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Can I replace the drive inside the Mac Mini with a 1 GB drive?

WizardHunt

WizardHunt

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 11, 2007
1,695
38
Las Vegas, Nevada USA
Can I repace the drive in a Mac Mini which now has the 160 GB with a 500 Gb or even a 1 TB drive? Will it fit? Is it possible to do? I am speaking of if it is out of warranty of course. I know it would void the warranty if the case was opened but can it be done and is it too differcult? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much.
 
WizardHunt said:
Can I repace the drive in a Mac Mini which now has the 160 GB with a 500 Gb or even a 1 TB drive? Will it fit? Is it possible to do? I am speaking of if it is out of warranty of course. I know it would void the warranty if the case was opened but can it be done and is it too differcult? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

1. You can replace the drive with a larger one but it must be a 2.5 inch notebook drive. If the mac is intel, it must be a SATA drive. If it is a PPC mini, it must be an ATA/IDE drive.

2. They don't make a 1TB notebook drive yet.

3. I've done the upgrade twice on a mini and its a PIA to open the case. Once you get it open though, the rest is simple. You can use this video from OWC to see how all of it is done:

http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/installation.cfm

Click on Hard Drives and scroll to the mini. Download the file (quicktime movie) and watch it.
 
Everything explained above!^^

But apparently your error in the title will shock a lot of people me included!:eek:
 
merl1n said:
1. You can replace the drive with a larger one but it must be a 2.5 inch notebook drive. If the mac is intel, it must be a SATA drive. If it is a PPC mini, it must be an ATA/IDE drive.

2. They don't make a 1TB notebook drive yet.
Click to expand...
Could I use one of the stacker drives that I bought, I have a stacker 2 and stacker 3. They are the same size case as the mac mini so I assume the drive might be the same size. The stacker 2 drive is a 500 GB. and the stacker 3 is a 1 TB drive. Can I take either drive out of the stacker cases and replace my 160 GB from the mini? What do you think?
 
California said:
isn't the largest laptop sata drive a 320gb?

He could do that, right?
Click to expand...



There's a 500 GB Sata 2.5" drive on the market now...


WizardHunt said:
Could I use one of the stacker drives that I bought, I have a stacker 2 and stacker 3. They are the same size case as the mac mini so I assume the drive might be the same size. The stacker 2 drive is a 500 GB. and the stacker 3 is a 1 TB drive. Can I take either drive out of the stacker cases and replace my 160 GB from the mini? What do you think?
Click to expand...



The stacker drives are 3.5" in height not 2.5" in height for Mac Mini use.. The largest drive in GBs is 500GB, You'll pay a premium for it too ....320GB is cheaper too...
 
I take it you want to eliminate the use of those external hard drives, keeping your set up nice and simple. Have you considered buying a time capsule and hiding it out the way somewhere?

That way multiple computers can share the drive with ease
 
umop apisdn said:
I would assume those external drives are 3.5inch desktop drives and wouldn't be possible.
Click to expand...

I just found out for sure that the Stacker Drives are indeed a 3.5 internal drive. so that will not work. I will have to buy a 320 or 500 internal. Wonder how much difference I would notice in the 5400 speed and 7200 speed drive?

The 320 comes with 7200 speed
The 500 comes with 5400 speed only.

Which should I buy?
 
WizardHunt said:
Can I repace the drive in a Mac Mini which now has the 160 GB with a 500 Gb or even a 1 TB drive? Will it fit? Is it possible to do? I am speaking of if it is out of warranty of course. I know it would void the warranty if the case was opened but can it be done and is it too differcult? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

The other way to go would be to use a firewire external drive as your boot/system disk. Apart from the capacity and cost advantages I think you might see a performance improvement too, as (in my subjective testing) I've found that a 7200rpm firewire drive seems to perform better as a system disk than the slower drives usually found in laptops and mini's.

This is easy to test with a SuperDuper image to an external and a quick reboot, no messing with the mini, and no warranty implications.

Just a thought
 
WizardHunt said:
I just found out for sure that the Stacker Drives are indeed a 3.5 internal drive. so that will not work. I will have to buy a 320 or 500 internal. Wonder how much difference I would notice in the 5400 speed and 7200 speed drive?

The 320 comes with 7200 speed
The 500 comes with 5400 speed only.

Which should I buy?
Click to expand...

The 320 is also available in 5400 speed and cheaper than the 7200 speed ones.

Here is a link where you can compare prices from OWC. For the mini, 7200 rpm may be overkill and there is a substantial price difference given the same amount of storage.

http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Se....5+hard+drive&Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Price|0&N=6892

For what you want to spend, the choice is yours. You can go up to a 500GB drive (5400 rpm) at this time.
 
blodwyn said:
The other way to go would be to use a firewire external drive as your boot/system disk. Apart from the capacity and cost advantages I think you might see a performance improvement too, as (in my subjective testing) I've found that a 7200rpm firewire drive seems to perform better as a system disk than the slower drives usually found in laptops and mini's.
Click to expand...

Not in my testing. I ran SpeedTools on a FW400mbps/500gig/7200rpm/32mbc 3.5" vs an internal SATA 1.5gps/120gig/5400/8mbc 2.5" on my Mac Mini and the internal drive won nearly every test.
 
Cave Man said:
Not in my testing. I ran SpeedTools on a FW400mbps/500gig/7200rpm/32mbc 3.5" vs an internal SATA 1.5gps/120gig/5400/8mbc 2.5" on my Mac Mini and the internal drive won nearly every test.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's interesting. I didn't run any benchmarks, but subjectively my mini felt more responsive when running from my external firewire drive. I ended up installing a 200GB 7200rpm drive in my mini, which works even better :)
 
blodwyn said:
Hmmm, that's interesting. I didn't run any benchmarks, but subjectively my mini felt more responsive when running from my external firewire drive. I ended up installing a 200GB 7200rpm drive in my mini, which works even better :)
Click to expand...

Depending on your use, the 5400 rpm drives can perform better than the 7200 rpm drives, particularly when it comes to sustained read/write. These drives are those that have 160 gigs/platter (e.g., 160x1, 320x2, 500x3).
 
Buy a Firewire caddy and a 1tb drive. Problem solved.

It won't void your warranty, its easy to do, its just as fast (Due to the legacy technology still used in hard drives, they never push out anywhere close to SATA speeds.)
 
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