Thanks for this walk through - I spent £6.25 on a cheap cable and set of tools and watched this through twice before jumping in. I had the video playing next to me step by step and now have a mini with two SSDs in it!
glad it was useful for you. The mini is a neat little machine and I'll be damned if I have to pay Apple more to get more storage and RAM. So easy to do on this generation of mini.
That is very impressive and very comprehensive. Having had my Mac Mini (late 2012) just slow down post Yosemite I pondered memory and SSD upgrades. I went for memory only (16Gb) which your video just convinced me was the correct decision. :)
This is the best video I have seen on this process. Wish I had watched it before I changed out my hard drive. The SSD makes all Apps really fast and very noticeable especially Aperture.
@Chuck Norris - you are correct in saying that you don't need to remove so much stuff to replace an SSD IF you're just replacing the stock drive. If you go that route it's a super quick affair. In some weird and very rare circumstances the stock Apple drive was installed in the upper bay (really the lower bay looking at the mini upside down) so to install a secondary drive was also a piece of cake. So far I've upgraded about 10 mac minis both from 2011 and 2012 and ALL of them required me to remove all the stuff as demonstrated in my video. If you just want to turf the single drive in your mini you can get away with an SSD install in a matter of minutes. If you go the dual drive route like I did you MUST use a data doubler kit and you must dismantle. The drive upgrades in my mini really didn't take too long it just my videos are quite detailed hence why it seems like it takes forever to do. It's actually a piece of cake and maybe 30 minutes of your time.
@ Farouk Alia - Great tip for our viewers. Your suggestion will work IF Apple installs the drive in the lower (technically upper) drive bay. My Mac Mini from Apple had the factory drive in the way so that is why I had to do the install as demonstrated in the video. I've actually heard that Apple depending on who's assembling the computer at the factory can receive either the drive in the one drive bay or the other. Great suggestions nonetheless!
Great job! It's no easy task to narrate your own how to videos while performing the steps. I appreciate the effort you put into this video. I will approach my Mac Mini upgrade with greater confidence. Thanks!
Great video instruction. I have upgraded my Mini with 2 SSD drives recently but I wasn't aware of trim enabler. I'm gonna go install that right away. As for performance my Mini is at least 3 or 4 times faster loading anything now so SSD's are without doubt the best upgrade path for any MacMini owner. :) .
Hi David - I just got my mini server with two ssd's. I don't know anything about servers, but I want a boot drive with the OS and all my applications. I want the second drive for media files only. From factory, it looks like they are fused.Any specific advice is appreciated!
@ demonbeats - easy just install osx onto one drive and install all your applications onto the boot drive and then format the 2nd drive as a plain drive and point all your applications to it for the data store. OSX server may have a RAID function turned on which either mirrors the drives for redundancy purposes OR it is striping the drives for max performance (not likely).
use osx startup disc creator if you want to start over and install to one drive, or go to the app store and download mavericks, even if its installed it still lets you download it and store it for use in making a bootable image for installing again, or use one of the many decent disc copy softwares, just google the thing you want to do and a hundred people will have done the same, theres always a time machine backup to use too ...
@ Jamie B - very easy in fact. All you do is install the new SSD as the extra drive. Use a program called "super duper". Clone the original 500GB drive to the SSD. Change your startup drive to the SSD and then format the 500GB drive and then move your data over to the newly formatted drive.
Thanks for the tutorial; yours was the only one that I chose to follow in the end. I had big issues with loud fan noise, under light workloads on my Mac Mini mid-2011. I tried fan software but was still forced to remove the old HDD, which improved the situation a lot, but it is not perfect. I am currently looking into running dual OS, but unfortunately, booting from an external drive on a Mac older than 2013, requires a direct Thunderbolt connection to the drive.
Outstanding vid. You mentioned youve taken the mini apart a few times already; what vids did you rely on for aid? It reminds me of when I rebuilt the carb on my 85 rx7. Due to there not being very many carbs still in use today, I could not rely on a video to help me. It took three times for me to get it right--them float bowls are something else. Ive made very many mistakes working on varying projects, and have learned to do much more research before undertaking such tasks. So your vid is much appreciated. Keep sharing, youve earned my subscription.
Thank you for this video! I had originall watched a different video to see how to install a second HD but the information at 26:00 were extremely helpful in order for the mac mini to 'see' my hard drive thanks again!!!
@ Steven Aisha - SSD should be for operating system and the applications. Standard HDD should be for personal files such as iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes since they use "databases" to store your information and databases can often be HUGE which most SSD capacities available can be quickly filled up. For example I have an iPhoto database today that is creeping over 500GB. Most SSD available today are only 256/512/1TB so it wouldn't be economical to put large files onto a SSD drive.
Great walk through - I found it really useful and I have a brand new Mac Mini - arrived yesterday - i7 now with 16Gb RAM & a 480Gb SSD with the 1Tb now as data. Who cares wether it's "chassis" or "shassy"! Could of used an HD video though when the rubber bit around the power connector fell off & I had to work out where it went back in - that beggar kept coming off too and then, finally, got a bit of it pinched between the rear of the case and the power pins - ohh well, that'll do! Cheers, Jon
Thank you very much ....I really appreciate the video.......you are a very good teacher ....I feel confident now to upgrade my mac mini .............thanks again and keep up the great work..............Steve
lol, patience and careful attention to detail with any Mac product is an absolute requisite. The parts on their products are so fine and precise that even the slightest mishandling could ruin the device. Glad you found the video useful.
For all those people looking to clone their system from one drive to another, consider using Carbon Copy Cloner. Been using it since OS 10.6 straight thru 10.13 (Mohave works as well from all reports). You can boot from USB, internal SSD, internal HD, Firewire, etc.
@ Joe Gregory - awesome news! Hope it works out for you. Just take your time b/c the logic board connectors are super delicate and you can break them off the board destroying your computer if you're not careful. Good luck!
Hello piercedasian, and happy new year! I am about to attempt this installation and wanted to ask a few questions before I do. I want to install my new SSD in the spare bay like you did and have OS X on it, instead of the current drive that is in there now. Can I just clone the copy of OS X to the new SSD once its inside, and then have the Have the Mac Mini boot from it instead of the slower HDD already installed?
Thank you for your answers one more thing example HHD with OS and bootcamp (windows) and new SSD with OS if you hold your option key when turn on mac mini it shows the 3 disks 3 ptions for star the system thank you
This was a really good tutorial. I managed to replace my old drive with SSD because of this. Everything works wonderful as expected except that the fans run at 5500 rpm (according to istat pro) constantly even without heavy use. I hear a constant buzz because of this. Any advice on how to fix the issue?
did you properly reconnect all the connectors onto the logic board? The fans are not supposed to ramp up like crazy unless you've disconnected a sensing probe somewhere.
piercedasian You were right. It turns out there are two hard drive thermal sensors and a optical drive thermal sensors. The SSD drive replacing the old SATA drive had just one thermal sensor. Since one of them was not connected, OSX was running the exaust fans at a higher rpm. I replaced one of the sensors from old SATA drive and attached it to SSD. Now everything works like charm. Thanks again for posting the video.
Hi excellent video thank you some people notice the fan inside the enclosure runs always at full speed. Have you noticed since changing the drive out of the new Mac mini that the fan speed varies, or does it run loud?
No, as a matter of fact my Mac Mini's fan almost never runs loud enough for me to hear it. The only time it does come on is when I'm doing some processor intensive tasks but even then the mini quickly cools down and goes back to it's ultra quiet mode. Fan speed can also be affected by the type of drive you're put in. SSDs pretty much make no heat where as a 7200 RPM spinning drive will generate considerable heat especially when there are lots of read/write operations happening. The other factor as it is on iMacs for example is the temperature sensor on the logic board is damaged or reading a high temperature which also causes the fan to run on full blast. I haven't revisited watching my own video as of recent but I do not believe there was a separate temperature cable on this model so I doubt there was any type of damage done on your part.
@ Tyler Durden - it's because of the way the bracket is designed and now the other drive fits into it. Unlike the stock drive in MOST Mac Mini's from Apple that are held in with studs and the corresponding screws on the airport antennal the other drive has to be screwed in with 4 screws into the bracket. I suppose you could just drop the 2nd drive into the empty space and hope that friction holds it in but I opted to demonstrate the proper factory way of installing the drive for best reliability.
@ Ray Stroud - Buy the ifixit drive doubler kit mentioned in my video if you want the install to be perfect and done right. The mounting kit goes for about $30 from ifixit and basically it comes with the mounting studs and the secondary SATA cable. Makes the install a breeze. As far as data migration goes you have a few choices but I like doing it this way/ Get a cloner program like super duper and an external drive caddy and clone your existing drive BEFORE you remove it from your Mac Mini. If it is just data you want to move over and not the applications then you can always use an external hard drive and run time machine the night before to backup your entire drive. Once you've re-installed the new SSD's and new OS and all applicable applications then you could time machine restore off of the external drive. The other thing you could do is simply change the drives out re-install OSX and apps and then put your old hard drive into an external drive caddy and then use OSX Migration Assistant to move data over from your "old Mac" to your "new mac". I've done all 3 options with success on all methods.
I installed the hybrid drive in along with my ssd giving my computer a total of 750GB of total storage. 256GB ssd and a 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM hybrid drive.
I just bought an i7 quad core 2012 Mac mini with SSD drive and 16 MB RAM on eBay for $122. I think these little machines are real keepers because Apple obviously realize their mistake by making them too good, the following year they stopped all the upgrades altogether without jumping through a ton of hoops.
100% agree! I went outta my way to buy myself an old 2011 iMac that I can build up to use for general web browsing and such for my kids. I still use my 2010 iMac i7 with 32 GB of ram, 1tb ssd and 5tb WD black caviar storage drive to publish videos to my channel still! Its a bit slower but she does the trick and when I'm transcoding video I'm often sleeping anways :). Too poor to buy a new Mac in this day and age.
I saw the video and it's a very good one, just suggestion to all people they don't want to spend much time like 30 minutes , it took me 5 minutes. open only the black plastic and the wi-fi cover, then put the SSD on top of the Fusion drive, connect the data connector, and that's it. it's better actually to do it this way because the SSD can handle shocks but Fusion cannot (has a SATA part) so if the mac falls while it's working my way will save you the Fusion because it's stable as Apple did set it up and you did not touch it.
How do you make the restore usb drive? Or should I say how do I get the operating system to the sad drive after I have installed it. I am not very computer literate but don't think I will have no problem with the actual install of the disk. Also is there anything I need to do to the sad drive before I install it or to the computer beforehand? I have a large iPhoto library also that I don't want to lose in the install. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Great video. I have the same Mini as you (with Radeon) and got the doubler kit and Samsung Evo 250 gig for Christmas, from Other World Computing. Going to try what you just did. I a have question to you guys, as I have dilemma: what would you do with your thunderbolt port? I have two options. 1. Buy an adapter to get usb3 speed for a 4 Tb hard disk, or 2. Buy a dual link adapter to use an Apple Cinema Display 30"? Give me some advice here please, as I can't decide:)
+ElSmusso I would use thunderbolt for your display and stick with USB 3.0 for the hard drive. Why? Getting anything thunderbolt and storage = insanely expensive. I can't remember if our mac mini's are USB 3. If they are they just buy a cheapie usb 3 enclosure and get respectable performance from that. Thunderbolt bolt to cinema display is cheap if you've already got the display. Hope that makes sense.
+piercedasian good advice. Thanx. Our minis with Radeon only have usb 2.0. And my FireWire is hooked to Pro Tools, so to get a fast disk I will operate in a SSD :) yeah I have an ACD 30" at work, together with a Mac Pro early 2008 (3.1). But I have built a fabulous mobile studio in my WohnWagen (caravan) with mixers, piano, pro tools and widescreen with a ps4 attached :) And to top it all with a 30" display could be a winner, although it's limited space after all. Next summer I want to drive around like a tech vagabond. Happy new year btw. 2016 is coming earlier in Europe you know ;-)
Happy new year to you too! I almost fell asleep with my kids for our new year countdown. Don't have the energy like I used to :) That would be neat to see your caravan full of equipment. I've always wanted to build something like that but time and money is always a hinderance.
I saw on the company’s website that make these data doublers that you can put a maximum of 2TB extra. Does this mean you can put a maximum of 4TB in the Mac Mini.
I honestly cannot remember what the max capacity of the Mini is but 4tb is not an unrealistic number. They have plenty of laptops that have a 1TB HDD so a data double would simply allow the mini to accommodate another 1TB (or even bigger drive).
Great video! I followed every single step, but I’m having one problem. After properly clicking in the antenna plate, all the screw holes are perfectly lined up and the plate itself is also flush with the aluminum unibody, but the hex screws willl not “catch”, they simply spin without threading in. I’m talking about the hex ones, not the torx screws that keep the hard drive in place. What’s interesting is that they don’t seem to be damaged, since they perfectly screw on the body when the plate is removed. Any tips?
are you sure the hex screws are all in the right spots? Take a close look at the threads in the mac's body and see if they're stripped or the right size.
@ Larry S - OMG I didn't even realize the pic that was on the iMac screen. Thank god that was a gag boogie! lol @ David Severn - yes best upgrade to a any computer but it definitely made our Mac Mini and our iMac have a much longer "useful" lifespan. My upgraded iMac for example is going on year 4 and humming along like a new computer still!
yup, I assembled mine and didnt click the fan plug all the way. I noticed my mac mini was warmer to the touch than normal, I downloaded a Fan and Temp app and discovered that the Fan was not spinning at all. Quick belly cap removal and then securing the fan plug in place solved the problem.
good thing you figured that out. The worst thing to happen is letting the computer overheat (I've had that happen a few times when I was messing with the thermal paste replacement in the Mac mini and getting past 100C and causing the CPU to do an emergency shutdown can't possibly be good.
@ Greg Sees - I took the mini apart from my fairly intimate understanding of how things are manufactured and how they're assembled. Apple is no stranger to "click and slide" assemblies and rarely will you see external screws. I just stare at something and visualize how it was built and then work backwards. It's the same way how I fix cars (which is the bulk of my videos). It is just something I like doing.
I guess I can answer your question in this video :P Your mower is leaking fuel from the tailpipe? Is your engine running rough? I doubt that it is actually fuel coming straight out of the tailpipe but a result of running extremely rich combined with the water produced from combustion. Your carb is likely acting up and should be taken apart and serviced. Running with an extreme rich condition isn't good your engine or the environment.
piercedasian hi there, thanks for this extremely helpful video. for this setup, did you, or do you think if there's a need for us to update the ssd firmware? please advice. tq
if the drive ain't broke don't mess with it is what I think. Firmware updates aren't ALWAYS the best thing and despite manufacturers create new firmware to address bugs that with any fix there is always the possibility of introducing new ones.
I'm confused about installing the OS X into the new SSD drive. If I want to start fresh do I first install the original Disk that came with my Mac mini then install Mountain Lion then Maverick? Please advise.
Why don't you simply make yourself a Mavericks USB boot flash drive? There are lots of write-ups on the Internet that clearly explain what to do :) discussions.apple.com/thread/5572784?tstart=0 Or you could do exactly what you just said and install ML and then immediately migrate to Mavericks.
@ green eyes - the lower drive has to installed prior to the logic board being re-installed. The 2nd drive is then installed AFTER the logic board has been reinstalled.
What do the expert think :) I a have question, sir, as I have dilemma: what would you do with your thunderbolt port? I have two options. 1. Buy an adapter to get usb3 speed for my 4 Tb hard disk, or 2. Buy a dual link adapter to use an Apple Cinema Display 30"? Give me some advice here please, as I can't decide:) We have the same Mini model, with Radeon :)
+piercedasian but anyway :) I got the Kanex Thunderbolt adapter in the mail from Apple. Fantastic piece of hardware. I gives USB 3 speed and Esata to 2011 macs. Performance unbelievable. Especially on my dock with Esata. Just a tip for you :) and I still promise to post a video of the mobile home studio when finished. Working on cabling now, and I'm such an obsessive person regarding perfection... so it takes time my friend :)
+Thomas Hougaard super easy. Specifically are you looking to know how to install the os onto the new drive? You can always install the new SSD boot your computer as usual and then under "startup disk" point it to the new blank drive and then install OS X on it. There are many ways you can do it. Just do a search on how to install OSX.
Excellent Video. Thanks for this. It is far better than the videos from the manufacturers of these upgrade kits (ifixit etc). Only thing you couldve done better was had more light on the mac as you were working on it as its very dark in the Macs interior and difficult to see some of the bits as you are working on them. Thanks
Glad you liked the video. Yes the lighting in my older videos like these ones was definitely not as good as my more updated videos. Thanks for watching and liking my video!
@ Steven Aisha - no issues with time machine backup as you specify to time machine what you want backed up anyways under the time machine options/preferences.
Hi I am getting a new Mac mini, it has 4 gigs of ram and a 1tb hard drive Going to upgrade it to 16 gigs of ram And add a second hard drive which will be a ssd After installing the ssd, how do I format so it can run on mac and what's the best way of getting my os running of the ssd, ATM it's running of the 1tb hard drive I would like my os and application running of the ssd and the hard drive for storage Any help
Once you've installed the SSD you can boot the computer as usual and then use disk utility to partition and format the SSD. You can then create a USB bootable installer of OSX (plenty of online tutorials on how to make one) and then simply boot the mac mini from the USB stick and then use the install program to install OSX onto the SSD. A 2nd alternative is to use a disk cloner tool like super duper and literally copy the entire 1TB drive to your newly installed SSD. The only kicker with that method is I am not sure how successful you'll be doing it that way because the drive capacities don't match up. I'm assuming your SSD you installed is a 512GB or smaller drive. Hope that helps.
The SSD i am going to use is a 120GB hard drive, ATM i dont really have any thing on my 1TB hard drive so that isnt a issue, if i take that route after cloning it other, do i just erase my 1tb hard drive. if i install the OSX from the usb bootable drive will i have to erase 1tb hard drive so it will get rid of the OSX sytem but then install the OSX on to the SSD if that makes sense
you don't actually have to erase the 1TB first. You can install the OS onto the SSD first and then boot your computer as usual after the install. Once you're into OSX (booted on new OR old drive) you can go to System Preferences and then change the startup disk and OSX will remember which drive to always boot from. Once you've changed which you want to boot from them it's a matter of just migrating the data over to the SSD, an external drive or USB stick and then formatting the 1TB drive and re-migrating the new data over.
Hi, I have a quick question - I have this Mac Mini (5,3). I have 2 x 500Gb HDDs in there. I want to replace just the main OS HDD for an SSD 500Gb. I've cloned it (using carbon copy) onto the SSD alread. My question is - which of the 2 HDD drives is the one I need to replace? The easy-to-get-to one, or the other one underneath it that requires pulling everything else out? OR doesnt it matter and I can change the boot order in the BIOS for example? In which case, its easier to replace just the top drive? Help!
+Simon Early HI Simon, when I purchased my mac I only had 1 HDD configured from the factory and it was the drive that was easier to remove from the lid side. Since you have 2 drives it is hard to say which one Apple installed the OS on BUT if you're just changing out one drive and you have the OS on your new SSD you can simply change out the drive that is easier to remove. If by chance both drives have the OS installed on them then you can go to system preferences and change your startup disk to point the bios to boot from the drive of your choice. Hope that helps.
I do all this with my samsung evo 850, but the disk never appears when I whant install the mac os, only the second drive appears. I don't now why this happen...
From the installer screen launch disk utility. From there you will be able to see all connected disks and create a new partition and format it. Once it is done exit out of disk utility and you should now be able to see your new SSD drive to install OSX onto.
I do exactly what you said and nothing, the ssd don't appear... i don't now why. The only thing then works was used the ssd external with a case usb 3.0, but i want to install inside.
that is very strange. Are you sure your SATA cable isn't damaged or broken? I'd be suspect of the drive doubler connector to the SSD. The ribbon cable and tiny SATA connector is very fine and delicate. You may want to consider swapping your drive out or putting the SSD in the primary (lower) drive bay. If you swap drive locations and the SSD appears then you've pinpointed where your issue is.
@Chuck Norris - One more thing, no my method won't damage the mini. Use common sense, be SUPER careful when removing connectors and use an ESD mat to protect from accidental "zapping" of your memory or logic board. I'm always all about doing things the factory way and my video shows that.
Ok this video is AMAZINGLY detailed. You are awesome man! But I figured out that, since this is a desktop machine, it would be less trouble just buy an external USB drive for more space. I mean, this is way too much work for an average user haha! Thanks anyway
It isn't so much about storage space as it is about speed. Traditional spinning platter drives are simply dinosaurs compared to an SSD. I just installed my 2nd drive as a drive for extra storage capacity because I had the spare drive after swapping it out with the SSD. External drive are convenient and transferable but I still prefer the clean look of the iMac or the Mac Mini as everything is "integrated" within the chassis. Minimalist if you know what I mean.
This looks like even more of a PITA than my 2010 mac mini. I tried to fit a 256gb samsung pro but it kept causing a kernel panic so I gave up and sent it back. BTW can you actually buy SATA 2 SSDs? I can't find them anywhere.
It was kind of a nuisance but all in all it wasn't bad compared to taking apart an iMac. Apple by design is trying to lock people out of their computers (lame) such that you have to pay the premiums to buy their expensive "upsells" when you purchase the computer new. I personally hate the path their headed down but alas, Apple will always be... Apple!
I just have one question...I now have the SSD and stock 500gb hard drive that came with it. Can you list steps to delete the OS on the stock 500gb hard drive so that I can just use it as an 'extra' hard drive and just have my SSD with the OS? thank you in advance
Sure thing. Go to "disk utility" select the old 500 GB hard drive and then select format as OS X Extended Journaled drive Takes a whole 30 seconds to complete. :)
ah yes the infamous boob on a screen :) That was actually a toy my co-worker brought into work as a joke. I wasn't even aware that I had that in my screen until someone pointed that out to me.
I see that you installed the SSD into the upper bay and left the HDD in the lower. I thought you were supposed to install the new SSD into the lower, isnt the lower bay equiv to SATA0? Also there was a comment about what to do with the orig HDD drive which has all the data files on it - how does the OS "see" the drive if it still has an OS on it?
gman76utube Yes I installed the SSD into the upper bay but I don't honestly think it makes any difference whether it is on SATAO or SATA1 as the boot drive is configurable in OSX. For example when installed the SSD and booted the computer it was still booting from the old HDD but after I booted up I was able to format the new SSD, install OS X onto it and then using the existing instance of OS X to change the startup drive to the new SSD. When the computer rebooted with the SSD drive I could then use the old drive as my data drive regardless of it running OS X on it. The great thing with OS X is that you can toggle between drives as your startup with no negative impact. Since my SSD was running smoothly I opted to no bother with OS X on the spinning HDD so after I migrated my data files over I formatted the drive as a OS X Journaled drive and I've been running smoothly ever since :)
piercedasian OK thanks, that answers part of my question, upper vs lower bay makes no diff. In my case, I would like to keep my HDD intact (Mavericks and data files) while I make the SSD the boot drive with Yosemite. In the event my SSD dies (Ive had an SSD previously flake out on a windows system), I can simply change the boot drive to the HDD and do a repair on the SSD (or replace with no tears). The SSD will only hold OS and apps. A few more questions. How do I point Yosemite to "Documents" "Movies" and "Music" folders on the HDD? Links/shortcuts? And how will Time Machine treat the two drives now that files are "scattered"? Will TM treat this as a completely diff backup than my previous HDD/Mavericks backups? Or when I want to create future backups, can I just boot into Mavericks and let TM keep the backups consistent (point to HDD only).??
1. You point to the documents via shortcuts. I currently do that today with my iMac where my SSD is the primary boot drive and my old spinny hard drive is my data drive. Easy to do and it works. 2. Hmm I can't say I know the answer to the time machine backups question. I just make my own backups on another externally attached USB drive as I have "trust issues" with time machine. I wish I knew more about how TM worked. I'm sure you could read up on lots of good and bad things and how-tos with time machine.
I get a file system error when I try to reformat or erase that second drive (yours just did it perfectly). Trying to put two Crucial m500 960GB SSD's in a new Mac mini. First drive (system drive) is working perfectly. Secondary drive verifies OK but cannot be erased or reformatted. Any ideas as how to fix this?
@ Brian Stephens - that is weird. Were the drives brand new or were they previously used in another computer or had another operating system on them? Normally I just go to disk utility, delete all partitions first then repartition and format and that usually solves all my issues. You could possibly have a faulty drive as I have seen SSDs fail and do weird things like not want to reformat.
piercedasian Brand new drives. Had a certified Apple service center (Audio Pro Shop) to the build. They formatted the drive externally and then put it inside the Mini. When I tried to write to the drive, it gave me some errors. I totally reformatted the primary drive, did a clean, fresh OSX 10.9 install, & am still having the same issue. Possibly a faulty drive?
piercedasian Definitely a bad SSD. Did the firmware upgrade on Drive #1 without problems. Drive #2 just timed out every time. It's going back tomorrow.
Ah as I had suspected. OSX makes formatting drives a cinch as long as the drive is functioning correctly. Glad you were able to pinpoint what the issue was.
Hi, what processor and how much memory do you have on your Mac? Cause it just looks much faster than mine before you added the SSD and I'm very curious why.
I have a mac mini with 8GB of RAM, an i5 processor @ 2.5 GHz with the dedicated ATI Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor. My mini was quite fast before the SSD upgrade b/c the hard drive had almost no content on it. It is used a general purpose media computer and therefore the hard drive didn't have much content stored on it.
Easy, you use disk utility to partition the new ssd drive. Install Mojave onto it and then once that is installed successfully you can then boot to your original drive, go to preferences -> startup disk and select the new SSD drive as your new default boot drive. Once you boot into the Mojave drive you can then use disk utility in Mojave and erase the old boot drive and use it as your new data drive.
@@piercedasian Hi again. I'd installed the SSD and the HDD successfully but i'm having some issues since then: my mac freezes several times in the day. For example: I'm watching youtube videos, if i scroll down to read comments, it freezes for a few seconds. If I play League of Legends, it freezes like 5 or 6 times during the game. Do you have an idea of what can cause that? Thanks in advance!
@ Joel Patrick Sarmiento - You are exactly correct. My system will still boot to the original drive BUT you can counteract that by either using a USB installer stick to put a new copy of OSX onto your newly installed SSD or if you already have an SSD with OSX on it then you simply go to system preferences to change the startup disk you want to boot from.
It would definitely be quick however, quick is a relative thing. Depends on what you're doing. If you're using strictly for operating system and some basic apps then chances are you won't see much of a performance improvement. Where RAID 0 does very well is when you're trying to write many small files to disk since the writing operation is shared across 2 drive buses and 2 SSD drives.
Thank you for take your time and answer my question ...just two more things right now I have my 1tb HDD on mac mini with OS and bootcamp (windows) can I keep it this HDD like this and install OS in the new SSD..also if I can do this can I choose in the preferences which Drive I like mac mini star (HHD-windows or SSD)
@ saameja - I am pretty certain that it doesn't matter which drive is running osx vs. windows. You should be able to install a new copy of osx onto the new SSD drive and then run boot camp assistant to tell osx where the existing windows partition is. Unfortunately, I've never personally installed windows on a Mac but my understanding is that it's fairly straightforward to do. Have you looked at the online installation and resource manual @ apple.com?
sure thing. Apple part # 922-9560 and 076-1391. One of the part # is for the cable and the other is for the rubber grommets and screws for the new HDD.
i would have changed the thermal paste of the cpu if i was doing this and applied some artic silver 5 ive noticed most people conplaining about high temps on the macbook retinas because of the shady thermal paste and how apple applied it
ah yes... I actually WAS going to do a video on how to do that however, there is HUGE risk for folks to attempt this without fully understanding that there is an EXTREMELy high potential to short out and fry your cpu. The processor core is surrounded by conductive SMT devices (likely resistors or diodes) and since Arctic Silver 5 is comprised of conductive silver particles if you even so much as apply slightly too much you WILL short out and destroy the CPU. I've personally done the Arctic Silver 5 upgrade and there is an improvement in temperatures but not enough of a difference to risk my viewers destroying their computers b/c they didn't quite understand how to do the thermal paste change. I have the video footage but chose not to publish it.
So adding a second drive to the Upper Bay requires so much disassembly due to the need to install four grommets and screws? I somehow thought it would be as easy as replacing the drive in the Lower Bay. That did not take much effort at all.
yeah the 2nd drive bay is definitely MUCH more involved compared to the bottom bay. It is an apple product and installing a 2nd drive in this generation of Mac Mini is remarkably EASY compared to other mac models. If you look at my 2010 iMac SSD upgrade vid you'll see how crazy the process really can get.
hi pierce, I really appreciate your tutorial. thanks! do you maybe know how the two harddiskes are linked together? do they share one sata interface of do they use two independent sata interfaces?
generally speaking if the mac mini sitting in the normal operating position then most 2012 minis shipped with the drive in the lower bay. The lower bay will appear as the upper bay when upside down as when you've removed the bottom cover. This is a general observation and there is the odd time where I've seen the drive in the opposing bay.
I currently have (2) 500gb hdd internal on my 2011 macmini. the one with the OS has failed. When I open it up, how do i tell which hdd is the start up drive? going to replace it with a 250gb ssd. Thanks for any help.
it will depend on which drive the os was originally installed on. I don't personally know how you could tell especially if it is the boot drive. If the boot drive is dead then you don't have a means to boot the computer with unless you have an external optical disk drive OR you have a usb booter stick. Now IF i had to guess which one was the OS drive I would say the drive closest to the bottom of the Mac where the black round access door is would likely be your OS drive - BUT that's just a guess since the factory configured single Mac drives are almost 99% closest to the bottom lid.
I haven't personally done a fusion drive build myself but that is what you're essentially trying to do. Whether a drive is a SSD or traditional platter drive it is all the same. You're basically making a fusion drive that consists of multiple physical drives to appear as a single logical drive in the Finder.
This is hands-down the best Mac Mini upgrade video I've seen. Was really intimidated by the idea of doing this upgrade until now. Thanks!
+yodabolt glad you liked the video! Thanks for watching and do share and consider subscribing if you like my channel :)
Thanks for this walk through - I spent £6.25 on a cheap cable and set of tools and watched this through twice before jumping in. I had the video playing next to me step by step and now have a mini with two SSDs in it!
+Andrew Beasley sweet! Great job!
That's cool. I was wondering how well that would work to do that and then run the drives in a RAID 0 array.
Andrew Beasle
Extremely help helpful in reviving my mini and getting it "up to speed".
glad it was useful for you. The mini is a neat little machine and I'll be damned if I have to pay Apple more to get more storage and RAM. So easy to do on this generation of mini.
That is very impressive and very comprehensive. Having had my Mac Mini (late 2012) just slow down post Yosemite I pondered memory and SSD upgrades. I went for memory only (16Gb) which your video just convinced me was the correct decision. :)
yes you can NEVER have enough RAM. The more the merrier!
Great and informative video - you don't get a better 'manual' than this!!!
MrRealitymusic lol, thanks for the encouraging words :) I try to be as comprehensive as I humanly can especially when it comes to fine detail work.
This is the best video I have seen on this process. Wish I had watched it before I changed out my hard drive. The SSD makes all Apps really fast and very noticeable especially Aperture.
@Chuck Norris - you are correct in saying that you don't need to remove so much stuff to replace an SSD IF you're just replacing the stock drive. If you go that route it's a super quick affair. In some weird and very rare circumstances the stock Apple drive was installed in the upper bay (really the lower bay looking at the mini upside down) so to install a secondary drive was also a piece of cake. So far I've upgraded about 10 mac minis both from 2011 and 2012 and ALL of them required me to remove all the stuff as demonstrated in my video. If you just want to turf the single drive in your mini you can get away with an SSD install in a matter of minutes. If you go the dual drive route like I did you MUST use a data doubler kit and you must dismantle. The drive upgrades in my mini really didn't take too long it just my videos are quite detailed hence why it seems like it takes forever to do. It's actually a piece of cake and maybe 30 minutes of your time.
@ Farouk Alia - Great tip for our viewers. Your suggestion will work IF Apple installs the drive in the lower (technically upper) drive bay. My Mac Mini from Apple had the factory drive in the way so that is why I had to do the install as demonstrated in the video. I've actually heard that Apple depending on who's assembling the computer at the factory can receive either the drive in the one drive bay or the other. Great suggestions nonetheless!
You are totally right! that's again for the great video
Great job! It's no easy task to narrate your own how to videos while performing the steps. I appreciate the effort you put into this video. I will approach my Mac Mini upgrade with greater confidence. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Great tip for putting the antenna back. I had such a difficult time putting it back.
yep, that antenna the very first time caught me off guard and it was a PITA to get back in at first.
Great video instruction. I have upgraded my Mini with 2 SSD drives recently but I wasn't aware of trim enabler. I'm gonna go install that right away.
As for performance my Mini is at least 3 or 4 times faster loading anything now so SSD's are without doubt the best upgrade path for any MacMini owner. :)
.
Hi David - I just got my mini server with two ssd's. I don't know anything about servers, but I want a boot drive with the OS and all my applications. I want the second drive for media files only. From factory, it looks like they are fused.Any specific advice is appreciated!
@ demonbeats - easy just install osx onto one drive and install all your applications onto the boot drive and then format the 2nd drive as a plain drive and point all your applications to it for the data store. OSX server may have a RAID function turned on which either mirrors the drives for redundancy purposes OR it is striping the drives for max performance (not likely).
use osx startup disc creator if you want to start over and install to one drive, or go to the app store and download mavericks, even if its installed it still lets you download it and store it for use in making a bootable image for installing again, or use one of the many decent disc copy softwares, just google the thing you want to do and a hundred people will have done the same, theres always a time machine backup to use too ...
@ David Severn - great suggestion! Thanks.
I watched completely & indeed will utilize your thorough instructions when doing or having nephew do as U did !
lol having a helping hand is ALWAYS a huge bonus.
Couldn't get the wi-fi grill back flush 'til I saw this - thanks!
that's great news! The grill is cut so precise that it has to fit perfectly for it to go back in.
@ Jamie B - very easy in fact.
All you do is install the new SSD as the extra drive. Use a program called "super duper". Clone the original 500GB drive to the SSD. Change your startup drive to the SSD and then format the 500GB drive and then move your data over to the newly formatted drive.
Thanks for the tutorial; yours was the only one that I chose to follow in the end.
I had big issues with loud fan noise, under light workloads on my Mac Mini mid-2011. I tried fan software but was still forced to remove the old HDD, which improved the situation a lot, but it is not perfect.
I am currently looking into running dual OS, but unfortunately, booting from an external drive on a Mac older than 2013, requires a direct Thunderbolt connection to the drive.
Outstanding vid. You mentioned youve taken the mini apart a few times already; what vids did you rely on for aid? It reminds me of when I rebuilt the carb on my 85 rx7. Due to there not being very many carbs still in use today, I could not rely on a video to help me. It took three times for me to get it right--them float bowls are something else. Ive made very many mistakes working on varying projects, and have learned to do much more research before undertaking such tasks. So your vid is much appreciated. Keep sharing, youve earned my subscription.
Thank you for this video!
I had originall watched a different video to see how to install a second HD but the information at 26:00 were extremely helpful in order for the mac mini to 'see' my hard drive
thanks again!!!
you're very welcome. thanks for watching!
@ Steven Aisha - SSD should be for operating system and the applications. Standard HDD should be for personal files such as iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes since they use "databases" to store your information and databases can often be HUGE which most SSD capacities available can be quickly filled up. For example I have an iPhoto database today that is creeping over 500GB. Most SSD available today are only 256/512/1TB so it wouldn't be economical to put large files onto a SSD drive.
Great walk through - I found it really useful and I have a brand new Mac Mini - arrived yesterday - i7 now with 16Gb RAM & a 480Gb SSD with the 1Tb now as data.
Who cares wether it's "chassis" or "shassy"!
Could of used an HD video though when the rubber bit around the power connector fell off & I had to work out where it went back in - that beggar kept coming off too and then, finally, got a bit of it pinched between the rear of the case and the power pins - ohh well, that'll do!
Cheers, Jon
@ Jon Freeman - awesome to hear! Mac Minis are probably one of the EASIEST modern Mac to upgrade. I'd rather upgrade a Mac Mini ANY day over an iMac.
Thank you very much ....I really appreciate the video.......you are a very good teacher ....I feel confident now to upgrade my mac mini .............thanks again and keep up the great work..............Steve
you're welcome! Good luck!
helped even if there are some tricky steps where i raged and wanted to throw out everything out of the window...
lol, patience and careful attention to detail with any Mac product is an absolute requisite. The parts on their products are so fine and precise that even the slightest mishandling could ruin the device. Glad you found the video useful.
For all those people looking to clone their system from one drive to another, consider using Carbon Copy Cloner. Been using it since OS 10.6 straight thru 10.13 (Mohave works as well from all reports). You can boot from USB, internal SSD, internal HD, Firewire, etc.
yes carbon copy cloner is amazing and I love the tool. Thanks for pointing that out to my viewers!
Extremely helpful and easy-to-follow guide! Thanks for posting!!!
@ Jason Wasiak - you're very welcome!
@ Joe Gregory - awesome news! Hope it works out for you. Just take your time b/c the logic board connectors are super delicate and you can break them off the board destroying your computer if you're not careful.
Good luck!
Hello piercedasian, and happy new year! I am about to attempt this installation and wanted to ask a few questions before I do. I want to install my new SSD in the spare bay like you did and have OS X on it, instead of the current drive that is in there now. Can I just clone the copy of OS X to the new SSD once its inside, and then have the Have the Mac Mini boot from it instead of the slower HDD already installed?
Great, just fallowed all your steps, so far all pieces are in place. Lets try booting.
Thank you for your answers one more thing example HHD with OS and bootcamp (windows) and new SSD with OS if you hold your option key when turn on mac mini it shows the 3 disks 3 ptions for star the system thank you
Fantastic video, I am doing the install tommorow and will use your insturctions
Thanks
This was a really good tutorial. I managed to replace my old drive with SSD because of this. Everything works wonderful as expected except that the fans run at 5500 rpm (according to istat pro) constantly even without heavy use. I hear a constant buzz because of this. Any advice on how to fix the issue?
did you properly reconnect all the connectors onto the logic board? The fans are not supposed to ramp up like crazy unless you've disconnected a sensing probe somewhere.
piercedasian
You were right. It turns out there are two hard drive thermal sensors and a optical drive thermal sensors. The SSD drive replacing the old SATA drive had just one thermal sensor. Since one of them was not connected, OSX was running the exaust fans at a higher rpm. I replaced one of the sensors from old SATA drive and attached it to SSD. Now everything works like charm. Thanks again for posting the video.
glad it all worked out for you!
Thanks a lot! Gonna to do it. Very good video.
glad the video was useful for you!
Thank you soooo much my friend for this wonderful teaching video. You are a natural! I will follow you and trust your advice
!
glad you liked my video!
Hi excellent video thank you some people notice the fan inside the enclosure runs always at full speed. Have you noticed since changing the drive out of the new Mac mini that the fan speed varies, or does it run loud?
No, as a matter of fact my Mac Mini's fan almost never runs loud enough for me to hear it. The only time it does come on is when I'm doing some processor intensive tasks but even then the mini quickly cools down and goes back to it's ultra quiet mode. Fan speed can also be affected by the type of drive you're put in. SSDs pretty much make no heat where as a 7200 RPM spinning drive will generate considerable heat especially when there are lots of read/write operations happening. The other factor as it is on iMacs for example is the temperature sensor on the logic board is damaged or reading a high temperature which also causes the fan to run on full blast. I haven't revisited watching my own video as of recent but I do not believe there was a separate temperature cable on this model so I doubt there was any type of damage done on your part.
@ Tyler Durden - it's because of the way the bracket is designed and now the other drive fits into it. Unlike the stock drive in MOST Mac Mini's from Apple that are held in with studs and the corresponding screws on the airport antennal the other drive has to be screwed in with 4 screws into the bracket. I suppose you could just drop the 2nd drive into the empty space and hope that friction holds it in but I opted to demonstrate the proper factory way of installing the drive for best reliability.
@ Ray Stroud - Buy the ifixit drive doubler kit mentioned in my video if you want the install to be perfect and done right. The mounting kit goes for about $30 from ifixit and basically it comes with the mounting studs and the secondary SATA cable. Makes the install a breeze.
As far as data migration goes you have a few choices but I like doing it this way/ Get a cloner program like super duper and an external drive caddy and clone your existing drive BEFORE you remove it from your Mac Mini. If it is just data you want to move over and not the applications then you can always use an external hard drive and run time machine the night before to backup your entire drive. Once you've re-installed the new SSD's and new OS and all applicable applications then you could time machine restore off of the external drive.
The other thing you could do is simply change the drives out re-install OSX and apps and then put your old hard drive into an external drive caddy and then use OSX Migration Assistant to move data over from your "old Mac" to your "new mac".
I've done all 3 options with success on all methods.
Great video. Just out of interest, what did you end up doing with your hybrid drive (given it's such a royal pain to remove by the looks of it! ;) )
I installed the hybrid drive in along with my ssd giving my computer a total of 750GB of total storage. 256GB ssd and a 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM hybrid drive.
I just bought an i7 quad core 2012 Mac mini with SSD drive and 16 MB RAM on eBay for $122. I think these little machines are real keepers because Apple obviously realize their mistake by making them too good, the following year they stopped all the upgrades altogether without jumping through a ton of hoops.
100% agree! I went outta my way to buy myself an old 2011 iMac that I can build up to use for general web browsing and such for my kids. I still use my 2010 iMac i7 with 32 GB of ram, 1tb ssd and 5tb WD black caviar storage drive to publish videos to my channel still! Its a bit slower but she does the trick and when I'm transcoding video I'm often sleeping anways :). Too poor to buy a new Mac in this day and age.
THANK YOU... the airport grate was giving me grief. I appreciate the tip to lift the grate slightly. Cheers!
You're very welcome. The little details DO matter don't they? :)
Thanks for the video. I'm curious as to which screwdriver you're using. I like how the quick change seems to work.
i purchased the screwdriver kit and the 2nd drive kit from ifixit.com
Just upgraded my mini thanks to your tutorial. Great work! Thanks!
Glad it worked out for you!
I saw the video and it's a very good one, just suggestion to all people they don't want to spend much time like 30 minutes , it took me 5 minutes. open only the black plastic and the wi-fi cover, then put the SSD on top of the Fusion drive, connect the data connector, and that's it. it's better actually to do it this way because the SSD can handle shocks but Fusion cannot (has a SATA part) so if the mac falls while it's working my way will save you the Fusion because it's stable as Apple did set it up and you did not touch it.
How do you make the restore usb drive? Or should I say how do I get the operating system to the sad drive after I have installed it. I am not very computer literate but don't think I will have no problem with the actual install of the disk. Also is there anything I need to do to the sad drive before I install it or to the computer beforehand? I have a large iPhoto library also that I don't want to lose in the install. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Thank you, man! I could do it without screwing my computer up! Very informative!
you're welcome!
Muy buen tutorial, solo hay que tener cuidado al sacar el cable del wifi que no se aprecia muy bien como sale en el video.genial
Nice video - thanks! Once you had installed your new SSD next to the original HDD, which software did you use to do the migration?
Great video. I have the same Mini as you (with Radeon) and got the doubler kit and Samsung Evo 250 gig for Christmas, from Other World Computing. Going to try what you just did.
I a have question to you guys, as I have dilemma: what would you do with your thunderbolt port? I have two options. 1. Buy an adapter to get usb3 speed for a 4 Tb hard disk, or 2. Buy a dual link adapter to use an Apple Cinema Display 30"? Give me some advice here please, as I can't decide:)
+ElSmusso I would use thunderbolt for your display and stick with USB 3.0 for the hard drive. Why? Getting anything thunderbolt and storage = insanely expensive. I can't remember if our mac mini's are USB 3. If they are they just buy a cheapie usb 3 enclosure and get respectable performance from that. Thunderbolt bolt to cinema display is cheap if you've already got the display. Hope that makes sense.
+piercedasian good advice. Thanx. Our minis with Radeon only have usb 2.0. And my FireWire is hooked to Pro Tools, so to get a fast disk I will operate in a SSD :) yeah I have an ACD 30" at work, together with a Mac Pro early 2008 (3.1). But I have built a fabulous mobile studio in my WohnWagen (caravan) with mixers, piano, pro tools and widescreen with a ps4 attached :) And to top it all with a 30" display could be a winner, although it's limited space after all. Next summer I want to drive around like a tech vagabond. Happy new year btw. 2016 is coming earlier in Europe you know ;-)
Happy new year to you too! I almost fell asleep with my kids for our new year countdown. Don't have the energy like I used to :) That would be neat to see your caravan full of equipment. I've always wanted to build something like that but time and money is always a hinderance.
+piercedasian tell you what, I'll put out a movie snip of the studio van when it's finished, and give you a hint :)
+ElSmusso DEAL!
I saw on the company’s website that make these data doublers that you can put a maximum of 2TB extra.
Does this mean you can put a maximum of 4TB in the Mac Mini.
I honestly cannot remember what the max capacity of the Mini is but 4tb is not an unrealistic number. They have plenty of laptops that have a 1TB HDD so a data double would simply allow the mini to accommodate another 1TB (or even bigger drive).
Great great video!! I have watched the OWC video about this and you add real good extra pointa!!!
yes the OWC video just blows by too many fine details too quickly.
Great video! I followed every single step, but I’m having one problem. After properly clicking in the antenna plate, all the screw holes are perfectly lined up and the plate itself is also flush with the aluminum unibody, but the hex screws willl not “catch”, they simply spin without threading in. I’m talking about the hex ones, not the torx screws that keep the hard drive in place. What’s interesting is that they don’t seem to be damaged, since they perfectly screw on the body when the plate is removed. Any tips?
are you sure the hex screws are all in the right spots? Take a close look at the threads in the mac's body and see if they're stripped or the right size.
@ Larry S - OMG I didn't even realize the pic that was on the iMac screen. Thank god that was a gag boogie! lol
@ David Severn - yes best upgrade to a any computer but it definitely made our Mac Mini and our iMac have a much longer "useful" lifespan. My upgraded iMac for example is going on year 4 and humming along like a new computer still!
yup, I assembled mine and didnt click the fan plug all the way. I noticed my mac mini was warmer to the touch than normal, I downloaded a Fan and Temp app and discovered that the Fan was not spinning at all. Quick belly cap removal and then securing the fan plug in place solved the problem.
good thing you figured that out. The worst thing to happen is letting the computer overheat (I've had that happen a few times when I was messing with the thermal paste replacement in the Mac mini and getting past 100C and causing the CPU to do an emergency shutdown can't possibly be good.
@ Greg Sees - I took the mini apart from my fairly intimate understanding of how things are manufactured and how they're assembled. Apple is no stranger to "click and slide" assemblies and rarely will you see external screws. I just stare at something and visualize how it was built and then work backwards. It's the same way how I fix cars (which is the bulk of my videos). It is just something I like doing.
piercedasian Why is my Mower leaking gas from the tail pipe? It started smoking white smoke , the oil seems like it may have gas smell to it. Thx
I guess I can answer your question in this video :P
Your mower is leaking fuel from the tailpipe? Is your engine running rough? I doubt that it is actually fuel coming straight out of the tailpipe but a result of running extremely rich combined with the water produced from combustion. Your carb is likely acting up and should be taken apart and serviced. Running with an extreme rich condition isn't good your engine or the environment.
I have a mac mini with the OS on the 500gb disk.
How can I get the the OS only on the SSD and use the 500gig for storage?
piercedasian hi there, thanks for this extremely helpful video. for this setup, did you, or do you think if there's a need for us to update the ssd firmware? please advice. tq
if the drive ain't broke don't mess with it is what I think. Firmware updates aren't ALWAYS the best thing and despite manufacturers create new firmware to address bugs that with any fix there is always the possibility of introducing new ones.
xerophyll d
I'm confused about installing the OS X into the new SSD drive. If I want to start fresh do I first install the original Disk that came with my Mac mini then install Mountain Lion then Maverick? Please advise.
Why don't you simply make yourself a Mavericks USB boot flash drive? There are lots of write-ups on the Internet that clearly explain what to do :)
discussions.apple.com/thread/5572784?tstart=0
Or you could do exactly what you just said and install ML and then immediately migrate to Mavericks.
Great video, and a fellow Canadian !
Do you have name of the utility for the fan monitor ?
Thanks
Very well done so thanks a lot for posting!
Thanks Daniel, glad you liked the video.
One more question When you are using handbrake is more faster with your new SSD Or is just when you open the handbrake app thank you...
@ green eyes - the lower drive has to installed prior to the logic board being re-installed. The 2nd drive is then installed AFTER the logic board has been reinstalled.
What do the expert think :) I a have question, sir, as I have dilemma: what would you do with your thunderbolt port? I have two options. 1. Buy an adapter to get usb3 speed for my 4 Tb hard disk, or 2. Buy a dual link adapter to use an Apple Cinema Display 30"? Give me some advice here please, as I can't decide:) We have the same Mini model, with Radeon :)
+ElSmusso I thought I answered this question but oddly the answer isn't listed here. Can you tell me if I replied to your question?
Thanks!
+piercedasian You did... Strange things :)
I thought so... weird. okay thanks.
+piercedasian but anyway :) I got the Kanex Thunderbolt adapter in the mail from Apple. Fantastic piece of hardware. I gives USB 3 speed and Esata to 2011 macs. Performance unbelievable. Especially on my dock with Esata. Just a tip for you :) and I still promise to post a video of the mobile home studio when finished. Working on cabling now, and I'm such an obsessive person regarding perfection... so it takes time my friend :)
Great tutorial, thanks very much for sharing your knowledge with us!
you're most welcome.
I really wanna do this - but I can't seem to find instructions on how to deal with the software side of it. Any ideas?
+Thomas Hougaard super easy. Specifically are you looking to know how to install the os onto the new drive? You can always install the new SSD boot your computer as usual and then under "startup disk" point it to the new blank drive and then install OS X on it. There are many ways you can do it. Just do a search on how to install OSX.
thank you very much
+darren stewart you're welcome.
Excellent Video. Thanks for this. It is far better than the videos from the manufacturers of these upgrade kits (ifixit etc). Only thing you couldve done better was had more light on the mac as you were working on it as its very dark in the Macs interior and difficult to see some of the bits as you are working on them. Thanks
Glad you liked the video. Yes the lighting in my older videos like these ones was definitely not as good as my more updated videos. Thanks for watching and liking my video!
@ Steven Aisha - no issues with time machine backup as you specify to time machine what you want backed up anyways under the time machine options/preferences.
Great video dude"
glad you liked it! thanks for watching!
I've seen some people who install their ssd without taking out everything. Do u think that way works well or will that damage it ??
Hi
I am getting a new Mac mini, it has 4 gigs of ram and a 1tb hard drive
Going to upgrade it to 16 gigs of ram
And add a second hard drive which will be a ssd
After installing the ssd, how do I format so it can run on mac and what's the best way of getting my os running of the ssd, ATM it's running of the 1tb hard drive
I would like my os and application running of the ssd and the hard drive for storage
Any help
Once you've installed the SSD you can boot the computer as usual and then use disk utility to partition and format the SSD. You can then create a USB bootable installer of OSX (plenty of online tutorials on how to make one) and then simply boot the mac mini from the USB stick and then use the install program to install OSX onto the SSD. A 2nd alternative is to use a disk cloner tool like super duper and literally copy the entire 1TB drive to your newly installed SSD. The only kicker with that method is I am not sure how successful you'll be doing it that way because the drive capacities don't match up. I'm assuming your SSD you installed is a 512GB or smaller drive.
Hope that helps.
The SSD i am going to use is a 120GB hard drive, ATM i dont really have any thing on my 1TB hard drive so that isnt a issue, if i take that route after cloning it other, do i just erase my 1tb hard drive.
if i install the OSX from the usb bootable drive will i have to erase 1tb hard drive so it will get rid of the OSX sytem but then install the OSX on to the SSD if that makes sense
you don't actually have to erase the 1TB first. You can install the OS onto the SSD first and then boot your computer as usual after the install. Once you're into OSX (booted on new OR old drive) you can go to System Preferences and then change the startup disk and OSX will remember which drive to always boot from. Once you've changed which you want to boot from them it's a matter of just migrating the data over to the SSD, an external drive or USB stick and then formatting the 1TB drive and re-migrating the new data over.
Hi, I have a quick question - I have this Mac Mini (5,3). I have 2 x 500Gb HDDs in there. I want to replace just the main OS HDD for an SSD 500Gb. I've cloned it (using carbon copy) onto the SSD alread.
My question is - which of the 2 HDD drives is the one I need to replace? The easy-to-get-to one, or the other one underneath it that requires pulling everything else out?
OR doesnt it matter and I can change the boot order in the BIOS for example?
In which case, its easier to replace just the top drive?
Help!
+Simon Early HI Simon, when I purchased my mac I only had 1 HDD configured from the factory and it was the drive that was easier to remove from the lid side. Since you have 2 drives it is hard to say which one Apple installed the OS on BUT if you're just changing out one drive and you have the OS on your new SSD you can simply change out the drive that is easier to remove. If by chance both drives have the OS installed on them then you can go to system preferences and change your startup disk to point the bios to boot from the drive of your choice. Hope that helps.
yep. all good. easy to follow, changed it over . piece of piss.
Glad it worked out well for you :) Thanks for watching!
I do all this with my samsung evo 850, but the disk never appears when I whant install the mac os, only the second drive appears. I don't now why this happen...
From the installer screen launch disk utility. From there you will be able to see all connected disks and create a new partition and format it. Once it is done exit out of disk utility and you should now be able to see your new SSD drive to install OSX onto.
I do exactly what you said and nothing, the ssd don't appear... i don't now why. The only thing then works was used the ssd external with a case usb 3.0, but i want to install inside.
that is very strange. Are you sure your SATA cable isn't damaged or broken? I'd be suspect of the drive doubler connector to the SSD. The ribbon cable and tiny SATA connector is very fine and delicate. You may want to consider swapping your drive out or putting the SSD in the primary (lower) drive bay. If you swap drive locations and the SSD appears then you've pinpointed where your issue is.
excellent video... :-)
did you set it up as a fusion drive or is it just an "extra drive" in the mini? Thanks
truedeadman no fusion drive just set it up as a primary boot drive and then used another HDD as the data working drive.
@Chuck Norris - One more thing, no my method won't damage the mini. Use common sense, be SUPER careful when removing connectors and use an ESD mat to protect from accidental "zapping" of your memory or logic board. I'm always all about doing things the factory way and my video shows that.
Thanks. You help me a lot!
Ok this video is AMAZINGLY detailed. You are awesome man! But I figured out that, since this is a desktop machine, it would be less trouble just buy an external USB drive for more space. I mean, this is way too much work for an average user haha! Thanks anyway
It isn't so much about storage space as it is about speed. Traditional spinning platter drives are simply dinosaurs compared to an SSD. I just installed my 2nd drive as a drive for extra storage capacity because I had the spare drive after swapping it out with the SSD. External drive are convenient and transferable but I still prefer the clean look of the iMac or the Mac Mini as everything is "integrated" within the chassis. Minimalist if you know what I mean.
This looks like even more of a PITA than my 2010 mac mini. I tried to fit a 256gb samsung pro but it kept causing a kernel panic so I gave up and sent it back. BTW can you actually buy SATA 2 SSDs? I can't find them anywhere.
It was kind of a nuisance but all in all it wasn't bad compared to taking apart an iMac. Apple by design is trying to lock people out of their computers (lame) such that you have to pay the premiums to buy their expensive "upsells" when you purchase the computer new. I personally hate the path their headed down but alas, Apple will always be... Apple!
Yep, once my Mac Mini dies I'll probably go PC only. Hopefully water cooled since I hate computer fan noise.
Maybe Apple will come to their senses one day and start building their computers with a bit of upgradability - NOT!
do you know the part number of the grill?
Thanks. Your video helped me a lot.
No problem. Thanks for watching.
I just have one question...I now have the SSD and stock 500gb hard drive that came with it.
Can you list steps to delete the OS on the stock 500gb hard drive so that I can just use it as an 'extra' hard drive and just have my SSD with the OS?
thank you in advance
Sure thing. Go to "disk utility" select the old 500 GB hard drive and then select format as OS X Extended Journaled drive
Takes a whole 30 seconds to complete. :)
Brilliant explanation...Thanks.
No problem! Thanks for stopping by.
29:17 😅 “you can TEAT on the timer” wonder where that lil slip up came from lmao
(hint: look at the screen 🤣🤣)
ah yes the infamous boob on a screen :) That was actually a toy my co-worker brought into work as a joke. I wasn't even aware that I had that in my screen until someone pointed that out to me.
I see that you installed the SSD into the upper bay and left the HDD in the lower. I thought you were supposed to install the new SSD into the lower, isnt the lower bay equiv to SATA0? Also there was a comment about what to do with the orig HDD drive which has all the data files on it - how does the OS "see" the drive if it still has an OS on it?
gman76utube Yes I installed the SSD into the upper bay but I don't honestly think it makes any difference whether it is on SATAO or SATA1 as the boot drive is configurable in OSX. For example when installed the SSD and booted the computer it was still booting from the old HDD but after I booted up I was able to format the new SSD, install OS X onto it and then using the existing instance of OS X to change the startup drive to the new SSD. When the computer rebooted with the SSD drive I could then use the old drive as my data drive regardless of it running OS X on it. The great thing with OS X is that you can toggle between drives as your startup with no negative impact. Since my SSD was running smoothly I opted to no bother with OS X on the spinning HDD so after I migrated my data files over I formatted the drive as a OS X Journaled drive and I've been running smoothly ever since :)
piercedasian OK thanks, that answers part of my question, upper vs lower bay makes no diff. In my case, I would like to keep my HDD intact (Mavericks and data files) while I make the SSD the boot drive with Yosemite. In the event my SSD dies (Ive had an SSD previously flake out on a windows system), I can simply change the boot drive to the HDD and do a repair on the SSD (or replace with no tears). The SSD will only hold OS and apps. A few more questions. How do I point Yosemite to "Documents" "Movies" and "Music" folders on the HDD? Links/shortcuts? And how will Time Machine treat the two drives now that files are "scattered"? Will TM treat this as a completely diff backup than my previous HDD/Mavericks backups? Or when I want to create future backups, can I just boot into Mavericks and let TM keep the backups consistent (point to HDD only).??
1. You point to the documents via shortcuts. I currently do that today with my iMac where my SSD is the primary boot drive and my old spinny hard drive is my data drive. Easy to do and it works.
2. Hmm I can't say I know the answer to the time machine backups question. I just make my own backups on another externally attached USB drive as I have "trust issues" with time machine. I wish I knew more about how TM worked. I'm sure you could read up on lots of good and bad things and how-tos with time machine.
I get a file system error when I try to reformat or erase that second drive (yours just did it perfectly). Trying to put two Crucial m500 960GB SSD's in a new Mac mini. First drive (system drive) is working perfectly. Secondary drive verifies OK but cannot be erased or reformatted. Any ideas as how to fix this?
@ Brian Stephens - that is weird. Were the drives brand new or were they previously used in another computer or had another operating system on them? Normally I just go to disk utility, delete all partitions first then repartition and format and that usually solves all my issues. You could possibly have a faulty drive as I have seen SSDs fail and do weird things like not want to reformat.
piercedasian
Brand new drives. Had a certified Apple service center (Audio Pro Shop) to the build. They formatted the drive externally and then put it inside the Mini. When I tried to write to the drive, it gave me some errors. I totally reformatted the primary drive, did a clean, fresh OSX 10.9 install, & am still having the same issue. Possibly a faulty drive?
piercedasian
Definitely a bad SSD. Did the firmware upgrade on Drive #1 without problems. Drive #2 just timed out every time. It's going back tomorrow.
Ah as I had suspected. OSX makes formatting drives a cinch as long as the drive is functioning correctly. Glad you were able to pinpoint what the issue was.
Hi, what processor and how much memory do you have on your Mac? Cause it just looks much faster than mine before you added the SSD and I'm very curious why.
I have a mac mini with 8GB of RAM, an i5 processor @ 2.5 GHz with the dedicated ATI Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor. My mini was quite fast before the SSD upgrade b/c the hard drive had almost no content on it. It is used a general purpose media computer and therefore the hard drive didn't have much content stored on it.
29:15 Lmao, to busy looking at the pic while talking!
I have Mojave installed on a new SSD drive that I want to put in my Mac Mini. How do I do to use the 2 hard drives?
Easy, you use disk utility to partition the new ssd drive. Install Mojave onto it and then once that is installed successfully you can then boot to your original drive, go to preferences -> startup disk and select the new SSD drive as your new default boot drive. Once you boot into the Mojave drive you can then use disk utility in Mojave and erase the old boot drive and use it as your new data drive.
@@piercedasian Hi again. I'd installed the SSD and the HDD successfully but i'm having some issues since then: my mac freezes several times in the day. For example: I'm watching youtube videos, if i scroll down to read comments, it freezes for a few seconds. If I play League of Legends, it freezes like 5 or 6 times during the game. Do you have an idea of what can cause that? Thanks in advance!
Question, after you installed the SSD, your system detects the Non-SSD as your system drive then you installed the OS X to the SSD after?
@ Joel Patrick Sarmiento - You are exactly correct. My system will still boot to the original drive BUT you can counteract that by either using a USB installer stick to put a new copy of OSX onto your newly installed SSD or if you already have an SSD with OSX on it then you simply go to system preferences to change the startup disk you want to boot from.
how would be the performance of installing duall ssd in raid 0 setting?
It would definitely be quick however, quick is a relative thing. Depends on what you're doing. If you're using strictly for operating system and some basic apps then chances are you won't see much of a performance improvement. Where RAID 0 does very well is when you're trying to write many small files to disk since the writing operation is shared across 2 drive buses and 2 SSD drives.
How to install ssd into my dell xps laptop Windows 7,if you can please make a video.
Thanks
Thank you for take your time and answer my question ...just two more things right now I have my 1tb HDD on mac mini with OS and bootcamp (windows) can I keep it this HDD like this and install OS in the new SSD..also if I can do this can I choose in the preferences which Drive I like mac mini star (HHD-windows or SSD)
@ saameja - I am pretty certain that it doesn't matter which drive is running osx vs. windows. You should be able to install a new copy of osx onto the new SSD drive and then run boot camp assistant to tell osx where the existing windows partition is. Unfortunately, I've never personally installed windows on a Mac but my understanding is that it's fairly straightforward to do. Have you looked at the online installation and resource manual @ apple.com?
Hello Sir, Can u please send the part no for the data cable for the upper bay in mac mini
sure thing. Apple part # 922-9560 and 076-1391. One of the part # is for the cable and the other is for the rubber grommets and screws for the new HDD.
i would have changed the thermal paste of the cpu if i was doing this and applied some artic silver 5 ive noticed most people conplaining about high temps on the macbook retinas because of the shady thermal paste and how apple applied it
ah yes... I actually WAS going to do a video on how to do that however, there is HUGE risk for folks to attempt this without fully understanding that there is an EXTREMELy high potential to short out and fry your cpu. The processor core is surrounded by conductive SMT devices (likely resistors or diodes) and since Arctic Silver 5 is comprised of conductive silver particles if you even so much as apply slightly too much you WILL short out and destroy the CPU. I've personally done the Arctic Silver 5 upgrade and there is an improvement in temperatures but not enough of a difference to risk my viewers destroying their computers b/c they didn't quite understand how to do the thermal paste change. I have the video footage but chose not to publish it.
So adding a second drive to the Upper Bay requires so much disassembly due to the need to install four grommets and screws? I somehow thought it would be as easy as replacing the drive in the Lower Bay. That did not take much effort at all.
yeah the 2nd drive bay is definitely MUCH more involved compared to the bottom bay. It is an apple product and installing a 2nd drive in this generation of Mac Mini is remarkably EASY compared to other mac models. If you look at my 2010 iMac SSD upgrade vid you'll see how crazy the process really can get.
@@piercedasian It makes me think that I had better pick a reliable drive mechanism because I do not want to have to do this twice. :)
hi pierce, I really appreciate your tutorial. thanks! do you maybe know how the two harddiskes are linked together? do they share one sata interface of do they use two independent sata interfaces?
2023 here - Each SSD has independent SATA drive interfaces which connect to *two* tiny sockets on the logic board.
Great Video!
Thanks!
Gracias !!!!
no problemo!
please help.... are late 2012 mac mini has the hdd at the upper bay or the lower.... thanks for help..
generally speaking if the mac mini sitting in the normal operating position then most 2012 minis shipped with the drive in the lower bay. The lower bay will appear as the upper bay when upside down as when you've removed the bottom cover. This is a general observation and there is the odd time where I've seen the drive in the opposing bay.
Some steps done more easier vs iFixit !!! Thnx!
Glad you liked my video. Thanks for watching!
I currently have (2) 500gb hdd internal on my 2011 macmini. the one with the OS has failed. When I open it up, how do i tell which hdd is the start up drive? going to replace it with a 250gb ssd. Thanks for any help.
it will depend on which drive the os was originally installed on. I don't personally know how you could tell especially if it is the boot drive. If the boot drive is dead then you don't have a means to boot the computer with unless you have an external optical disk drive OR you have a usb booter stick. Now IF i had to guess which one was the OS drive I would say the drive closest to the bottom of the Mac where the black round access door is would likely be your OS drive - BUT that's just a guess since the factory configured single Mac drives are almost 99% closest to the bottom lid.
thanks for the help!
you're welcome!
Finally a good DIY video in the sea of the shit. thx! ;)
:). Thank you for the compliments.
Thank you.
you're welcome!
umm 29:20 the picture taken on october 30th anyone???
hahaha yep ChuckinDemNades - that was a picture of a prop on my co-worker's desk! Funny how pol take notice so quickly!
haha just caught my eye still great video
lol thanks ChuckinDemNades
With mine, it sees the other harddrive as another bootable drive. How do I get my 2tb and 1tb ssd to work as one drive to have a 3tb 2012 mac mini
I haven't personally done a fusion drive build myself but that is what you're essentially trying to do. Whether a drive is a SSD or traditional platter drive it is all the same. You're basically making a fusion drive that consists of multiple physical drives to appear as a single logical drive in the Finder.