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New base 2.3 mini arrives photos of ssd upgrade done!
- Thread starter philipma1957
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I read this I am getting a 2.5 mini this week Since I have a virgin clone just in case. I am going to test this out see how well it works. My internet does 15 mb down load 2 mb up load max. It would be a good experiment to see how fast and how good it works.
Took about 36 minutes from start to usable desktop for me on mine 25/20 package.
Thank u 4 this awesome thread! 
Will save pics, and do SSD upgrade by myself! I was planning to go to service center, but now i see that this is no so hard as i thought.
Will save pics, and do SSD upgrade by myself! I was planning to go to service center, but now i see that this is no so hard as i thought.
I was able to fit two drives into the non-server Mini physically without an issue, didn't have to move the logic board at all on installation or removal.
Of course, the second drive wasn't connected with a cable or anything, so that may change things.
Looking forward on your instruction of the 2.5 model with the video card.
Planning to replace the HD with OWC 60GB SSD.
I suppose the new SSD needs to be formatted in a specific format before instal and "recovery" ?
the first install I used apple utility from a second apple machine(mac pro) to do a standard mac osx format onto the ssd. this install coming up I will demo the apple way and install via the net. to the ssd I put it in.
Good news to those interested in the Corsair 8GB set on Amazon:
I tried each stick one at a time. First sticked booted and passed memory tests. Second stick wouldn't boot. So I just have a bad stick. I'm going to RMA and (hopefully) get good sticks.
Sorry to be such a buzzkill, but I wouldn't be so positive if I were you, because if the RAM was to be faulty I think you would experience freezes and other bugs but it's unlikely that your mini would refuse to boot. Maybe there is a compatibility problem with the corsair RAM when 2 sticks, at the same time, are involved. My crucial 8gig kit should arrive tomorrow, worst case scenario on wednesday. I'll keep you posted.
The two sticks are identical. I tried one stick (so only 1x4GB) and Mac OS X booted. I tried the other stick, by itself, identical specifications, and it did not boot. One is good, one is bad.
While this does not guarantee that two good sticks are compatible, it does mean, in my case, that I have one good stick and one faulty stick.
Same here! Just got my Crucial 8gb kit and so far so good : 97 tabs on Chrome, 21 tabs on Firefox, 11 på Safari, Mail, Photoshop, Skype, Itunes, 15 PDFs, Spotify, Word, Excel, Pages, VMware + others apps... everything runs flawlessly!!
Just wanna know which Mini you finally bought.
I'm a Web/graphic designer and I been torturing myself since the annoncement of the new mini to know which one I should buy for home working and other stuff as photoshop with sometimes heavy files/layers, After Effects barely...
At the end I was thinking of taking a big 27" iMac i5 on the Refurb store but the price is waaayy heavier ^^
Thanx in advance.
7200rpm 1tb
This seems to be the only 7200RPM 1TB I could find:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Con...59?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1311710266&sr=1-59
This seems to be the only 7200RPM 1TB I could find:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Con...59?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1311710266&sr=1-59
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Phillip,
I did the raid 0 install just like you said, (2) 256 OCZ Vertex 3's =)
You are right thought, Lion currently has a bug regarding RAIDs.
I installed them just find and rebooted and got to the apple screen which just turned to a circle with a slash through it.
So currently running fine on 1 SSD OCZ, but sure wish I could raid these badboys!
Thanks for the tutorial, every thing you said worked perfect. I love SuperDuper!
I did the raid 0 install just like you said, (2) 256 OCZ Vertex 3's =)
You are right thought, Lion currently has a bug regarding RAIDs.
I installed them just find and rebooted and got to the apple screen which just turned to a circle with a slash through it.
So currently running fine on 1 SSD OCZ, but sure wish I could raid these badboys!
Thanks for the tutorial, every thing you said worked perfect. I love SuperDuper!
back those bad boys up. they are very fast but can crash. I just got a second 2.3 I have a 2.5 and a 2.7 coming. going to sell a few of them and keep 1 or 2 of them. I also ordered 5 16gb usb sticks from amazon. I think I will use them as restore sticks. I hope they will work. Kingston makes them.
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Hi-s...38SA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311720764&sr=8-1
as for superduper it works better for me then Carbon Copy Cleaner CCC.
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Well, it took me a while to figure out which one I would purchase. After a long analysis of my needs and by taking into account that my budget was quite limited (parisian students know what I'm talking about!!!), I finally chose the entry-level mac mini on which I've just upgraded the RAM to its maximum and switched the HDD for an SSD. I wanted to yield to the temptation to get the quad-core-powered mini but I had to be somewhat reasonable! I ain't a graphic designer, therefore my work with Photoshop is limited to simple tasks with a maximum of 40 tiny layers and basic effects, plus I don't do any video editing anymore so the GPU power offered by the HD3000 is enough for me. Not too long ago, some ppl were arguing over the fact that the Radeon 6630M GPU would bring much better performance for GPU-powered softwares. It might be worth spending an extra two-hundred then... or not!
Philip,
Once again I must say you're a clever fella.
Obviously with this you have swapped the OEM 500Gb HDD with a Samsung 256Gb SSD.
I note you're getting a 2.5 and 2.7... are you looking to add a 256Gb SSD along with the HDD on any of the other installs?
If installing the SSD as well as the HDD, does the mini have the connector cable and thermal wrap inside, or would this need to be sourced?
I would like to add an SSD, use that to run Lion, and then use the 500gb (or eventually a 1tb) HDD for putting my movies on, which will in turn be sat below my TV acting as a Media Centre... (far too powerful I know)
I assume I would need to firstly removed the HDD and re-format it... add the SSD and use the Lion Internet Recovery... does this recovery let you choose which disc to install on does anyone know? (if not, would have to add SSD first, recover, then add the HDD after).
Hope all that makes sense?!
Regards
Jim
Once again I must say you're a clever fella.
Obviously with this you have swapped the OEM 500Gb HDD with a Samsung 256Gb SSD.
I note you're getting a 2.5 and 2.7... are you looking to add a 256Gb SSD along with the HDD on any of the other installs?
If installing the SSD as well as the HDD, does the mini have the connector cable and thermal wrap inside, or would this need to be sourced?
I would like to add an SSD, use that to run Lion, and then use the 500gb (or eventually a 1tb) HDD for putting my movies on, which will in turn be sat below my TV acting as a Media Centre... (far too powerful I know)
I assume I would need to firstly removed the HDD and re-format it... add the SSD and use the Lion Internet Recovery... does this recovery let you choose which disc to install on does anyone know? (if not, would have to add SSD first, recover, then add the HDD after).
Hope all that makes sense?!
Regards
Jim
look for answers above.. adding hdds or ssds will be wait and see who will sell the cables.
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Très bien. How does this drive perform (or others with 6Gb) in the mini? I used the Disk Speed Test on the stock drive, which has a 3 Gb negotiated link (Toshiba controller), and it reported 180 MB/s write and 200 MB/s read. Pondering doing my own upgrade...
Actually the hard drive flex cable from the server 2010 works just fine in the new Mac Mini 2011 for adding a second hard drive. The part is a bit pricey, but can be found here:
http://www.macpartsonline.com/922-9560-bottom-hard-drive-flex-cable-mini-server-mid-2010-a1347.html
I think eventually iFix and maybe even OWC will come out with a hard drive flex cable that will be cheaper. This part above is an actual apple OEM replacement part from what I understand.
There is a thread on this forum that confirms this works; I can't personally confirm it, but I have ordered the cable and should be able to confirm it late next week when mine arrives. Already installed a OWC Mercury Extreme 240gb SSD. OWC has already tested all there SSD drives and confirm them to be compatible, you can find that info on there web site.