2TB 2.5" Hard disk in Mac Mini?

[shortcut3d]

Happy New Year!!!

It's been a while since I've posted. Most of my time has been in the iPad and iPhone forums dealing with iPad mini and iPhone 5 upgrades. I've also been spending a lot of time beta testing the Ceton Echo. Glad to see the usual suspects are still around. I saw the following post on AVS forum for someone upgrading their 2011 Mac mini with the 2TB WD Green drive:

Hi all... Just as a follow-up, I wound up getting the iFixit dual-drive upgrade kit mentioned above and putting a Samsung 250GB SSD in there (I also swapped out the original HDD for a 2TB model while I had the guts of the mini open).
I definitely agree with @chefklc that the install procedure is not for the faint-hearted. I actually had a lot of fun doing it because it's been a while since I had to do that much physical work on a computer, and it gave me a lot of appreciation for the really outstanding work Apple put into the hardware design of the 2011 mini. But it's a pretty complex procedure during which every single component of the machine is removed from the case, and unless you get a great deal of enjoyment out of doing that kind of thing, I'd echo the sentiment that going with an external ThunderBolt drive is probably far easier.
Beyond just the physical install, getting OS/X onto a bare drive in a mini with no boot media is a profoundly irritating process during which the mini will download an entire install disk from Apple every time you boot. I finally realized that I could use the recovery partition from the original drive to do it and that sped things up somewhat (I had ordered an external 2.5" USB enclosure which was useful for this). I had already backed the mini up with Time Machine before the surgery, and everything came back perfectly, once I was finally able to get the recovery OS/X thing going.
I also ran into another problem while trying to install Boot Camp on the mini - I hit the dreaded 0x80300024 error and the Windows 7 installer wouldn't install anything in the partition I'd created. Fortunately, it wasn't too difficult to disassemble the mini enough to be able to pop off one of the two drive controllers and then continue the install (although, inevitably, I took the wrong one off and had to shut down, open the case again, replace the controller I'd disconnected and attach the other one, then put everything back together and start from scratch).
[Edit - to clarify the above, if anyone is curious, some Windows 7 install media will run into problems installing the OS onto Macs (and maybe other types of PCs) if more than one internal hard disk is present. Thanks Microsoft! The workaround is to disconnect one of the two drives, install the OS, and then reconnect the drive you disconnected once Win7 boots properly.]
So far the thing works like a charm - much faster and much quieter than my old HTPC. Thanks again for the advice!

I've been running a BTO 2011 Mac mini 2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel i7 with AMD 6630M since release date. The system is bootcamp with Windows 7 x64. I run OSX off a 240 OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS in a Thunderbolt enclosure and only connect when necessary. Windows 7 is on an internal 512GB Samsung 830 SSD with a 1TB Western Digital Scorpio Blue for storage and recording.

I'm interested in upgrading to the 2TB WD Green drive and understand its 15mm. I ordered the drive and was wondering if there are any additional modifications I need to make other than swapping the 1TB for the 2TB. The 1TB is already in the top spot (when the mini is in normal operating position.)

[jowie]

Would it be possible to install 2 x 2TB drives into a Mac mini 2011/2012/server? Or is there not enough height inside?

[paulrbeers]

Originally Posted by shortcut3d

Happy New Year!!!

It's been a while since I've posted. Most of my time has been in the iPad and iPhone forums dealing with iPad mini and iPhone 5 upgrades. I've also been spending a lot of time beta testing the Ceton Echo. Glad to see the usual suspects are still around. I saw the following post on AVS forum for someone upgrading their 2011 Mac mini with the 2TB WD Green drive:



I've been running a BTO 2011 Mac mini 2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel i7 with AMD 6630M since release date. The system is bootcamp with Windows 7 x64. I run OSX off a 240 OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS in a Thunderbolt enclosure and only connect when necessary. Windows 7 is on an internal 512GB Samsung 830 SSD with a 1TB Western Digital Scorpio Blue for storage and recording.

I'm interested in upgrading to the 2TB WD Green drive and understand its 15mm. I ordered the drive and was wondering if there are any additional modifications I need to make other than swapping the 1TB for the 2TB. The 1TB is already in the top spot (when the mini is in normal operating position.)

If your 512GB Samsung drive is a 7mm drive, then yes you can fit a 15mm high drive with it. If your Samsung is a standard 9.5 or 12, then no the 15mm will not fit. I also believe if you install the 15mm drive, then your SSD will just have to "float" on top of your hard drive. This really isn't a big deal I had my SSD floating inside my 2011 Mac Mini for a year with no issues.

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Originally Posted by jowie

Would it be possible to install 2 x 2TB drives into a Mac mini 2011/2012/server? Or is there not enough height inside?

No. There is only about 21 or 22mm worth of space inside a Mac Mini for the hard drives. You can only fit a 2TB drive if you go with something like a 7mm high SSD (i.e Samsung). Otherwise the largest drives you can fit are 1TB (maybe 1.5TB now, I haven't looked recently).

[shortcut3d]

Yes, I'm using a 7mm Samsung 830 SSD. What position should the 15mm height drive be installed?

[shortcut3d]

Additional details about installing the 15mm drive. You can not place it in the bottom spot (when Mac mini is upright) because the SATA cable makes that impossible. The 15mm drive needs to be in the top position as the other OP noted. It also floats because it can not be anchored since all the mounts are not aligned in the top position. A 7mm SSD can fit in the bottom position and be secured with mounting screws. TIP: the logic board must slide over the SATA connector on the 15mm drive. This essentially locks the 15mm drive in place.

A few concerns are the HDD is not secured by screws even though it takes up every inch of space. The SATA cable has to be bent because the drive sits much higher than a 9.5mm. I've already had the SATA cable disconnect once.