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SSD For Mac Mini 2012

m11rphy

m11rphy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 26, 2009
642
372
Hi All,

Just ordered the new 2012 mid Mac Mini with 1TB hard disk, Im looking to keep the 1TBHD for storage but add a SSD to put OSX and Apps on. Can you guys please advise the best drive for the job ? A 128gb drive will offer enough space buy would a 256gb drive be a lot quicker ? Also can you please advise the best fitting kit.

Thanks in advance guys
 
M

milkmandan

macrumors member
Oct 3, 2012
65
0
m11rphy said:
Hi All,

Just ordered the new 2012 mid Mac Mini with 1TB hard disk, Im looking to keep the 1TBHD for storage but add a SSD to put OSX and Apps on. Can you guys please advise the best drive for the job ? A 128gb drive will offer enough space buy would a 256gb drive be a lot quicker ? Also can you please advise the best fitting kit.

Thanks in advance guys
Click to expand...
There are a slew of other threads that already have plenty of suggestions.
Personally I recommend the Samsung 830 128GB SSD.
If you get a 256GB SSD, yes it is faster, but not noticeably if you are just doing normal stuff like web browsing, videos and the likes.

As for the kit, I got the OWC data doubler kit and had no problems.
 
stu.h

stu.h

macrumors 65816
May 8, 2010
1,337
504
West Midlands, England.
I too bought the 2.6GHz MM with 1tb and 4gb, upgraded the memory to 16gb of crucial and bought a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD.
Boot times went from 1m20s to around 12s.
Go for the 256GB as well, more memory channels and a much faster read speed.
 
B

BigMa

macrumors member
May 31, 2012
43
0
TRIM support

I am considering the same approach, i7 + 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD, and am wondering how you guys enable and maintain TRIM support for your SSDs. ;)
 
M

mystikjoe

macrumors regular
Jan 29, 2010
217
1
samsung 830

installed Sammy in my mac mini htpc running my theater 256gb split half for mac and half for windows. theres a few windows apps I can't live without. i'm totally happy with setup and have been using it for about two weeks. I have an intel in my imac 27" and a owc was in my last mac mini. all and all real world you would be hard pressed to tell difference between any of them and reliability reports on Sammy are very good. good luck in the choice.
 
m11rphy

m11rphy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 26, 2009
642
372
thanks guys, is there any reason to get the Samsung 830 over the new 840 pro ?
 
S

Superman07

macrumors 6502a
Aug 28, 2007
704
2
m11rphy said:
thanks guys, is there any reason to get the Samsung 830 over the new 840 pro ?
Click to expand...

I'm curious about this as well. Thinking about picking up a Mini and SSD if there are any good Black Friday deals. I've noticed the 840 prices are near the 830, at least in the smaller sizes.
 
J

jfriedman8

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2008
259
3
I have the 2TB Server version and I am probably going to swap out for an SSD as the main drive. Outside of the Samsung, any other reliable suggestions? Don't need anything blazing, but the 5400 speed leaves me with more to be desired.
 
M

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
jfriedman8 said:
I have the 2TB Server version and I am probably going to swap out for an SSD as the main drive. Outside of the Samsung, any other reliable suggestions? Don't need anything blazing, but the 5400 speed leaves me with more to be desired.
Click to expand...

Glad you asked. I don't know why everybody is so effing excited about these Samsung models, except maybe that's what OWC sells and they think they have to buy from OWC or something.

Personally I buy all my parts from Newegg. They have a vast selection of SSDs along with thousands of user reviews so you can tell which ones are good.

I would definitely get something that's obviously overprovisioned (e.g., 120GB instead of 128GB) and then you don't need to spend any time worrying about whether or not you have TRIM enabled correctly and/or if it's working etc.

I just checked and it looks like there's a 120GB Intel SSD on sale for $109. Nice.

I bought a 120GB drive a year or two ago and will be connecting it to my new Mac Mini via USB3 and using it as a boot drive. Can't wait. Should be lightning fast, and no need to even open the case on the Mini.
 
D

dazey

macrumors 6502
Dec 9, 2005
327
55
I also went for the 250GB Crucial M4. I was looking at the samsungs but they have a much higher idle power consumption and as my machine is on 247 I wanted a cool running drive. Some people seem to have had issues with the M4 and macs in general but I have seen no issues in the mini. Its pretty nippy, faster at most things than the vertex in my mac pro.
 
K

kobyh15

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2011
616
0
motrek said:
Glad you asked. I don't know why everybody is so effing excited about these Samsung models, except maybe that's what OWC sells and they think they have to buy from OWC or something.

Personally I buy all my parts from Newegg. They have a vast selection of SSDs along with thousands of user reviews so you can tell which ones are good.

I would definitely get something that's obviously overprovisioned (e.g., 120GB instead of 128GB) and then you don't need to spend any time worrying about whether or not you have TRIM enabled correctly and/or if it's working etc.

I just checked and it looks like there's a 120GB Intel SSD on sale for $109. Nice.

I bought a 120GB drive a year or two ago and will be connecting it to my new Mac Mini via USB3 and using it as a boot drive. Can't wait. Should be lightning fast, and no need to even open the case on the Mini.
Click to expand...

OWC sells Sandforce drives. What are you talking about? People like the Samsung 830s because they have proven to be reliable over the last year or so. Apple uses the same
Samsung controller as the 830 in its BTO SSDs from the factory. It's really no secret why everyone likes them.
 
M

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
kobyh15 said:
OWC sells Sandforce drives. What are you talking about? People like the Samsung 830s because they have proven to be reliable over the last year or so. Apple uses the same
Samsung controller as the 830 in its BTO SSDs from the factory. It's really no secret why everyone likes them.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these Samsung drives. I'm just surprised that everybody's so hot to buy them, as if there aren't other cheaper and/or better drives out there. Sure, maybe Apple uses them, but that doesn't automatically mean they're better than other drives. Apple has used multiple vendors for their SSDs (e.g. Toshiba) just like they use multiple vendors for their hard drives (Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, etc.) and optical drives etc. So saying that Apple uses them isn't a particularly good argument about why people should buy them vs. save $30-$60 by buying an Intel SSD (also very well regarded in the industry).
 
MrXiro

MrXiro

macrumors 68040
Nov 2, 2007
3,850
599
Los Angeles
m11rphy said:
Hi All,

Just ordered the new 2012 mid Mac Mini with 1TB hard disk, Im looking to keep the 1TBHD for storage but add a SSD to put OSX and Apps on. Can you guys please advise the best drive for the job ? A 128gb drive will offer enough space buy would a 256gb drive be a lot quicker ? Also can you please advise the best fitting kit.

Thanks in advance guys
Click to expand...

I have the same machine. I have a 256gb Crucial M4 in mine. Runs great!
 
M

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
jfriedman8 said:
Looking into this upcoming lightning deal from Amazon in 10 mins.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...AW7RZDB&pf_rd_i=5550342011&pf_rd_p=1416111582

Don't know too much about SSD's, what is TRIM and what would I need to worry about / do about this?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

TRIM allows the operating system to communicate to the drive which blocks are actually in use vs. which ones are occupied by deleted files and can safely be erased. If you don't enable TRIM then the drive will eventually slow down after all the blocks have been written to because then they have to be erased on a block-by-block basis as you write to them. But it can be kind of a song and dance to enable TRIM on a drive and/or OS X.

Personally I would just buy a drive that's obviously overprovisioned, e.g., instead of buying a 256GB drive, buy a 240GB drive because it probably keeps those "extra" 16GB erased and ready to be written to at all times.
 
J

jfriedman8

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2008
259
3
Awesome, thanks. I'll look into some of the 240GB's. I am guessing I'll have to do a fresh install of ML from my SD card? The restore partition wont copy with CCC, right?
 
M

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
jfriedman8 said:
Awesome, thanks. I'll look into some of the 240GB's. I am guessing I'll have to do a fresh install of ML from my SD card? The restore partition wont copy with CCC, right?
Click to expand...

I hardly know anything about restore partitions but I don't think you need one. I was using an iMac a few weeks ago and just copied the main hard drive partition to an external (USB2) SSD with one partition (using SuperDuper!) and it booted off of that just fine.

Although if you want to do a fresh install of ML, then I'm sure that's fine. Migration Assistant seems to do a good job.
 
K

kobyh15

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2011
616
0
motrek said:
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these Samsung drives. I'm just surprised that everybody's so hot to buy them, as if there aren't other cheaper and/or better drives out there. Sure, maybe Apple uses them, but that doesn't automatically mean they're better than other drives. Apple has used multiple vendors for their SSDs (e.g. Toshiba) just like they use multiple vendors for their hard drives (Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, etc.) and optical drives etc. So saying that Apple uses them isn't a particularly good argument about why people should buy them vs. save $30-$60 by buying an Intel SSD (also very well regarded in the industry).
Click to expand...

Prices fluctuate, but usually Intel is historically more expensive than any other vendor. Here's a 128 GB 830 on MacMall for 90 bucks. This coming from an Intel SSD owner (I have a 300 GB 320). If I were in the market today I would buy a Samsung though. You are right, any modern-day SSD from a reputable brand is great. I feel like we're nitpicking with speeds for everyday/casual use (excluding work loads w/ heavy sequential reads/writes). To each their own, find the best deal and go for it.
 
dmk1974

dmk1974

macrumors 68020
Sep 16, 2008
2,387
462
I just ordered a 240GB Intel 330 SSD drive from Newegg. My plan is to pop it into my 2012 Mac Mini base I just got. In my house I do have 2 other SSD drives in other computers. Is there one in particular that would be best in the Mac Mini or are they all pretty much the same? This 2012 Mini would likely be my main computer so compared to the server and my kid's PC, I get the best SSD :)

Intel 330 SSD
Samsung 830 SSD
Crucial M4 SSD

Thanks!
 
7enderbender

7enderbender

macrumors 6502a
May 11, 2012
513
12
North East US
m11rphy said:
Hi All,

Just ordered the new 2012 mid Mac Mini with 1TB hard disk, Im looking to keep the 1TBHD for storage but add a SSD to put OSX and Apps on. Can you guys please advise the best drive for the job ? A 128gb drive will offer enough space buy would a 256gb drive be a lot quicker ? Also can you please advise the best fitting kit.

Thanks in advance guys
Click to expand...

Make sure you read this carefully:

No matter which method you use, once you have both an SSD and a platter-based drive installed in your Mac mini, you should not use the Disk Utility in your Recovery Partition on those drives; it will see those drives as a “broken” Fusion array and try to repair it, destroying your data in the process. http://blog.macsales.com/15619-special-note-for-adding-an-ssd-to-a-2012-mac-mini
 
H

hr10

macrumors 6502
Jun 20, 2009
304
143
Kingston Ssd

Anyone is using the Kingston Hyperx 3k Ssd with thier mini?
Any issues?
 
H

hugodrax

macrumors 65816
Jul 15, 2007
1,218
610
I would go for the Samsung.

Reason is OS X uses compression for its OS and Apps(means avoid sandforce). And Apple qualifies its hardware with Samsung 830s

so when in Rome.
 
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