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Mac Mini 2014 as a Time Machine server

boss.king

boss.king

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Apr 8, 2009
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I'm exploring the idea of a 2014 Mac Mini (possibly with OCLP) as a time machine server to back up my and my wife's M2 Macbook Airs at home. I've found a few threads that address parts of my questions, but I hope someone can answer a few others in some more detail. Some context:

Why the 2014 model?
I want to upgrade the internal storage to keep the machine free of external drives. I don't really care about RAM, will likely get 8 or 16 GB.

Why a Mac Mini over a NAS/regular external drive?
I want something I can do wirelessly, and something that can operate silently — our house is small and awkward, and so this would likely have to go under the TV in our living room. We might connect it up to the TV as a streaming machine too. The NAS options in my price range seem to be kinda loud, and a standalone external drive will likely just get shelved and neglected. The aim is to have a relatively inexpensive back up solution I can set and forget.

My questions
1. Is there a limit to how large a drive I can put in a Mac Mini? I'm not planning on going too big, probably ~5TB. I assume there are no issues there?

2. Would it be worth it noise-wise or otherwise to try find a big SSD instead of a harddrive. My machine is 1TB, my wife's is 500GB, each about half full. Would a smaller but faster drive be worth a bit extra? It seems like NVME drives can work with an adapter, is that a route worth exploring?

3. Any other words of wisdom? I've never really kept up with Mac Mini line, is there anything else worth considering? Is this common usage? Should I be looking at another model?

I appreciate any wisdom you can share.
 
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The 2014 mini is great! I recommend you run the OS off the internal pcie ssd and install a second 4 tb data ssd in the HDD slot. That way you’ll have OS and backup drives separate. And, it will be much quieter, faster, and lower power consumption than if you used a spinning HDD. The only tradeoff is $$$, but I think $200 or so for a Sata ssd is worth it for backups.
 
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uller6 said:
The 2014 mini is great! I recommend you run the OS off the internal pcie ssd and install a second 4 tb data ssd in the HDD slot. That way you’ll have OS and backup drives separate. And, it will be much quieter, faster, and lower power consumption than if you used a spinning HDD. The only tradeoff is $$$, but I think $200 or so for a Sata ssd is worth it for backups.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. If I'm understanding correctly, I can replace the spinning drive with a sata SSD and there's an additional slot that takes NVME drives. Have I got that right? Are the NVME drives always populated?

I was reading about it only being in fusion drive models but I'm struggling to confirm whether that applies to all 2014 Mac Minis or if it's just the higher specced ones.

And you're saying that I should keep the existing NVME as a boot drive and just swap out the spinning disk with a sata drive? Is NVME an option for that drive as well? If not, it's not the end of the world, they just seem to be a bit cheaper at the much higher capacities.
 
I have two 2014 Mini's - base model 1.4ghz/4gb RAM/500gb HD and 2.8ghz/8gb RAM/1tb Fusion. The 2.8 has a 128gb NVME drive as part of the fusion. I separated it (using a terminal command) and installed the system and other basic stuff there which left plenty of free space on the 128gb SSD. That machine was an iTunes server for my Apple TV's, with all my media on an external 4tb SSD.

Personally, I wouldn't want to mess with the internal hard disk, I believe a lot of disassembly is required for that. On mine, even though I don't use that HD, something started to fail in the drive bearings such that it got very noisy. I finally just put that Mini on the shelf until the day when I feel like opening it up (which will probably be never, LOL).

The nice thing about having all my files on the external SSD was that I just plugged it into the other 1.4ghz Mini and cloned the operating system to an old 500gb SSD I had sitting around. External SSD's make all of this easy - not as "elegant" as internal disks, but in my case, it's all hidden inside a cabinet anyway.

Regarding your question, the hard drive-based 2014 Mini's without a fusion drive should just have an empty NVME slot inside. Have at look on OWC's website, they have a video that shows the inside of one of these.

Now, for time machine I'm using my old 2012 i7 quad Mini/16gb RAM/256gb internal SSD. That Mini has a stack of four 5-tb hard drives for both time machine and archival storage. It runs headless as a file server 24/7.

In all these cases, I'm using these Mini sjust because I already have them and their days are numbered. Would not buy any more 2014 Mini's today, although if you like that model they have certainly gotten very inexpensive.
 
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Boyd01 said:
I have two 2014 Mini's - base model 1.4ghz/4gb RAM/500gb HD and 2.8ghz/8gb RAM/1tb Fusion. The 2.8 has a 128gb NVME drive as part of the fusion. I separated it (using a terminal command) and installed the system and other basic stuff there which left plenty of free space on the 128gb SSD. That machine was an iTunes server for my Apple TV's, with all my media on an external 4tb SSD.

Personally, I wouldn't want to mess with the internal hard disk, I believe a lot of disassembly is required for that. On mine, even though I don't use that HD, something started to fail in the drive bearings such that it got very noisy. I finally just put that Mini on the shelf until the day when I feel like opening it up (which will probably be never, LOL).

The nice thing about having all my files on the external SSD was that I just plugged it into the other 1.4ghz Mini and cloned the operating system to an old 500gb SSD I had sitting around. External SSD's make all of this easy - not as "elegant" as internal disks, but in my case, it's all hidden inside a cabinet anyway.

Regarding your question, the hard drive-based 2014 Mini's without a fusion drive should just have an empty NVME slot inside. Have at look on OWC's website, they have a video that shows the inside of one of these.

Now, for time machine I'm using my old 2012 i7 quad Mini/16gb RAM/256gb internal SSD. That Mini has a stack of four 5-tb hard drives for both time machine and archival storage. It runs headless as a file server 24/7.

In all these cases, I'm using these Mini sjust because I already have them and their days are numbered. Would not buy any more 2014 Mini's today, although if you like that model they have certainly gotten very inexpensive.
Click to expand...
Thank for the advice. I'm not too worried about the complications of swapping out the harddrive, I'm pretty good at taking things apart and putting them back together, especially with video instructions etc to follow. Will definitely have a look for the OWC video you mentioned.

I'm mostly looking at the 2014 Mini for being cheap, low power, and having internally expandable storage. I don't need it to do anything fancy, the most it might have to do is stream a Youtube video while a time machine backup is running. I'm looking into Open Core Legacy Patcher to get around it being old, although I know Apple will eventually drop Intel all together and this won't be a forever solution. However, hopefully by that point my budget for an upgrade might be a bit bigger and my setup won't be quite as awkward.
 
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boss.king said:
Thanks for the reply. If I'm understanding correctly, I can replace the spinning drive with a sata SSD and there's an additional slot that takes NVME drives. Have I got that right? Are the NVME drives always populated?

I was reading about it only being in fusion drive models but I'm struggling to confirm whether that applies to all 2014 Mac Minis or if it's just the higher specced ones.

And you're saying that I should keep the existing NVME as a boot drive and just swap out the spinning disk with a sata drive? Is NVME an option for that drive as well? If not, it's not the end of the world, they just seem to be a bit cheaper at the much higher capacities.
Click to expand...
As Boyd said above, if you get the 2014 mini with Fusion Drive you will have a small 128 GB SSD on the pice bus and then a second spinning HDD on the SATA bus. Using a terminal command you can split the Fusion Drive into separate drives. I then recommend you disassemble the mini, remove the SATA HDD, and replace this with a sata SSD. iFixit has a good teardown guide.

Minis without a factory-installed Fusion Drive need an additional cable assembly to connect the pcie ssd. You can buy these on eBay for about $10.

I think the 2014 mini is a bit finicky (sleep and power issues) if you replace the pcie ssd with a nvme ssd, and this definitely needs an adapter to function. I recommend using an Apple-branded pcie ssd here to keep things running smoothly, especially for a server machine, even though a nvme ssd is a lot cheaper. But, the 2014 mini SSD is interchangeable with the 2013-2015 MacBook Air, 2013-2015 MacBook Pro, and 2013 Mac Pro cylinder. You can get older used drives on eBay from any of those machines for not too much as well.

I used to have this exact setup a few years ago with a 128 GB pcie ssd and a 2 TB SATA SSD in my 20214 mini, but now I, like Boyd, use a 4 TB USB ssd for backups. It's fast enough and easy to move between machines. The 2014 now runs as a pi-hole blocking ads on my network.
 
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uller6 said:
As Boyd said above, if you get the 2014 mini with Fusion Drive you will have a small 128 GB SSD on the pice bus and then a second spinning HDD on the SATA bus. Using a terminal command you can split the Fusion Drive into separate drives. I then recommend you disassemble the mini, remove the SATA HDD, and replace this with a sata SSD. iFixit has a good teardown guide.

Minis without a factory-installed Fusion Drive need an additional cable assembly to connect the pcie ssd. You can buy these on eBay for about $10.

I think the 2014 mini is a bit finicky (sleep and power issues) if you replace the pcie ssd with a nvme ssd, and this definitely needs an adapter to function. I recommend using an Apple-branded pcie ssd here to keep things running smoothly, especially for a server machine, even though a nvme ssd is a lot cheaper. But, the 2014 mini SSD is interchangeable with the 2013-2015 MacBook Air, 2013-2015 MacBook Pro, and 2013 Mac Pro cylinder. You can get older used drives on eBay from any of those machines for not too much as well.

I used to have this exact setup a few years ago with a 128 GB pcie ssd and a 2 TB SATA SSD in my 20214 mini, but now I, like Boyd, use a 4 TB USB ssd for backups. It's fast enough and easy to move between machines. The 2014 now runs as a pi-hole blocking ads on my network.
Click to expand...
Okay, I think I’ll try pick up one that already has an official boot SSD and just swap out the HDD to save the hassle of sourcing the correct parts for that (a little trickier here in NZ than when I was living in the States).

Thanks again, I really appreciate the help.
 
uller6 said:
As Boyd said above, if you get the 2014 mini with Fusion Drive you will have a small 128 GB SSD on the pice bus and then a second spinning HDD on the SATA bus. Using a terminal command you can split the Fusion Drive into separate drives. I then recommend you disassemble the mini, remove the SATA HDD, and replace this with a sata SSD. iFixit has a good teardown guide.

Minis without a factory-installed Fusion Drive need an additional cable assembly to connect the pcie ssd. You can buy these on eBay for about $10.

I think the 2014 mini is a bit finicky (sleep and power issues) if you replace the pcie ssd with a nvme ssd, and this definitely needs an adapter to function. I recommend using an Apple-branded pcie ssd here to keep things running smoothly, especially for a server machine, even though a nvme ssd is a lot cheaper. But, the 2014 mini SSD is interchangeable with the 2013-2015 MacBook Air, 2013-2015 MacBook Pro, and 2013 Mac Pro cylinder. You can get older used drives on eBay from any of those machines for not too much as well.

I used to have this exact setup a few years ago with a 128 GB pcie ssd and a 2 TB SATA SSD in my 20214 mini, but now I, like Boyd, use a 4 TB USB ssd for backups. It's fast enough and easy to move between machines. The 2014 now runs as a pi-hole blocking ads on my network.
Click to expand...
Sorry, one last question.

I'm noticing there are basically no Mac Minis available where I live that have the preinstalled fusion SSD, but a bunch have had the spinning drive replaced with a 250-500GB sata SSD. If I set that sata SSD as the boot drive and added a ~4TB NVME drive for bulk storage, would I still risk facing those instabilities you mentioned?
 
I have just made a post on nvme adapter for 2014 mini. It is a great machine. You could easily put a 2 TB nvme and a 4 TB SATA SSD in it or 2x 4 TB drives. I didn’t do that much because of the cost of the 4 tb ones. If you can get a 16 gb version, cpu doesn’t matter, i5 is enough, it is a dual core anyway. Even the i7 is too.
 
boss.king said:
I'm exploring the idea of a 2014 Mac Mini (possibly with OCLP) as a time machine server to back up my and my wife's M2 Macbook Airs at home. I've found a few threads that address parts of my questions, but I hope someone can answer a few others in some more detail. Some context:

Why the 2014 model?
I want to upgrade the internal storage to keep the machine free of external drives. I don't really care about RAM, will likely get 8 or 16 GB.

Why a Mac Mini over a NAS/regular external drive?
I want something I can do wirelessly, and something that can operate silently — our house is small and awkward, and so this would likely have to go under the TV in our living room. We might connect it up to the TV as a streaming machine too. The NAS options in my price range seem to be kinda loud, and a standalone external drive will likely just get shelved and neglected. The aim is to have a relatively inexpensive back up solution I can set and forget.

My questions
1. Is there a limit to how large a drive I can put in a Mac Mini? I'm not planning on going too big, probably ~5TB. I assume there are no issues there?

2. Would it be worth it noise-wise or otherwise to try find a big SSD instead of a harddrive. My machine is 1TB, my wife's is 500GB, each about half full. Would a smaller but faster drive be worth a bit extra? It seems like NVME drives can work with an adapter, is that a route worth exploring?

3. Any other words of wisdom? I've never really kept up with Mac Mini line, is there anything else worth considering? Is this common usage? Should I be looking at another model?

I appreciate any wisdom you can share.
Click to expand...
I use mine for exactly that. Perfect little time machine server. Make sure you run this from the command line after every boot to make sure it doesn't run at low priority. This generally doubles backup speeds for me, even when I'm not using the mini for anything else. I currently have a 6TB external USB disk. That way I can retrieve it easily, swap it with a different disk so I have more than one set of backups, etc.
Code: 
sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0
 
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