Or, will I have to open it up to know what's inside?
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2014 Mac mini: SSD compatibility question
- Thread starter zachiedoo
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Or, will I have to open it up to know what's inside?
It is. It’s not an NVMe PCIe SSD though (those only appeared in 2015). It’s an AHCI PCIe SSD — the "SSUBX", which is a custom version of the Samsung SM951.
All AHCI PCIe SSDs show up under SATA, presumably because the OS assumes all AHCI controllers are for SATA drives.
You can put in any 2.5" SATA SSD in place of the hard drive.
No. It is not a SATA SSD and doesn’t use a 2.5” form factor either.
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Hmmmm....I took the specs from OWC's description here And went looking for the same thing. Did I miss something? I'm trying to learn as much as I can, but I seem to go easily astray... And now I just noticed that the screenshot does say it's AHCI version 1.3, so I'm really confused
In addition, in that OWC description (which is where I got the used 2014 mini) there is a description of a problem I have encountered with this mini, that links to this article, which would seem to suggest that it is an NVMe SSD. When I ordered it, I chose to have it configured with an SSD rather than an HDD, and expect they would have put one of their SSD's in it. I'm not arguing, I'm just trying to learn to figure things out.
So to switch it to the Samsung SATA SSD, I would need to pick up a compatible PCIe/SATA cable, correct?
And again, Amethyst1, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
These are for one of their (NVMe) SSDs.
Yours is one of Apple’s custom SSDs, indicated by the “APPLE SSD” bit in its name. “SM” indicates it’s based on a Samsung drive, and “G” after the capacity indicates it’s an SSUBX, i.e. an AHCI PCIe SSD based on the Samsung SM951.
It says it’s an AHCI SSD, and “Link Speed” and “Link Width” say its controller connects using two PCIe 2.0 lanes. The SSUBX can use up to four PCIe 3.0 lanes so the Mac mini bottlenecks it somewhat, but there’s nothing that can be done about that.
Maybe it also affects AHCI SSDs?
In any case, it is not an NVMe SSD — I have the same SSD and have used it with Snow Leopard, which doesn’t have the slightest clue what NVMe is.
You need to get this cable to connect the 2.5” SATA SSD since your Mac mini didn’t originally come with a 2.5” SATA hard drive.
You can keep the SSUBX in there as well, i.e. have a dual SSD configuration.
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OK, I checked out the video showing how to install a 2.5" SSDin the mini, and that looks really involved to me, and I don't think I'm up to that complicated an upgrade yet. At least, not on this machine.These are for one of their (NVMe) SSDs.
Yours is one of Apple’s custom SSDs, indicated by the “APPLE SSD” bit in its name. “SM” indicates it’s based on a Samsung drive, and “G” after the capacity indicates it’s an SSUBX, i.e. an AHCI PCIe SSD based on the Samsung SM951.
It says it’s an AHCI SSD, and “Link Speed” and “Link Width” say its controller connects using two PCIe 2.0 lanes. The SSUBX can use up to four PCIe 3.0 lanes so the Mac mini bottlenecks it somewhat, but there’s nothing that can be done about that.
Maybe it also affects AHCI SSDs?
In any case, it is not an NVMe SSD — I have the same SSD and have used it with Snow Leopard, which doesn’t have the slightest clue what NVMe is.
You need to get this cable to connect the 2.5” SATA SSD since your Mac mini didn’t originally come with a 2.5” SATA hard drive.
You can keep the SSUBX in there as well, i.e. have a dual SSD configuration.
Could I just replace the Apple PCIe SSD with a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD? The mini is already running Catalina, so the firmware has already been upgraded. I found this one and this one. Although they're very different price points, both specifically list as being compatible with my mini. I also looked at something like this, but something tells me it's not the right kind or would need an adapter. Or am I out in left field here?
Also, I'm curious about the reference to MS-DOS FAT32 in the system info for the PCIe SSD in my machine.
ETA: link to WD Green SSD
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Yes, but it needs to have the same connector as Apple’s custom SSDs.
Both have the correct connector but I’m not familiar with these manufacturers so can’t comment on reliability or anything. The cheaper one doesn’t even reveal what controller it’s using. The more expensive one mentions a Silicon Motion controller (the SM2263XT is shown on picture). Both lack DRAM cache, which compromises performance.
It has the wrong connector, so you’d need an adapter.
That’s just the tiny EFI system partition.
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So I found this connector, which I believe would enable me to install an M.2 2280 configuration PCIe SSD. It's challenging to find out if they have DRAM cache. Given what I want to use it for, is a DRAM cache a big deal? For example, would there be lag while watching movies?
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If the description does not say anything, you have to check the controller, i.e. if it's designed to work with cache-less SSDs or not (Silicon Motion controllers that have an XT suffix are, for instance) or have a look at the PCB itself and check if there is another small DRAM chip next to the controller and the large main NAND flash chip(s).
Where you will notice it the most is random writes. If that is no big deal for your intended use (if it'll be serving stuff to other machines, I guess it's mostly reads), it's not so much of a problem.
Looking at this drive for my 2014 2.6GHz mini with the Sintech adapter. The list often referred to on this subject lists this as a compatible drive "with firmware update". Presumably, this would have to be done before installation? How?
Also considering this one. They are close in price, and both ship from Canada. Any thoughts?
Also considering this one. They are close in price, and both ship from Canada. Any thoughts?
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I have that same WD Blue drive sitting next to me, along with a 2TB WD Blue 2.5 SSD ready to install in my inbound 2014 Mac mini that I got from Ebay. I purchased the adapter (there's a bunch of them) but I grabbed the EXACT one that I saw on a YouTube video of an SSD upgrade so I know it should work. below is a link to the adapter I purchased. And I know your prices are in Canadian, but I paid $52 USD for the WD SN570 1TB NVMe drive. these should work just fine from my research. Im going to use mine as a headless server/backup drives.
BestParts M.2 NGFF M-Key NVME SSD Convertor Card Replacement for Mac Mini Late 2014 A1347 MEGEN2 MEGEM2 MEGEQ2
Product Description: 1. Note compatible SSD is in pictures and descriptions, or adapter will not work. 2. Fit Models : only work for 2014 Mac Mini A1347 3. Fit 22x30 22x42 22x60 22x80 type M key M.2 NVME SSD, does not supports SSD which B/B+M key 4. OS must be Mac OS, adaper doesn't support wind...
www.amazon.com
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The PCIe-based SSDs are not NVMe (despite the fact that NVMe is also PCIe-based). They are a proprietary Apple thing. A lot of people have found adapters that go from this proprietary connector to M.2 (SATA, I believe). While I think it's probably unpopular in these forums, I've usually just replaced those drives with OWC drives. If your Mac mini didn't come with an Apple proprietary PCIe-based drive, you will likely be missing the requisite connector for the drive (the 2014 Mac mini, unlike the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros and the 2013-2017 MacBook Airs, do not have this drive connector directly on the main logic board [I know that some 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros are also in this boat, but I do not know off the top of my head if that applies to all of them]). Incidentally, OWC sells this connector along with their drives (though I believe they also sell it separately). You otherwise should have a SATA connector for traditional 2.5-inch drives and you ought to be fine using a 2.5-inch SATA Samsung 870 EVO in that Mac mini.
Yes and I'm one of them.
I saved a fortune on SSD costs by doing this and the performance is faultless.
I think most people tend to go that route. I like OWC's drives and service, but I certainly won't say that doing it your way (a) doesn't work, (b) isn't perfectly stable and reliable and (c) isn't cheaper.Yes and I'm one of them.
I saved a fortune on SSD costs by doing this and the performance is faultless.
The connector is proprietary, but the AHCI interface/protocol is not. There were AHCI PCIe SSDs made by other companies. But they were a short-lived interim solution on the way to NVMe SSDs.
m.2 can be either PCIe or SATA. But for these SSDs, SATA isn’t part of the picture at all. It’s PCIe all the way.
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While that particular adapter is available via Amazon.ca, it'll come with associated duties. The Sintech one is also one recommended in the PCIe NVMe SSD upgrade thread here with no duties attached. But thanks for the info.
I do not think that it is necessary to purchase the Sintech adapter. I bought a clone from eBay and I haven't experienced any of the issues described by the OP in that thread.
Have just bought the cheap Adapter from jser and put a Crucial P2 in it ( Cheap - 5min install ) but do not take any Samsung NVME in a Mac as Boot Volume cause the Trim is giving you many sort of Problems in any Mac with any Samsung NVME.
As we've progressed on from Monterey to Ventura it looks as though the WD Blue and Black NVMe drives are still the very best choice for your macOS boot drive. Samsung has not fixed anything through firmware updates that would let us suggest their NVMe drives for use in your hackintosh. Those would need to have TRIM disabled for use with macOS as a boot drive.
TL;DR : Use WD Blue or Black SSDs with a WD Proprietary controller (avoid the WD SN750 SE)
Choose a 500GB or larger drive for faster read/write speeds and greater longevity of your drive.
As we've progressed on from Monterey to Ventura it looks as though the WD Blue and Black NVMe drives are still the very best choice for your macOS boot drive. Samsung has not fixed anything through firmware updates that would let us suggest their NVMe drives for use in your hackintosh. Those would need to have TRIM disabled for use with macOS as a boot drive.
TL;DR : Use WD Blue or Black SSDs with a WD Proprietary controller (avoid the WD SN750 SE)
Choose a 500GB or larger drive for faster read/write speeds and greater longevity of your drive.
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Agreed, but it's worth keeping in mind that the 2014 Mac mini is limited to PCIe 2.0 ×2 for SSDs, i.e. 1000 MB/s theoretical maximum, even less once overhead is taken into account (800 MB/s or so?). So pretty much any NVMe SSD is going to be bottlenecked.
I know, but that text purely relays to another context and the most important part here is compatibility.
These transfer rates are also only reaching Maximum with Large files.