2009 Mac mini with OS X Mavericks

[BigRed1]

I did similar upgrade to my late 2009 machine and it's been transformed (8gb). The ram upgrade was quite straightforward the hardest part was opening the box and a little fiddly with wifi antennas but online videos show all you need to know. I also changed the HDD. I would say go ahead and make the upgrade and I'll wager that after you've done it you'll be considering an SSD as you'll realise upgrading isn't a dark art. Good luck

Thanks. When I have the dough I'm gonna add 4gb (for a total of 5) and replace the HD with a WD black 750. I know 8gb would be preferable, but I'd rather upgrade the HD and have 5gb than go to 8gb and stay with the stock drive.

 

[Jambalaya]

Thanks. When I have the dough I'm gonna add 4gb (for a total of 5) and replace the HD with a WD black 750. I know 8gb would be preferable, but I'd rather upgrade the HD and have 5gb than go to 8gb and stay with the stock drive.

Understood, I think 5 will run nicely based on typical usage I see on mine and much better than the 2. I put in a 750 WD black based on recommendations in here and have been very pleased with it.

 

[estrauss11]

Slow

I am running 8 (4x2) GB Samsung DDR3-1333 and a kingston SSDNow 120gb ssd. When I upgrade to Mavericks the system slows down to crawl after 5 to 10 mins from restart or boot. Mountain Lion the system ran fine. So I guess it is a hardware issue.

 

[talmy]

I am running 8 (4x2) GB Samsung DDR3-1333 and a kingston SSDNow 120gb ssd. When I upgrade to Mavericks the system slows down to crawl after 5 to 10 mins from restart or boot. Mountain Lion the system ran fine. So I guess it is a hardware issue.

Check Activity Monitor -- maybe some process is hogging your system. With all that RAM and and SSD it shouldn't be slow.

 

[estrauss11]

Going to order new Mac specific memory to see if that helps.

 

[Jackintosh]

My early 2009 (2.26 Ghz with 4 GB memory) is definitely sluggish with Mavericks. Nothing unusual when checking Activity Monitor. I can only imagine Yosemite.

 

[estrauss11]

I found some old apps/drivers to remove, and it seems better, not by much.

 

[talmy]

My early 2009 (2.26 Ghz with 4 GB memory) is definitely sluggish with Mavericks. Nothing unusual when checking Activity Monitor. I can only imagine Yosemite.

HDD or SSD? (The person I was suggesting to check Activity Monitor has an SSD, basically the same setup and model I'm using this very moment, which is snappy.)

Some early benchmarks I've seen show Yosemite (first Developers Preview) to be faster than 10.9.3.