What happens when you replace the 1TB HDD in the Fusion drive with a SSD?

Hello all.

So I am wondering, if I get the $999 2014 mini; and I replace the 1TB HGST 5,400 RPM hard drive with a SSD, will it work right?

It appears the Fusion drive in the $999 2014 mini uses a samsung PCIe SSD and uses drive caching. I don't know if it's intel's smart response tech (http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/How-it-Works-Intel-SSD-Caching-148/ ) or if apple has a different system.

I know the PCIe SSD is faster than a SATA based SSD, but would the replacement of the 5,200 RPM drive with a SSD that is much much faster cause problems with how the fusion drive works? Basically a slightly faster SSD trying to cache another SSD.

I'm thinking about getting the $999 drive because it's faster, but if it turns out that the Fusion drive will prevent me from running all SSD then the $700 mini might be a better choice.

This is what the 2014 mini Fusion drive looks like inside
http://blog.macsales.com/27127-owcs-teardown-of-the-new-2014-mac-mini-with-fusion-drive

This is a guide to replace the HDD on the 2014 non-fusion
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+Mini+Late+2014+Hard+Drive+Replacement/32815

Mac Mini 2014 teardown
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+Mini+Late+2014+Teardown/30410

iFixit comments in Step 9

True to our word, we cracked open a Fusion drive equipped Mac Mini, and it looks like our suspicions were accurate.

The empty connector is now filled—by a PCIe cable, glued to the top of the hard drive tray.

The SSD matches the one we found in the MacBook Air 13" Mid 2013 with the same chips:

Samsung S4LN053X01-8030 (ARM) flash controller

8 x Samsung K9LDGY8SIC-XCK0 16 GB flash storage

Samsung K4P2G324ED 512 MB RAM

Click to expand...

thunng8 said:

You can uncouple a fusion drive using disk utility. Of course you will lose you data and need to reinstall the os.

Fusion is apple propriety and does not use any Intel tech

More info here

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6406/understanding-apples-fusion-drive

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Interesting. So if I replaced the HGST 1TB 5,400 RPM drive with a 1TB SSD. And then uncoupled the drives, I would end up w/ a 1TB SSD and a 128GB PCIe SSD; showing 2 separate drives on the OS?

If I ran bootcamp would Windows 7 or 8 be able to see both drives as well?

Do 2014 Mac Minis come with an OSX disc?

So it looks like to decouple the drives I need to format them, destroying the recovery partition. If I do that, how do I reinstall OSX?

http://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-drive.html

I have an old copy of Mountain Lion on disc, but my understanding was that the newer Macs can't run the old versions of OSX.

scoobdriver said:

Internet recovery will still work. Or you can use a pre made bootable usb stick if you have one.

Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. So I just have to make sure I do that before I do the decouple then.

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One other thing I'm noticing is that the articles I've read on decoupling a Fusion drive seem to be talking about decoupling two SATA drives.

From my understading this 2014 mini uses a PCIe 128GB Samsung SSD and a SATA 1TB HGST 5,400RPM mechanical.

Would the fact that it's a PCIe drive and not a SATA drive cause problems with decoupling? I see the 2013 iMac also has a PCIe SSD, does the same decoupling method work on that the same (as decoupling 2 SATA drives in fusion)?