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SSD question

novanut said:
Guess it's time to let sleeping dogs/old men lie (or something like that).
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Another option might be to send the Mini back to OWC and have them put a 1tb SSD into it and install Sierra, if you don't feel you can do it yourself. Of course, it's not free but it would give you a much faster system with room enough to put everying on the SSD (assuming all your files fit into 1tb).

It almost sounds like that is what you were expecting them to do originally, seems to me you posted that the new Mini had a 1tb SSD in your other thread.
 
Boyd01 said:
Another option might be to send the Mini back to OWC and have them put a 1tb SSD into it and install Sierra, if you don't feel you can do it yourself. Of course, it's not free but it would give you a much faster system with room enough to put everying on the SSD (assuming all your files fit into 1tb).

It almost sounds like that is what you were expecting them to do originally, seems to me you posted that the new Mini had a 1tb SSD in your other thread.
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Thanks again Boyd,

I could do that, return to sender thing, but I don't relish gong through all the backing up>wiping the new mini because I don't want them messing up my files>shipping>paying>etc...

After I deleted that "Deleted by user" file (150+ gb) I have about 600gb of music, photos, videos, etc. left on the new mini.
 

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Well, how about just getting an external SSD and booting from that, as I suggested in your other thread? I currently do this with my 2014 Mini and also did it with my 2012 Mini. Works great, slight slower than an internal SSD but should be about 4x to 5x faster than that slow internal hard disk.

I see that there's an "Amazon's Choice" 1tb Samsung T7 Shield for $80 right now. Best Buy often has pretty good prices on these too. Very simple - just re-fomat the external SSD for MacOS, install Sierra (if that's what you really want) and set it as the startup disk.
 
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novanut said:
Thanks again Boyd,

I could do that, return to sender thing, but I don't relish gong through all the backing up>wiping the new mini because I don't want them messing up my files>shipping>paying>etc...
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yes returning it is an annoying hassle......but if you're currently unhappy with the speed of the newly bought mini, then your sense of "unhappy" with it is just going to get worse over time.

Boyd makes an excellent suggestion of using an external SSD as your main drive......and you can use the internal HDD for back up.

The external SSD is the route I've taken with a late 2013 iMac and it's a huge improvement
 
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Should also add, that if the speed is the only thing you don't like about the current setup of the new Mini, then it's even easier. Just use Carbon Copy to clone the internal hard drive to the external SSD, make sure to choose the option to make it bootable in Carbon Copy.
 
Boyd01 said:
Well, how about just getting an external SSD and booting from that, as I suggested in your other thread? I currently do this with my 2014 Mini and also did it with my 2012 Mini. Works great, slight slower than an internal SSD but should be about 4x to 5x faster than that slow internal hard disk.

I see that there's an "Amazon's Choice" 1tb Samsung T7 Shield for $80 right now. Best Buy often has pretty good prices on these too. Very simple - just re-fomat the external SSD for MacOS, install Sierra (if that's what you really want) and set it as the startup disk.
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Thanks Boyd,

As previously mentioned in the other thread my physical real estate is limited. I subscribe to the "Less Is More" campaign. Happens when you're old.
 

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These things are very small, would easily fit in a number of places, they only need one short cable (that is included). Seems to me we have now exhausted most of the suggestions that people have made.
 
Boyd01 said:
These things are very small, would easily fit in a number of places, they only need one short cable (that is included). Seems to me we have now exhausted most of the suggestions that people have made.
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Thank you again Boyd,

And many thanks for all your suggestions. I'm leaning towards sending it back to OWC and let them fix it.
 
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No question about that. But it will cost more and won't run Sierra (still don't quite understand why the OP wants that, assume it's for legacy software).
 
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novanut said:
I'm leaning towards sending it back to OWC and let them fix it.
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You can try rebuilding the Fudion Drive by following the instructions here:

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 support.apple.com

You’ll want to follow the High Sierra or earlier portion. You can copy and paste the ID from the terminal screen when performing this so you don’t have to worry about borking the ID.

You can boot off your USB Sierra Install Drive and follow the instructions and the reinstall Sierra as previous and then install and copy your files over.
 
Boyd01 said:
If you review the first page of this thread, that same link was already posted and the OP replied as follows....
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Reporting back to let you know I successfully turned the new mini into a fusion drive. Who would've thought?

Now I'm stumped on how to use target mode with a thunderbolt cable. Apple's instructions seem simple enough but I don't know how to drag and drop files since nothing shows up on the (new mini) screen to let me see the (old mini) files in target mode. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks again.
 
novanut said:
Now I'm stumped on how to use target mode with a thunderbolt cable. Apple's instructions seem simple enough but I don't know how to drag and drop files since nothing shows up on the (new mini) screen to let me see the (old mini) files in target mode. What am I doing wrong?
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Did you put the old mini in Target Disk Mode by holding the [T] key on the keyboard that is connected to it immediately after powering it on, until a floating Thunderbolt icon appears on the monitor that is connected to it?
 
Amethyst1 said:
Did you put the old mini in Target Disk Mode by holding the [T] key on the keyboard that is connected to it immediately after powering it on, until a floating Thunderbolt icon appears on the monitor that is connected to it?
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I did that and the floating Thunderbolt appeared. Did not see anything different on the new mini to indicate how to move files.
 
novanut said:
I did that and the floating Thunderbolt appeared. Did not see anything different on the new mini to indicate how to move files.
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Are you using an actual Thunderbolt cable that has a lightning bolt symbol on the connectors to connect the two machines?

It’s possible you’re using a miniDisplayPort cable which uses the same connector but won’t work.

If/once it works you’ll see the old mini as an external hard drive on the new one.
 
Amethyst1 said:
Are you using an actual Thunderbolt cable that has a lightning bolt symbol on the connectors to connect the two machines?

It’s possible you’re using a miniDisplayPort cable which uses the same connector but won’t work.

If/once it works you’ll see the old mini as an external hard drive on the new one.
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I hope it's a thunderbolt cable.
 

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novanut said:
I hope it's a thunderbolt cable.
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It is. If the tip in the previous post doesn't do it, please do the following: Put the old mini in Target Disk Mode and connect it to the new mini. On the new mini, open System Profiler and post a screenshot of its Thunderbolt section. This allows checking if the new mini "sees" the old one. Then, post a screenshot of Disk Utility on the new mini.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
It is. If the tip in the previous post doesn't do it, please do the following: Put the old mini in Target Disk Mode and connect it to the new mini. On the new mini, open System Profiler and post a screenshot of its Thunderbolt section. This allows checking if the new mini "sees" the old one. Then, post a screenshot of Disk Utility on the new mini.
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(new mini) Looks like maybe I have the wrong cable or it's defective. Old mini says the same thing.
 

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As someone who's had a Fusion Drive wear out, I would very strongly advise being careful to maintain backups at all times!
 
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