MAC MINI 2012 Fusion drive failing*** (or just the HDD)

[pazoo22]

Hello folks,

Question for those that know more than me....

I have a late 2012 Mac mini with a 1.12TB fusion hard drive

late 2012 mac mini

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85)]2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 (16GB ram)[/COLOR]

I know the HDD...perhaps the SSD too is failing because the computer makes allot of whirring noises every 30 seconds and the SMART status states its failing...(also blacks out every 30 mins ...stutters...and what not)

QUESTIONS:

1: Can I separate the drives and just reinstall Catalina on the 128BG SSD and just use the USB connected hard drives for all other data
or:
2: should I simply pull out both drives and install a 500GB or 1 TB SSD
or:
3: should I just attach a 500GB or 1TB SSD via the USB 3 and somehow shut of all communication to the fusion drive (HDD) so it doesnt spin up...

and

A: would a 500GB ssd drive do just fine for strictly system files or should I get a 1 TB ssd

B: how much difference in speed would there be by installing a 500GB SSD internally vs running an external 500GB SSD drive....what would be better???

C: Any recommendations as to which brand to buy


Thank you kindly to those of you that can help!!!!!


PAZOO

 

[mdgm]

1. If the SSD is fine, yes. Considering the age of the SSD it would not be surprising at all if it was failing.
2. That would be best if you are comfortable with the risk of opening up a machine
3. USB3 will give decent performance. A TB3 drive via an Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter and a TB3 dock would be a little better, but a lot more expensive. The TB3 drive option is more useful for the older 2011 Mini which has TB1 but no USB3.

A. It really depends on how much space you expect to use in the next few years. It's a very subjective question.

B. Internal would be better than USB3, but for most users it's not going to be a big difference.

C. Personal preference. You can look around macrumors and elsewhere for what has worked for others.

 

[Boyd01]

My 2012 Quad mini had an original Apple 256gb internal SSD and I left Mountain Lion on it to run legacy software. But I mostly booted it from an external 1TB Samsung T3 SSD with Sierra for a couple years. Worked great that way with Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro and other demanding software.

Regarding performance, this is the original internal SSD on my 2012 quad

And here is the 1TB Samsung T3 external SSD. You can get much faster USB SSD's now (my T7's are twice as fast on my 2018 Mini) however I don't think they would be any faster on the 2012 Mini.

The internal SSD is clearly faster, but subjectively I did not notice any difference except about 30 second boot time vs 15 seconds for the internal.

OTOH, I gave my daughter's family my old 2012 base mini with an internal 500gb hard drive and set it up to boot from a 500gb Samsung T3 external SSD. I setup time machine to do backups to the internal hard drive, After about 6 months, they started having lots of crashes. Never did enough troubleshooting, but during one visit I found that the internal hard drive was throwing a lot of errors, so I think it was dying. I disabled time machine (all their files were in the cloud anyway) but the crashes continued so they finally gave up on it. So, I don't know if a failing internal disk will give you problems, my experience suggests that it might.

 

[Fishrrman]

THE VERY FIRST THING TO DO is to try and create a bootable cloned backup of the internal fusion drive.

You'll need either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days -- this will cost you nothing.

Of course, you'll need an external USB3 drive on which to create the backup.
Since you're talking "1tb SSD", that's what I'd get.

Get a 2.5" SATA SSD. I like Crucial and Sandisk.
Also, get one of these:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

tinyurl.com

Put the drive in the enclosure, connect it, use disk utility to erase it (you didn't tell us which version of the OS you use), then use CCC or SD to create the cloned backup.

Once you've done that, and tested the backup, you can now do this:

You could "split apart" the fusion drive, and then erase and test BOTH internal drives.

If the HDD is bad, you have 2 choices:
1. install the new SSD in place of the old HDD
or
2. just boot and run from the external SSD in the USB3 enclosure.

I'd suggest choice 2.

If the internal HDD shows a lot of errors, I'd just leave it "empty, unused, but in place" inside. Just "let it be".

I would consider installing a copy of the OS on the SSD portion. You might even consider making that the boot drive.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Good suggestions so far, though I'll still contribute my $0.02.

I have an aftermarket Fusion drive and the original, Apple branded HDD is noted as failing for me as well: 1 reallocated sector, exceeded design power on hours, exceeded design load cycle count.

Anyway....

QUESTIONS:

1: Can I separate the drives and just reinstall Catalina on the 128BG SSD and just use the USB connected hard drives for all other data
or:
2: should I simply pull out both drives and install a 500GB or 1 TB SSD
or:
3: should I just attach a 500GB or 1TB SSD via the USB 3 and somehow shut of all communication to the fusion drive (HDD) so it doesnt spin up...

and

A: would a 500GB ssd drive do just fine for strictly system files or should I get a 1 TB ssd

B: how much difference in speed would there be by installing a 500GB SSD internally vs running an external 500GB SSD drive....what would be better???

C: Any recommendations as to which brand to buy


Thank you kindly to those of you that can help!!!!!


PAZOO

1. Yes.

How to fix a split Fusion Drive - Apple Support

If your Fusion Drive appears as two drives instead of one in the Finder, it's no longer working as a Fusion Drive. Here's how to fix it.

support.apple.com

2. You can. FYI: If you do replace one of the drives and again want the convenience of Fusion, you will need to manually recreate it. (See above link)
3. Using an external and simply ignoring the internals shouldn't be a problem. Although, it's difficult to say with absolution.

A. I would suggest looking at your current setup. How much you're using on the current Fusion, etc.
B. @Boyd01's benchmarks are accurate. The USB 3.0 limit is ~400 MB/s (5 Gb/s theoretical max), whereas (the internal) SATA III is ~500 MB/s (6 Gb/s theoretical max). So, a small difference, though probably negligible in most situations. To me, TB isn't cost effective nowadays for a 2012 machine. If you want to invest in a TB3 drive setup and a TB3->TB2 adapter intending to utilize it on a replacement, new(er) Mac, than maybe it would be worthwhile.
C. How you proceed will depend on budget, skills, and patience/time.

Even though the RAM is super easy to add/replace in the 2012 Mac mini, the drives are not a five minute process -- in fact, officially not user upgradeable.

My elder HDD hasn't seemed to cause problems. However, APFS does not play well with Apple's Fusion technology. It works, but not well. I'll be installing an older macOS on the Fusion drive when I sell this mini. Anyway... Because of that and wanting to lower the stress on the internal drives, I did give in and go external, an affordable PCIe SSD and USB 3.1 setup...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX

*

Silicon Power 1TB - NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 SSD (SP001TBP34A60M28)

Silicon Power 1TB - NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 2280 TLC SSD (SP001TBP34A60M28)

www.amazon.com

...Which, while limited to ~400 MB/s now, should be able to reach nearly 1 GB/s on USB 3.1 systems i.e. when I finally upgrade to a new Mac and use the drive setup for additional storage.

You could save a bit with a SATA to USB 3 option, as mentioned by @Fishrrman:

SABRENT Ultra Slim USB 3.0 to 2.5 Inch SATA External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure [Black] (EC-UK30)

SABRENT Ultra Slim USB 3.0 to 2.5 Inch SATA External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure [Black] (EC-UK30)

www.amazon.com

Crucial MX500 1TB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD, up to 560MB/s - CT1000MX500SSD1(Z)

Start your system in seconds, store up to 2TB of data, and upgrade with an SSD you can count on. Join more and more people who are keeping their family videos, travel photos, music, and important documents on an SSD, and get the near-instant performance and lasting reliability that comes with sol...

www.amazon.com

* As a note on this specific enclosure. I went cheap and it's evident. The performance seems fine, but the frame of the enclosure is plastic and an SSD is annoyingly difficult to install. I much prefer my earlier purchase:

RIITOP NVMe Enclosure M.2 NVMe to USB C Case External USB 3.1 to PCI-e (M Key) NVMe 2280 SSD Case Reader with 2 Cable

NVME to USB C Gen2 10Gb Adapter Enclosure RIITOP PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD to USB 3.1 Type C Converter Case in Black (Thunderbolt 3 Compatible) Features: Supports TRIM to the SSD. Integrates with USB Type-C multiplexer& configuration channel(CC)logic. Complies with PCI Express Base Specification Revision...

www.amazon.com

 

[mdgm]

Another thing to note is that a TB3 drive or the dock to provide power to the TB3 drive (if using an AC powered drive) may require Sierra or High Sierra as a minimum. So a TB3 drive isn't a good option if you want to use the external to boot a very old version of Mac OS X.