Finally committed to this project and got a well priced 5TB Barracuda from Adorama. The 2014 model's harddrive caddy is different that the 2012's. I wasn't able to make it fit back in at all, even after modifying it a bit. The drive was just too tall and it lifted the caddy up higher than it was meant to be. What was worse the IR sensor and power light are attached to the caddy and didn't line up with the chassis holes. So I ditched the caddy altogether. I used a tiny square of thick double sided tape to stick the IR/light to the chasis. I then hot glued the drive to the roof of the mini. It's a great solution because the dabs of glue act as a riser so the "don't block this hole" hole is not blocked, the rubbery nature of the glue reduces vibrations, and it's easy to remove. I know because I had to reorient the drive once and pried it off and removed the dabs easily. Make sure the drive is situated all the way in touching the inner face of the mini or the mother board won't fit back in. The drive is working great so far.
I always like to end these successful projects with thanks to those who helped. And for those who like to say "why bother with this?" I like to ask, why bother answering the thread? Tech forums are for hacking things to do what you want. I wanted a large internal drive for many reasons that I don't feel I need to share. It's pointless to say "just don't bother". And for those who also want to do this, it's a perfectly possible 20 minute project. Hope this will help you get it done.
Congratulations! Inspired by your example, I've just successfully completed a similar project to add a 4 TB 15mm HDD to a 2014 Mac Mini.
Rationale: I (and my family) have laptops with little local storage, and entirely too many files that only exist in our 2TB iCloud account. We need local storage & backup for these files. So we need a Mac Mini with lots of internal storage.
Donor machine: 2014 Mac Minis are dirt cheap now that the M1 Macs have come out. But they still run Monterey so are fully current. Apple only stopped selling them in 2018 so Apple *MAY* not drop support for them for one or two further MacOS releases. They present excellent value at this point in time.
Costs: I was able to buy a 2014 2.6Ghz i5 (mid-range) 8GB RAM Mac Mini on Facebook for only £100. Bargain. It came with a 1TB HDD which I threw on my pile of unused HDDs. Buying a T6 Security Torx to open it cost another £7, and buying an Apple SSD adapter cable cost £8 from Amazon. I already had a 4TB 15mm 2.5" HDD and also a 128GB Apple SSD left over from another project.
The operation: Opened it up, took out the internals, tried to figure out how to add the 15mm 4TB HDD. Didn't want to go the hot-glue route. Ended up cutting off the roof of the internal HDD carrier. Easy to do with a sharp knife. (Always cut away from yourself, and always expect the knife to slip. Make sure that when (not if) the knife slips, it is free to go somewhere harmless or into your cutting board, not into your skin).
15mm HDD fits in fine into the HDD carrier once the top is cut off. Won't screw into the grommits but that's OK. I put Kapon tape on the bottom to avoid electrical contact with the Mac Mini chassis, but it might not be needed. Electrical tape would be fine too. No room for any padding so the Mac Mini might be a bit louder afterwards from HDD vibration.
The cable adaptor on the end of the 15mm HDD interferes slightly with the fit of the motherboard when reassembling. I had two choices:
* Allow the side of the Mac Mini's rear ports to protrude slightly after reassembly.
* Push down on the motherboard when reassembling, which bends down the HDD SATA connector by about 1mm and causes another 1mm-ish bend in the motherboard. This allows complete reassembly of the Mac Mini.
I went with the second option as it seemed most tidy, and SATA connectors / motherboards are reasonably robust to a tiny bit of bending, as anyone who's installed an Intel / AMD CPU will know.
Now for the SSD.
I kept the roof of the HDD carrier intact and cut it with scissors into an I shape. Note that the HDD carrier roof carries nubs that the Apple PCIE SSD holder fits into, and also carries a nut for screwing down the blade SSD. You want to keep these intact. The I-shape is so that you can tape it to the top of the HDD. I used Kapon tape for long life, but any tape will do in an emergency.
I connected the SSD PCIE connector cable to the motherboard and looked at where it lay on top of the 15mm HDD, then taped down the I-shape of the HDD carrier roof in that exact position onto the top of the HDD. Then installed the Apple SSD holder and the Apple SSD. You can also use almost any PCIE M2 SSD but you will need a *different* adaptor.
(I have an additional adaptor (!) that coverts the Apple SSD holder into a standard PCIE M.2 SSD holder, in case I want to install a larger PCIE SSD in future)
Total time: 5 hours, partly because it was my first time opening a Mac mini so I went very slowly, reading all the iFixit comments. Also spent several hours on trying to work out how to install the 15mm HDD. If I was to do it again, probably about 1 hour.
Outcome: All working fine!
(I was careful to upgrade the Mac Mini to Monterey with the old HDD in place to ensure all firmware updates were in place before starting this project.)
To anyone considering this project, you are likely to need to buy separately either:
* a SSD adaptor if you buy a Mac Mini with HDD
* OR a HDD cable and tray if you buy a Mac Mini with SSD.
Check the prices and delivery timescales of the adaptors before you decide on buying a HDD Mac Mini or SSD Mac Mini.
Good luck!
beetstech.com
