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2011 Mac Mini Base SSD upgrade suggestions

C

cathy88

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 11, 2009
95
0
Hi everyone,

As the title suggested, I have just purchased a based model Mac Mini and am looking at upgrading the hard drive to a Solid State Drive.

Currently looking at Crucial 128GB M4

http://www.crucial.com/store/listmodule/SSD/~131072~/list.html

but was confused with the 3 products, are they all the same? Whats the difference?

Is there any problem with this SSD?

Was going to put dual hdd in it, but iFixit kit is always out of stock...

Also going to upgrade the ram to 8gb.

Are there any other SSD that you guys would suggest?
 
That is a good drive from what I have heard. The difference is just what it comes with, so the least expensive one is what you would want.
 
Santabean2000 said:
320 still a solid choice. Reliability trumps synthetic benchmarks. Intel's performance in real world tasks over SSDs lifetime is pretty good.
Click to expand...

then he should get this as of today this is considered more reliable then the intel


https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MZ-7PC128Z


use RALLY for 20 buck discount 180 net price.


****************************************************************************************************************


I was a big intel guy. if he wants intel he should get this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167051


follow rebates with care this is a good deal for intel
 
How does the Intel 320 compare to the Crucial M4?

I am asking this because I will be getting ram from Crucial, so if I also get SSD, shipping will be shared by 2 items.

Shipping cost does matter for me, as I am not located in US
 
cathy88 said:
How does the Intel 320 compare to the Crucial M4?

I am asking this because I will be getting ram from Crucial, so if I also get SSD, shipping will be shared by 2 items.

Shipping cost does matter for me, as I am not located in US
Click to expand...

In the thread linked earlier on page 3 you'll find a recommendation; Crucial M4 is number 1, Intel is number 4.

My personal approach would be to get a new pulled Apple SSD (some on eBay), either a Samsung 470 or a Toshiba. One never knows what special changes are incoporated in the firmware specific for Apple. Unfortunately warranty becomes than another aspect as some drives do fail and the SSD is not as robust as manufacturers want you to believe.

As mentioned elsewhere by me - I was going to put a small Intel series 320 (40Gb) in my mini but I have seen enough strange behavior to have relegated the Intel to a backup SSD. (Price was reasonable enough for that role and now I do not have to worry about noise of a mechnical HDD). Neither Samsung or Toshiba are locally available and I have been sitting on the fence of either getting locally a Crucial M4, or a new Samsung 470 from South Korea or a pulled Toshiba from Taiwan. The alternative is that I might wait until a new mini is released and then get the server with an Apple SSD and sell the present one in which case I do not want to spend more money on it. The internal HDD should last at least another year.
 
Last edited:
I went with the Intel 320 but I got the 160 GB only because I needed a tad more space then the 120GB. I went with this for the simple reason is it does not cause any trouble and needs very little attention, some other drives have some issues, and the Intel 320 Line seems to work seamless. There may be other drives that are cheaper or offer a tad bit more speed, but I am only using it in my 2011 Base Mini to sever the house with Music, Photos, Movies, and more etc. All storage I have is either attached via USB or FW800 and this setup works well for me, as I only needed the 160GB as a boot and applications drive, plus I store some other things on the internal, but most items are on the ext drives.
 
What about the OWC ones? Pretty much almost buying a Crucial but have just saw OWC lol
 
OWC has great support for Mac owners. I've had good experience with them. Lately, OCZ Vertex 3 drives have had great deals and use the same controller. Many here complain about Sandforce controllers or OCZ. Personally, I've had good experiences with 5 Sandforce controller drives and picking up another. OWC and OCZ (alpha build) have bootable Linux disks to update SSDs in Macs. This is important if you have a difficult install like an iMac. Last to those that doubt reliability of Sandforce drives, OWC was the first if not only to offer 5 year warranty.
 
I'm in my last year of high school, and couldn't exactly afford too much, bought the standard mac mini i5, swapped the 500gb 5400rpm HDD and the 2gb ram with my OCZ vertex 2 and 8gb from my alienware, and it flies! Aperture has no problems displaying 14,000 RAW's, no lag, haven't seen a beachball since I swapped out the components! - So if anyone is on a low budget, an old sata II ssd will do the job without breaking the bank!
___________________________________________________________________
16gb iphone 3GS - Mac mini i5 2.3, 8gb, 60gb OCZ Vertex2, 500gb HDD.
 
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