Hdd For Mac Mini 2011

19-04-2021 admin

2 Hdd Mac Mini 2011
Ssd Hard Drive For Mac Mini 2011
Hdd For Mac Mini 2011 Mini

As a followup to my Mac Mini 2010 Hard Drive Speed rant, I went to the Apple Store today to check what’s up with the Mac Mini 2011…

Apparently, the Nvidia chipset has been replaced with an Intel chipset that is now capable of 6 Gigabit/second link speeds… and the entry level drive is now capable of 3 Gbps link speeds…

2 Hdd Mac Mini 2011

That is definitely not an improvement over last year’s model.

However, why still not a 6 Gbps drive? Because the drives are not fast enough to saturate a 3 Gbps link? My bet is that 6 Gbps would definitely make sense with SSD.

The Apple Store had no 7200 rpm or SSD Mac Mini on display. So, I enquired by the Apple Store employees… who had to ask their tech guru… who said that the 7200 rm drives are 3 Gbps also and that the SSD drives are 3 Gbps also. Since the iMac with a 7200 rpm drive is at 3 Gbps and that the Mac Mini with SSD is also at 3 Gbps, I will take their word for it: Apple just won’t give you drives that can communicate any faster than 3 Gbps! :/ (and they won’t sell them to you either…)

Amazon.com: mac mini hard drive kit. Skip to main content. Try Prime All Go Search EN Hello, Sign in Account & Lists Sign in Account & Lists Orders Try Prime. Use this guide to install iFixit's Dual Hard Drive Kit in your Mid 2011 Mac mini. Buy these tools. Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit. Buy these parts. 250 GB SSD; 500 GB SSD; 1 TB SSD; Step 1 Bottom Cover. Place your thumbs in the depressions cut into the bottom cover. Rotate the bottom cover counter-clockwise until the.

So… if you’d actually want top performance, you’d have to go for aftermarket solutions…

OWC blogged about a test of their OWC 6G SSD drives in the 2011 Mac Mini.

The numbers look good. Especially compared to the stock 5400 rpm drive and even to the Apple SSD drive. I still wish they had tested performance against their own OWC 3G SSD drives.

I just ordered one of these 3G SSD drives for my MacBook Pro (which controller can only do 3 Gbps link speeds anyways). Regarding the Mini, I’m still enclined to wait a little and see if there are some other issues like, maybe, heat monitoring? … or extremely contrived manipulations to add a second drive…

This entry was posted on Aug 07 2011 at 23:35 by admin and is filed under Mac stuff. Tags: apple, hardware, mac, mac mini, performance, review, sata, ssd, upgrade

We just upgraded a 2011 Apple Mac Mini to have an SSD, a second hard drive, and new RAM.

Video

Also available on YouTube in High Definition or Standard Definition.

Parts List

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Western Digital 1TB Blue WD10JPVT 5400RPM, 8 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive
Corsair 8 GB DDR3 Laptop Memory Kit CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9
Apple Mac Mini Model MC816LL/A 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive
Cable: Apple Part 922-9560, also called “Apple Mac Mini Server (Mid 2010) Bottom Hard Drive Server Flex Cable” or “Hard Drive Flex Cable Bottom”. We used part number 1009005 at welovemacs.com. This is sold as a kit from ifixit.com.

Alternate Parts List

The OCZ Vertex 3 is the fastest consumer SSD at the moment. Other SSD’s that you might consider include:

Highest reliability SSD: Intel 510 Series 120 GB
Best value high capacity SSD: Lexar Media Crucial 512 GB m4

Ssd Hard Drive For Mac Mini 2011

The Western Digital Blue drive mentioned above is high capacity and quiet. For a faster spinning hard drive consider:

Western Digital 750TB Black WD7500BPKT 7200RPM, 16 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive

The dedicated graphics in the mid-tier Mac Mini make it worth it for me. But for the cheapest Mini, consider:

Apple Mac Mini MC815LL/A 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000, 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive

UPDATE: My video shows adding two 9.5MM height drives. I just upgraded another Mac Mini with a 9.5MM SSD and a 12.5MM standard hard drive. As with my first upgrade, the hard drive goes in the bottom slot (the side closest to the top of the case when upright). This does fit. But first you need to slide the logic board out slightly. Be sure to remove the IR port adapter before sliding out the logic board. The OWC video shows how to do this. I used a cut up coat hanger to insert into the logic board holes and slide it out.

First Boot

Starting with a blank hard drive is easy on the 2011 Mac Mini. Hold down Command-R to boot into Lion Recovery which allows you to format the drives and download Lion over the Internet.

TRIM Support in Lion