SSD upgrade 2014 questions. Will any SSD do? Is a new adapter needed?

[DonCarlos]

Well.......I sure read a lot of conflicting information on upgrading SSD to late 2014 Mac Mini. The current one is an 1 TB HHD.

I thought I could just disable and remove the old HHD and plug in the new SSD. Or is there more to it? I am not trying to add an SS

I keep seeing all these different posts that I need a special adapter and such. ???

1) So has anyone just simply swapped out the old HHD you an SSD, with no adapter change? (I am thinking and EVO or unused Kingston I have)?

2) Somewhere I read that unless you have a particular OWC or Apple SSD that I will not get 6 GB speed. Otherwise it’s 3 Gig speed.


I have swapped out SSD with all my current 2012 models and it was a simple swap and the 6 GB speed attained. Hope there is not a difference. I know that getting to the drive is a bit more difficult, but I can do that, but not if I cannot going the usual 6 GB speed

If any of you have swapped this out for the 2014, your input is appreciated

 

[G4DPII]

You can just do a straight swap. There is no need for a special apapter. Did the same thing on mine a few weeks after i got it, very simple if you know the process/follow the online guides properly.

 

[DonCarlos]

Hello Thanks for quick reply ........ and you did that on a 2014?

Aside from getting in there, which I know I can carefully do, it is great to find out I can just remove the HD and swap an SSD in. Not sure what all the other stuff about it must be an Apple or OWC drive to work at 6 gigs a second

 

[G4DPII]

It was on a 2014, I just used a Sandisk 500GB SSD, anything is an improvement over the 5400 drive it ships with.

 

[hfg]

I bought one of the "half priced" 2014 Mini i5 2.8GHz with a 1TB Fusion drive in it to use as a media and file server. I unfused the drives and use the original 128GB SSD as my boot drive as it is more than enough for server use. I then removed the 1TB hard disk and replaced it with a Samsung 860 QVO 4TB SATA SSD for my file storage. No adapters needed and it is working great!

 

[DonCarlos]

I sincerely appreciate all the comments and advice. I was used to the innards of the 2012, 2009, 2007, and I was apprehensive about the inside of this 8GB 2014, but all went flawlessly with replacing the HD with a Samsung 860, 500gb SSD drive. In many ways it was easier than the 2012 IMHO.

Even though this unit has only 8GB Ram, it still flies. This seemed a much cheaper alternative to spending a grand on a 2018, so that I could keep up with the upcoming OS releases (2012 i think is on the obsolete list). Who knows maybe Apple will decide in the upcoming versions (in 2022) to return us to upgradable RAM (fingers crossed). We can only hope.

But again thanks for everything. Best forum as always.

 

[Boyd01]

I bought one of the "half priced" 2014 Mini i5 2.8GHz with a 1TB Fusion drive in it to use as a media and file server. I unfused the drives and use the original 128GB SSD as my boot drive as it is more than enough for server use.

I did the exact same thing and am very happy with this machine. My media library was on a 4tb USB hard drive, which I continued to use until about a month ago, when I started getting dropped video frames and hearing "clickety-clack" noises from the disk.

Should have done what you did with the second internal SSD, but I didn't want to deal with that, so I got a 4tb external SSD from B&H. FWIW, here's the internal 128gb SSD that was split from the original Fusion Drive

And this is my external USB 4tb Oyen Digital SSD