bought....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DVJJWQ
+1 for buy from them. I ordered stuff before and they were really great to deal with. Plus the cable is $29.95 CAD + $4 shipping via USPS first-class mail. That's a lot more reasonable than $65 USD from the other places!
For you all's information, there's a dude on eBay who seems to deal in a lot of Mac parts that's selling the 922-9560 for $36 shipped. I don't remember if it's okay to post eBay links around here, but the item number is 160634677387. I just ordered one from him, hopefully it will come in soon.
I was also wondering if anybody confirmed this 2010 cable is capable of SATA III speeds?
I was also wondering if anybody confirmed this 2010 cable is capable of SATA III speeds?
Good info, I hope everyone looking for one of these cable can get one at a reasonable price.
My understanding is that the cable has been tested and does seem to support SATA III speeds.
i wish they left the super drive in the mac mini as there are some parts of the world and the u.s. that dont have high speed internet they use phone line which is slow as all get out and you cant stream movies from what ever with that either and i ment dial up internet and thats no fault on the person owning the machines the isp providers for highspeed dont have lines run to rural areas
unfortunetly just have to fork a little extra for it, but lets face it, if your buying a mac mini the extra for the superdrive isnt that much, dont think ill buy it just yet though. cant remember the last time i popped a cd into the drive...
I missed this info probably. Physically, what location is the boot drive in? at the top of the mini case or at the bottom near the RAM.
wondering if you add a 2nd drive, do you have to remove and reinstall the boot drive to add the 2nd drive?
I keep seeing the word 'below', but not sure from which perspective. below when it sitting in use, or below when its upside down and opened.
wondering if you add a 2nd drive, do you have to remove and reinstall the boot drive to add the 2nd drive?
I keep seeing the word 'below', but not sure from which perspective. below when it sitting in use, or below when its upside down and opened.
From my perspective, I refer to the position of the drives when the mini is flipped over and opened up. Therefore:
Top Drive = drive closest to the RAM and Airport Grille
Apple installs the boot drive (with OS X) on the Top Drive, and the expansion drive installs underneath it.
Ok, thanks. I was gonna buy a new Mini but am holding off a while til tweaks, hacks, info, and upgrade parts are worked out. lower prices on SSDs would be good too, and the markets and my downsizing job situation are playing a part too.
I upgraded the HDD in my 09 mini ok, but am a little wary of the new one. and an expert I trust says it can be a little tricky.
I upgraded the HDD in my 09 mini ok, but am a little wary of the new one. and an expert I trust says it can be a little tricky.
If you look in Disk Utility, it tells you that the drive closest to you when you open up the Mini is the 'Lower' drive, so any expansion drive should be installed in the 'Upper' drive position.
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/EZIUXBTdgRa3QANK.medium
If you take a look at this photo from ifixit you can see the original hard drive and where it is connected. this is the factory set boot drive and the additional drive would be installed under it.
Wrong. When you crack open the mini, the drive is installed against the top of the unit (so stop slot). That's where the primary drive needs to be. Where are seeing Disk Utility report the physical placement of the drive???
Just finished upgrading my Mini:
Upgraded Memory
Replaced the OEM with 8gb of Corsair RAM. The first shipment caused kernel panics and was sent back. Thankfully the second set has worked flawlessly.
Installed boot drive
Added a 120gb OWC Extreme Pro 6G via the 922-9560 cable. Cloned the OEM HDD content via CCC, changed start-up disk, and subsequently erased the 5400rpm drive.
Relocated user directory
Moved the "home" directory back over to the freshly wiped 500gb HDD.
The new configuration is pretty awesome. Speed makes me happy.
Upgraded Memory
Replaced the OEM with 8gb of Corsair RAM. The first shipment caused kernel panics and was sent back. Thankfully the second set has worked flawlessly.
Installed boot drive
Added a 120gb OWC Extreme Pro 6G via the 922-9560 cable. Cloned the OEM HDD content via CCC, changed start-up disk, and subsequently erased the 5400rpm drive.
Relocated user directory
Moved the "home" directory back over to the freshly wiped 500gb HDD.
The new configuration is pretty awesome. Speed makes me happy.
Got my cable from macpartsonline today, so just finished adding in the second drive. I put the samsung 1TB as the main drive (upper when you open the mini) and the WD 1TB as the secondary drive. The cable fit perfectly and drives fit in very snugly. I did take out 2 screws from an old drive and put them in so the drive wouldn't shimmy at all, maybe that made it a bit tighter...
I am now in the process of adding all my iTunes (170GB worth) to the second drive. but all seems well. In some speed tests I find the WD to be a bit faster, wish I had the drives flip flopped, but there is no way I am performing another surgery....while not hard its just a pain to clone everything and move everything around...besides, this really is used more like a server and I don't sit on it for extensive periods of time, and the speed of loading apps and such is very acceptable.
I did place 2 orders for cables and couldn't cancel the second one, so I have another coming, I will probably list it in the Marketplace.
Does anyone know if I do a time machine backup to an external will it backup just the main drive or will it do both? if just the 1 drive, how can I set it to back up both?
End specs: 2.5 i5, 2TB, 8GB Ram, Discrete AMD
Thanks,
Chris
I am now in the process of adding all my iTunes (170GB worth) to the second drive. but all seems well. In some speed tests I find the WD to be a bit faster, wish I had the drives flip flopped, but there is no way I am performing another surgery....while not hard its just a pain to clone everything and move everything around...besides, this really is used more like a server and I don't sit on it for extensive periods of time, and the speed of loading apps and such is very acceptable.
I did place 2 orders for cables and couldn't cancel the second one, so I have another coming, I will probably list it in the Marketplace.
Does anyone know if I do a time machine backup to an external will it backup just the main drive or will it do both? if just the 1 drive, how can I set it to back up both?
End specs: 2.5 i5, 2TB, 8GB Ram, Discrete AMD
Thanks,
Chris
go to time machine preferences you can add and subtract drives to be backed up.
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There is some but I'm not sure it's a big deal. Your Library folder has a bunch of little files that get accessed, and for the iTunes library there's the apps (if you have an iOS device) and it's own library file, won't make much of a difference for the music and movies though. I imagine the iPhoto library would benefit nicely from the SSD too, although like iTunes I'm not sure there's a way to separate library from the photos. I've tried something similar with iTunes using a bunch of symlinks but ran into some issues.
There's some stuff like VMware that sticks VMs in your home folder by default...you'd definitely notice a big speed hit there more than anything else. On the plus side I'm pretty sure you can just set the default somewhere else or move the VM, so that's easy enough to work around. Steam put a bunch of app data in my home last I ran it, that might be another annoying one. There's a few corner cases like those around.
To keep things simple I'd recommend just leaving the user dir where it is and moving the big media stuff to the HD, or just moving everything to the HD and living with whatever slowdowns, then dealing with those corner cases as they show up if they bug you enough.
This is a screen shot of my Disk Utility screen, with my SSD installed in place of the original 500GB boot drive. As you can see, it shows up as the 'Lower' drive.
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yoh, got my e-mail from VIS UK saying they dispatched my part !
took them 10 days, i ordered on the 2nd.not to bad.