Been using my 2010 mini in my camper for movies. Currently have a 750 GB SSD drive. I need a bigger one in it to put all my ripped movies on it so I don't have to bring discs camping. Is there a limitation on size of SSD I can use? I need a minimum of a 2TB but a 4TB would be better. Thanks.
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2010 Mac Mini SSD ?
- Thread starter bearcatrp
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Nope! If there's a limitation on the controller, it's bound to be something that mere mortals couldn't hope to afford.
I'd be more worried about possible incompatibilities with the southbridge not related to capacity.
Yeah, the biggest weirdness with the Nvidia chipsets is how iffy they are with whether they'll get 3Gb/s or 1.5Gb/s. There's plenty of anecdotal advice for various brands and models, but I've always found it to be a bit of a crapshoot.
I'm not aware of any limits on the drive capacity.
Price is a factor to consider, since the 4TB SSD drives that fit (2.5 inches) are not cheap. How much are you willing to spend on upgrading this machine?
Have you tried using an external HDD for media storage? For me that's the sweet spot for flexibility and affordability. I can copy a bunch of files over to the internal drive when I want them and then delete them to make room for others later. The 2010 mini only has USB 2.0, so I wouldn't use an external for startup, but for me it works fine for data storage.
Also curious, do you use the optical (CD/DVD) drive? If not, you might want to consider the relative cost of getting a used 2012 mini, which would be much more powerful and could accommodate 2 internal SSDs.
Price is a factor to consider, since the 4TB SSD drives that fit (2.5 inches) are not cheap. How much are you willing to spend on upgrading this machine?
Have you tried using an external HDD for media storage? For me that's the sweet spot for flexibility and affordability. I can copy a bunch of files over to the internal drive when I want them and then delete them to make room for others later. The 2010 mini only has USB 2.0, so I wouldn't use an external for startup, but for me it works fine for data storage.
Also curious, do you use the optical (CD/DVD) drive? If not, you might want to consider the relative cost of getting a used 2012 mini, which would be much more powerful and could accommodate 2 internal SSDs.
Have thought abought removing the dvd drive and putting a ssd in its place. But the dvd drive comes in handy.
An additional path to consider might be a 2.5-inch-to-m.2 SATA adapter which includes two m.2 slots:
I’ve been using this product for a little over a year without any trouble at all. The controller on the adapter can be hardware-configured (via jumpers) for two individual drive volumes, one big drive (JBOD), RAID 0 striping, and RAID 1 mirroring. The initial cost is offset by being able to add ever-larger capacity m.2 SATA SSDs for many years to come.
For your Mac mini, this would obviate a need to remove the SuperDrive unless you want two of these adapters in the enclosure, thereby providing physical capacity for up to four m.2 SSDs.