Relatively never used Mac Mini (1.4/4 gig of ram/HDD) but running very slow on Catalina. Froze in the Monterey upgrade process through SystemPrefs...hard rebooted back into Catalina. I rally don’t want to spring for a new(er) Mac Mini, so I ordered a Crucial MX500 SSD 1TB to install. Looks like over an hour job to replace but no biggie with the right tools. I would imagine the SSD should breathe new life into the Mac Mini. Just want something to keep synced with my MBP And to use in my office. I know Monterey is supported on it but how well will Monterey run in real life? Anyone?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Late 2014 Mac Mini, SSD, Monterey?
- Thread starter csonni
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The SSD will help, somewhat.
But you must realize that the 2014 Mini has RAM that IS NOT upgradeable (it's soldered in).
And... with only 4gb of RAM... you're never going to get more than "just average" performance out of it, if you get that much. Because there's insufficient RAM, the OS will start "hitting the drive" with page-ins and page-outs (this is what makes it impossibly slow with an old platter-based hard drive). And that slows things down.
If you had asked before you ordered the drive, my reply would be "don't put any money into it at all", and to take that money and put it towards a 2018 Intel Mini or even the 2020 m1 Mini.
But you must realize that the 2014 Mini has RAM that IS NOT upgradeable (it's soldered in).
And... with only 4gb of RAM... you're never going to get more than "just average" performance out of it, if you get that much. Because there's insufficient RAM, the OS will start "hitting the drive" with page-ins and page-outs (this is what makes it impossibly slow with an old platter-based hard drive). And that slows things down.
If you had asked before you ordered the drive, my reply would be "don't put any money into it at all", and to take that money and put it towards a 2018 Intel Mini or even the 2020 m1 Mini.
It's only costing me $150 total for the SSD and I'd like to have a hand at tearing it apart for the fun of it and the feeling of being successful at getting it running on somewhat better specs. I can always use the SSD in an external enclosure for backup. I do realize the ram is soldered but all I'll be using it for is editing files, notes, basic research and backing up. I may spring for something better if I find the Mac mini useful for what I need.
That 4 GB RAM is going to limit you, and the 1.4 GHz chip isn't the greatest either.
Also, IMO you would have been better off buying an NVMe M.2 SSD and adapter (unless you just want to tinker). The NVMe install takes just 5 minutes, even for a beginner, as there is nothing to disconnect. You can just leave the internal hard drive in place and use it as a Time Machine backup or something.
Since your needs are light, you can go DRAM-less for the SSD. For example, if you're in the US, Best Buy has the SanDisk Ultra 1 TB for US$80. Or the Western Digital SN550 is $84 at Amazon.com. The NVMe adapter is $14.
Plus, in that Mac mini, the NVMe drive will be faster than the 2.5" SATA SSD.
This is my 2014 Mac mini setup, with 2.6 GHz Core i5 and 8 GB RAM:
Monterey runs very well on this system.
Also, IMO you would have been better off buying an NVMe M.2 SSD and adapter (unless you just want to tinker). The NVMe install takes just 5 minutes, even for a beginner, as there is nothing to disconnect. You can just leave the internal hard drive in place and use it as a Time Machine backup or something.
Since your needs are light, you can go DRAM-less for the SSD. For example, if you're in the US, Best Buy has the SanDisk Ultra 1 TB for US$80. Or the Western Digital SN550 is $84 at Amazon.com. The NVMe adapter is $14.
Plus, in that Mac mini, the NVMe drive will be faster than the 2.5" SATA SSD.
This is my 2014 Mac mini setup, with 2.6 GHz Core i5 and 8 GB RAM:
Monterey runs very well on this system.
Last edited:
Definitely the way to go…but I really have no need for the HDD as my system with files is just over 500 gigs. It wouldn’t work with Time Machine. I can still use the SSD in one of my external enclosures and go with the NVMe and adapter. Not sure what to do with the HDD deep inside. I do like a silent machine. If I go with the NVMe, how do I set up MacOS on it with MacOS still on the HDD? Can it initially have 2 drives with 2 systems?
Last edited:
Why not?
I don’t have a lot of stuff either so I partitioned off 500 GB for Time Machine and left the other 500 GB free. The machine now silently backs itself up several times a day, without any intervention from me, and in total silence. (See below re: noise.)
My machine is effectively silent. I can hear it only if I put my ear within 1 foot of it.
Yes you can set it up as dual boot but I don’t see the point since the hard drive is so slow.
The way I installed Monterey was to boot off the hard drive and get the Monterey installer, and then just ran the installer. You can set it to install on the SSD instead of the hard drive. This is a clean install. I had no data to migrate but if you want, you can use the migration assistant to do that, or else do it manually.
I see a number of adapters on amazon. Are they all just as reliable? https://www.amazon.ca/Adapter-Modul...keywords=mac+mini+nvme&qid=1637493169&sr=8-19
I would want to restore a SuperDuper clone onto the NVMe.
I just cancelled my Crucial MX500 order.
I would want to restore a SuperDuper clone onto the NVMe.
I just cancelled my Crucial MX500 order.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I think I’ll go with that adapter above as there’s someone else here on the forum that had success with it. I was thinking of the Sabrent Rocket drive but read somewhere it doesn’t work with cloning and booting…something to do with 512k sectors. Any recommendation for a 1TB drive?
I’m considering the Samsung 970 EVO Plus:
I’m considering the Samsung 970 EVO Plus:
SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB NVMe M.2 Internal Solid State Hard Drive, V-NAND Technology, Storage and Memory Expansion for Gaming, Graphics w/Heat Control, Max Speed, MZ-V7S1T0B/AM [Canada Version]
For intensive workloads on PCs and workstations, the Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus delivers ultimate performance powered by Samsung's NVMe SSD leadership. The ultimate in performance, the 970 EVO Plus is upgraded to be faster than the 970 EVO. It maximizes the potential of NVMe bandwidth for unbeatabl...
www.amazon.ca
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I see that you’re in Canada. Same here. That is the exact one I ordered.
Just be aware that the Torx screwdriver they provide is useless because it’s not a security Torx.
Here is my install summary:
Using a Standard M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD in the 2014 Mini
My eBay Mac mini arrived today, and to my surprise, inside of it it was absolutely pristine. It looks like the seller must have cleaned it before sending it. I had already ordered the PUSOKEI branded NVME adapter from Amazon Canada, simply because it was cheaper than the Sintek. Like half the...
forums.macrumors.com
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
EugW, thanks for your suggestion. Truly appreciate that. Just finished my order. Got the Samsung 970 EvoPlus for the added DRAM cache. Should I expect my Mac mini to recognize it to initialize it or should I consider getting an enclosure for it? Not sure what is the best way to restore a clone to it.
After you install it, boot up from your hard drive, and run Disk Utility. Then initialize and format the SSD (GUID, APFS).
Boot up from your hard drive, run SuperDuper!, and then clone the boot drive to the SSD. Or else clone off an external drive if that's where your original install is located.
However, I don't know if that works completely properly though, since I presume that would not re-create the recovery partition. Anyone please jump in here if I'm wrong.
If you do a new clean install with the Apple Monterey installer onto a new drive, you should have all the appropriate partitions.
However, I don't know if that works completely properly though, since I presume that would not re-create the recovery partition. Anyone please jump in here if I'm wrong.
If you do a new clean install with the Apple Monterey installer onto a new drive, you should have all the appropriate partitions.
How much data do you have and will be using in the foreseeable future? If say only 125 GB, then I wouldn't bother swapping out the 500 GB hard drive. They say you really only need about 2-3X the capacity of your data used. 500 GB / 3 = 167 GB. However, if you plan on having say 500 GB on your boot drive, then yeah, a 1 TB Time Machine drive makes sense.
Please post your results once you have Monterey installed on the SSD. I'm curious how well it does on 4 GB RAM.
I note that even way back with Sierra/High Sierra my older machines with 4 GB RAM would encounter the beachball from time to time even with SSD and just relatively light usage, meaning a few browser tabs, mail, MS Office, Calendar, Mail, and Calculator open. These beachballs disappeared with 8 GB RAM with this type of usage.
This is what I'm using right now with 8 GB in Monterey with usage similar to the above, also with Photos, Citrix, and Music open, but without MS Office (since I don't have an Office license for this machine):
It's got some compressed RAM, but no significant swap, and is only using 6 GB physical RAM total with green memory pressure. Overall the machine feels very responsive, and there are no beachballs.
Last edited:
Will do. I hope to have it all installed in a couple of weeks. I know it's a bit of money for a trial run. Wish the ram was upgradeable. Actually got this Mac mini from a friend who is IT in our local hospital and they had no use for it after purchasing it new in 2015. I'm okay with a a bit of beach balling but nothing like it's been doing with the HDD.
Last edited:
The Samsung 970 EVO Plus you linked is NVMe M.2 so it will fit. Whether or not there is any firmware incompatibility I don't know.
However, at a 43% cost premium, that 970 EVO Plus SSD is overkill for most things people would be doing on a 2014 Mac mini with 1.4 GHz i5-4260U and 4 GB RAM. I guess the benefit here is since you're on 4 GB, you might be hitting the swap a lot, and in that context such a DRAM model might help.
However, at a 43% cost premium, that 970 EVO Plus SSD is overkill for most things people would be doing on a 2014 Mac mini with 1.4 GHz i5-4260U and 4 GB RAM. I guess the benefit here is since you're on 4 GB, you might be hitting the swap a lot, and in that context such a DRAM model might help.
That's why I went with the Samsung with DRAM. I figured that would help. It was only an additional $45.The Samsung 970 EVO Plus you linked is NVMe M.2 so it will fit. Whether or not there is any firmware incompatibility I don't know.
However, at a 43% cost premium, that 970 EVO Plus SSD is overkill for most things people would be doing on a 2014 Mac mini with 1.4 GHz i5-4260U and 4 GB RAM. I guess the benefit here is since you're on 4 GB, you might be hitting the swap a lot, and in that context such a DRAM model might help.
I am currently in the same boat as you guys are. I have a Late 2014 2.6 GHz with 16 GB RAM. The 1TB SATA drive that it has is starting to be noisier. Do you think it is better for me to just to completely change this HDD or use that NVME adapter? Is there an advantage of one compared to the other?
If it's defective, then yes remove it. However, if it's still working fine then leave it in and do the much easier NVMe upgrade, which also happens to be faster than SATA. That way you'll have not only a faster boot drive, but a nice large extra storage drive as well. I partitioned my original hard drive into two partitions, one for Time Machine, and one for extra storage. Backups are done in the background, silently.
Currently I only have 500 GB for the Time Machine drive since I'm only using about 55 GB on my SSD, but if the SSD were to fill up more, I'd expand the Time Machine hard drive size to the full 1 TB.