2012 i7 SSD Issues

[jamesdav15]

I finally got my hands on a refurbished 2012 Mac Mini quad-core i7 with a 1TB hard drive, and was intending to install a new 512GB ssd in one of the vacant bays. I realized today, however, that there are major issues with third-party SSDs since Yosemite came out. I feel like I would need to do some major troubleshooting in order to get the SSD to operate as my boot drive. Have you all encountered this?

I am sure this has been discussed in this forum, so I apologize in advance.

To hedge against possible SSD issues with the 2012 Mac Mini, I went ahead and ordered a 2014 dual-core 3.0ghz i7 with a 512GB ssd off the refurbished site. When factoring in the cost of the additional SSD and RAM for the 2012, the prices are going to be pretty much identical.

 

[Darby67]

There are no major issues or troubleshooting with running a 3rd party SSD in Yosemite, many people are doing it and it's easy. You only have to make a choice regarding TRIM: run at your own risk or don't run.

 

[kanewtz]

I am running a 3rd party SSD as my main boot drive and no issues at all on Yosemite

 

[DanielMcKay]

I echo Darby's comment, many (including myself) have simply chosen to delay / avoid upgrading to Yosemite and are staying on Mavericks for TRIM - I honestly think its pretty much a wash either way.

 

[newellj]

There are no major issues or troubleshooting with running a 3rd party SSD in Yosemite, many people are doing it and it's easy. You only have to make a choice regarding TRIM: run at your own risk or don't run.

Echoing this. My 2012 Mini got an SSD transplant so it now has a 512GB SSD boot drive and the original 1TB HDD moved to the other bay as a storage and Time Machine disk. No issues other than Trim to consider.

 

[MikeMeyers]

2012 mac mini dual drive kit with samsung 850 pro issue

Need help!! I just added a samsung 850 Pro SSD drive to my 2012 mac mini. I bought the iFixit SATA cable, so I had to move my 1TB HD to the upper bay and the SSD to the lower bay in order to make it work. Both drives work great, but I am having a strange issue. I have Yosemite installed on the HD and Maverick installed on the SSD. When I boot the HD drive, the wifi works great. When I boot the SSD the wifi does not correctly. After resetting the wifi connection several times [SSD], the connection came on once, but very slow connection speed. I turned the wifi off and plugged the ethernet cable in and internet connection works great. I also tried reformatting the SSD several times, but that did not work.

 

[donlab]

There are no major issues or troubleshooting with running a 3rd party SSD in Yosemite, many people are doing it and it's easy. You only have to make a choice regarding TRIM: run at your own risk or don't run.

Agreed. 2012 2.3 i7 mini with Samsung Evo 840 1 TB running yosemite here. No trim instead I just overprovisioned by 9%. Nice and fast and I know I have already allocated all the blocks in primary partition working with large video files. So even though my mac says I have 300GB available the SSD thinks the partition is completely full. Ive experienced no such slow downs.

I dont like the idea of disabling a security feature to run TRIM.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Stop worrying. Just prep and install the SSD, and be done with it.

I would suggest you initialize the SSD, clone to it, and TEST it BEFORE you open the Mini to do the installation.
Then you'll know it works before you have the drive installed, and have problems.

Use CarbonCopyCloner to do the clone, and it will also clone the invisible recovery partition, as well.

Then restart and hold down the option key until the Startup Manager appears.
Select the SSD with the pointer and hit return.
You should get a good boot.
When you get to the finder, it will look EXACTLY as the internal drive, so use "about this mac" to be sure you're booted up from the SSD.

If things appear as they should, then it's time to "do the swap".

 

[Val-kyrie]

Agreed. 2012 2.3 i7 mini with Samsung Evo 840 1 TB running yosemite here. No trim instead I just overprovisioned by 9%. Nice and fast and I know I have already allocated all the blocks in primary partition working with large video files. So even though my mac says I have 300GB available the SSD thinks the partition is completely full. Ive experienced no such slow downs.

I dont like the idea of disabling a security feature to run TRIM.

How did you over-provision your drive? Steps?

 

[donlab]

Just shrink your primary partition after fresh install of yosemite by 9% of total available capacity in disk utility. For a 1TB thats about 90GB. The SSD will see this space as unclaimed use it for housekeeping/garbage collection. It can be done online without disruption. This is essentially what samsung magician software does for you on windows. Or buy a SSD that os already overprovisioned like the OWC mercury 6G flavors for example.

 

[MRrainer]

Agreed. 2012 2.3 i7 mini with Samsung Evo 840 1 TB running yosemite here. No trim instead I just overprovisioned by 9%. Nice and fast and I know I have already allocated all the blocks in primary partition working with large video files. So even though my mac says I have 300GB available the SSD thinks the partition is completely full. Ive experienced no such slow downs.

I dont like the idea of disabling a security feature to run TRIM.

That feature wasn't available before Yosemite - how could you survive all the years without it?
;-)

The real problems will start once the OS doesn't allow disabling kext-signing anymore.
That would really make me disappointed.