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2010 Max Hard Drive Sizings?

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Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
I can't find any info out there on what the maximum hard drive size can be for any Mac Minis, more specifically a 2010 that I'm looking to buy?

Mac tracker just says it came with 2 options 320 or 500 GB (5400-rpm) but does that mean that 500 GB was the highest it can take or just what Apple offered?

Can I put a 1 TB SSD in this thing or what would happen if it doesn't accept a hard drive of that size? Would it hurt the system in any way?

And if anyone knows if its a SATA II or SATA III and if a 7.0 mm or 9.5 mm thickness?
 
G

Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
on that EveryMac.com website though it doesn't say that it can take up to any sized hard drive though? there's got to be a limitation you would think no?
 
Joelburman

Joelburman

macrumors regular
Oct 31, 2014
226
9
Isn't the physical dimensions of the disks the real limitation not SATA II or SATA III. The Samsung spinpoint 2,5" HDD drive is the "thinnest" 2TB drive that will fit without being problematic. At least thats what I've been recommended for upgrading my current 2012 mini.
 
G

Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
I was going to put a 1 TB SSD in it and store as many movies as I could, the spacing is a 9.5 mm thickness I have read, so a 7.0 mm with a spacer would fit fine, but it gives out SATA II speeds so there will be some down-clocking. But if you are saying that your 2012 took a 2 TB size...I wonder if the 2010 model can take the 1 TB size?
 
X

xylitol

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2013
315
66
Finland
If there were logical limitations to the size of HDD/SSD, you could easily find info on that.

edit: But you can't find any specific info, so...
 
Last edited:
Rachel Faith

Rachel Faith

macrumors regular
Apr 24, 2007
126
16
Iowa
Any standard 2.5 made will work in it, 2.5 drives are nowhere near large enough to hit any sort of OS limit. I run two 2TB drives in a 2009 mini.
 
Joelburman

Joelburman

macrumors regular
Oct 31, 2014
226
9
If you don't care for the DVD Player you can always replace it with an additional 2,5 inch drive. As for having a SSD in a 2010 mini I had one in my old 2010 mini and before putting it in 1080p files stuttered in the beginning of playback but that issue disappeared when I put in a Kingston V300 SSD. Others on this forum said that it could have been solved through software settings.
 
G

Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
xylitol said:
If there were logical limitations to the size of HDD/SSD, you could easily find info on that.
Click to expand...

...where can I? this is what I'm trying to find out, not the dimensional size but the "logical" size limitation so that I won't screw something up if I put a 1 TB SSD into a 2010 Mac Mini and it can't take that 1 TB and screws something up.
 
Joelburman

Joelburman

macrumors regular
Oct 31, 2014
226
9
I'm pretty sure that the only thing that will happen is that the drive will be bottlenecked down to SATA II speed. I think size limitations were more of a IDE thing than SATA.
 
G

Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
Guzaking said:
...I'm trying to find out, not the dimensional size but the "logical" size limitation so that I won't screw something up if I put a 1 TB SSD into a 2010 Mac Mini and it can't take that 1 TB and screws something up.
Click to expand...

...I'm trying to find out, NOT the dimensional size but the "logical" size limitation so that I won't screw something up if I put a 1 TB SSD into a 2010 Mac Mini and it can't take that 1 TB and screws something up.
 
G

Guzaking

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2015
82
0
I need the big 1 TB SSD drive to load as many DVD movies on there as I can and the used ones for sale don't come with such big SSD's so I'll have to do the upgrade myself.

I figure if each DVD rip is on average 5 GB's then I can get 180 movies on there to total around 900 GB's and then 7 or 8 GB's for Snow Leopard and some various players and then I'm told the HD's controllers take up to 70+ GB's with their over-allotment cushion that it sets aside.

So I'll have to go big, and I've decided to buy 2 of them (the other for a 17" MBP) ...the Samsung 850 Evo with 3-D V-Nand for $400 bucks, $150 - $200 cheaper than the 850 Pro and that extra money for the Pro doesn't justify its price. It's got to be the best choice out there, everybody seems to say so.
 
W

westrock2000

macrumors 6502a
Oct 18, 2013
524
22
Guzaking said:
I need the big 1 TB SSD drive to load as many DVD movies on there as I can and the used ones for sale don't come with such big SSD's so I'll have to do the upgrade myself.
Click to expand...

Just some considerations.

Streaming a "DVD Quality" movie only requires about 1-2MB/s (at most). ANY hard drive will be able to keep up with this. Skipping around in a movie will be affected by access time, not by transfer speeds. So in that case a slow 5400RPM drive could possibly have problems, but a 7200 drive will be fine, an SSD obviously would be fine.

Using H264 compression, you can get a DVD down to 2-3GB and have no perceptible difference between it and the source material. Animations can dip down into the 1-2GB range due to less movement at the pixel level (solid colors).

Apple's "Fusion" file system is awesome and is very distinct from other operating systems. I wish you could do something similar in Windows. It allows you to have both an SSD and a HDD in the system and it combines them as one drive, but it dynamically moves data around so that stuff that gets used often (or system files) stay on the SSD. As the SSD runs out of room, it commits less often used data to the HDD. It's very similar to the "cache" systems you see on Windows but it uses as big a SSD drive as you give it. So a 512GB SSD, plus a 1TB HDD means you have 1.5TB of useable space.

Unless you have the money to spend, I wouldn't put too much into getting a 1TB SSD. Go with a Fusion setup if you can.
 
T'hain Esh Kelch

T'hain Esh Kelch

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2001
6,450
7,372
Denmark
You can put any SATA harddrive in that model and it'll work without issues. The bytesize limitations are set by the controller and the OS, and you won't run into those limitations unless you buy a new drive 10 years from now.
 
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