Upgrading Hard Drive??

[Chuckweasel]

Hi all. I’m purchasing a 2011 Mac Mini and had a question about the hard drive upgrade. When I purchase a new SSD and install it, would I be able to now download and install the newest Mac OS? Or would I still be stuck with OSX? I would of course upgrade the RAM,etc. Thanks for any help.
Greg

 

[Boyd01]

High Sierra (introduced in 2017) is the newest version of MacOS supported on the 2011 Mini according to Apple. Here's a long thread that discusses ways to install newer versions and other topics related to the 2011 Mini

Advice Please: What To Do With Mac Mini mid2011???

Hey guys, Sorry to be making a new thread, but I know MacRumors is the community which has the most experts on Macs on the internet. I searched the forums and I couldn't find a previous thread related to my severe problem. My biggest fear has come true: Apple will stop giving security updates...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Kaida]

Try to avoid 2011 if its the radeon model. That model has been known to fail these few years. Go for the intel hd3000 if you want to get a 2011. IMO, go for 2012 for usb 3.0 (supports up to Catalina) would be better. 2014 with 8gb or 16gb ram too if you can since it can use Big Sur.

 

[opeter]

To be honest, you can install the newest OS on a 2011 model with the help od dosdude1's patch, but...

Kaida is right, avoid the 2011 model, because it has more disavantages, that the positive things. USB 2.0 is sloooooow.
Rather look at 2012 or 2014 models. But be aware, that the 2014 model doesn't allow upgrading the RAM memory.

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with posters above.
IF you can back out of the 2011 purchase, DO IT.

Instead, get AT LEAST a 2012 Mini.
The 2012's have USB3 -- a VERY BIG "jump up" from the 2011.
A 2012 i7 model would be the best of them.

IF you find a 2014 Mini, BE SURE it has AT LEAST 8gb of RAM.
RAM is soldered-in on these and IS NOT upgradeable.

 

[Kaida]

To be honest, you can install the newest OS on a 2011 model with the help od dosdude1's patch, but...

Kaida is right, avoid the 2011 model, because it has more disavantages, that the positive things. USB 2.0 is sloooooow.
Rather look at 2012 or 2014 models. But be aware, that the 2014 model doesn't allow upgrading the RAM memory.

Again, avoid the radeon model on the 2011 as it is not suitable for use with dosdude's catalina patch too.

macOS Catalina Patcher

• Macmini5,x (systems with AMD Radeon HD 6xxx series GPUs will be almost unusable when running Catalina.)

 

[Chuckweasel]

Thanks all. I appreciate the input. My next question is if I replace the hard drive then why couldn’t the newest iOS be installed? I may be missing something haha. Does the iOS install elsewhere?

 

[Kaida]

Hard drive is the storage hardware. MacOS IS installed on the hard drive but for Mac mini 2011, you can only install up to High Sierra officially.

Mac mini 2012 supports up to Catalina
Mac mini 2014/2018 supports beyond Big Sur

 

[Chuckweasel]

Thanks!! Could I update logic board to 2014 or 2018?

 

[Kaida]

2011/2012 logic board upgrade to 2014 is possible but why not just get a 2014?

 

[Chuckweasel]

2014 has soldered memory that can’t be upgraded. It’s been a while since I’ve worked on computers but if I switch out the hard drive to a SSD that’s not apple, how would the internal components understand to reject the newer os? It would be a 2020 new SSD?

 

[Kaida]

2011/2012 can install 2 of 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD, RAM upgradeable to 16GB
2014 is 1 Apple SSD (or other NVME with an adapter) and a SATA 2.5" SSD/HDD, soldered ram and Apple sells in 4G, 8G or 16G config
2018/2020 is soldered SSD with no other connectors internally, RAM upgradeable to 64GB.