Buying first Mini - Drive Advice

[sbauer]

Hi all,

I'm buying my first Mac Mini, mainly for work. I'd like to get the stock $799 build, but I'm a little stuck in terms of hard drive selection. I'm a software developer that works on both Windows and OSX so I need to have bootcamp installed. I want something better than a 5400 rpm drive, but I'm not sure how I feel about going with the Fusion drive so soon.

Are there any down sides to installing a third party drive yourself (warranty, issues, etc)? At this point I'm considering a larger SSD drive or a 7200rpm drive.

 

[philipma1957]

Hi all,

I'm buying my first Mac Mini, mainly for work. I'd like to get the stock $799 build, but I'm a little stuck in terms of hard drive selection. I'm a software developer that works on both Windows and OSX so I need to have bootcamp installed. I want something better than a 5400 rpm drive, but I'm not sure how I feel about going with the Fusion drive so soon.

Are there any down sides to installing a third party drive yourself (warranty, issues, etc)? At this point I'm considering a larger SSD drive or a 7200rpm drive.

you could buy this


http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10599


but in your case i think this works

http://www.macmall.com/p/LaCie-Hard-Drives/product~dpno~9105214~pdp.hcjeaji


fan is loud i have 2 threads about using this


new thread applies to 2012 mini

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1476820/


old thread applies to any t-bolt mac user

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/

 

[ess5]

I tossed in a 750gb Seagate Momentus hybrid drive ($120 + $75 iFixIt dual-drive kit), partitioned it to 500gb Mac/250gb Win7, and converted the stock drive into a 500gb time machine drive to match the Mac partition.

You can definitely just *replace* the drive, but to be honest...it isn't any easier. You still have to gut your Mini, so you might as well maximize the benefit of getting in there by going dual-drive

 

[charlieegan3]

...

I second that, might as well make the most of the operation.

 

[palmharbor]

Hi all,

I'm buying my first Mac Mini, mainly for work. I'd like to get the stock $799 build, but I'm a little stuck in terms of hard drive selection. I'm a software developer that works on both Windows and OSX so I need to have bootcamp installed. I want something better than a 5400 rpm drive, but I'm not sure how I feel about going with the Fusion drive so soon.

Are there any down sides to installing a third party drive yourself (warranty, issues, etc)? At this point I'm considering a larger SSD drive or a 7200rpm drive.

If you buy one, get the extended Apple Care protection plan...I did as my mac mini bought in June failed this month and it was replaced, the replacement failed within 24 hours...had to re-install OS ...got both directly from Apple.

 

[talmy]

FWIW, I've timed compile times on my 2011 MBP with a Seagate 750GB hybrid drive running Windows XP under Parallels versus my company provided HP workstation (also new 2011) with a quad core Xeon processor and hardware RAID1 drives and my MBP runs five times faster. The HP is hampered by virus protection I don't use or need on my Windows XP partition which doesn't browse the internet or receive mail.

I'd recommend swapping out the standard drive for the Seagate Maximus and don't worry about performance. And unless you truly need to run on the raw hardware, look at virtualization. The convenience outweighs any loss of performance, at least for me.

 

[sbauer]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I picked up the Mini on Saturday. I'm just waiting on my drives (SSD + 7200rpm), kit, and memory to come.

 

[ess5]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

I picked up the Mini on Saturday. I'm just waiting on my drives (SSD + 7200rpm), kit, and memory to come.

Nice! Make sure to check out the iFixIt walk through and vid, they both helped me a LOT with my install.

Have fun!