External discrete 3.5-inch SATA hard drive modification

[ivc]

I did this modification last week, removing the internal 5400 rpm hard drive and installing a Western Digital SE16 640 GB 7200 RPM SATA drive in a external TechSolo case.

Using the SATA connection via a discrete air went modification on the Mac mini. Power coming from its own 12V power supply. Also two fans installed to keep air flowing over the drive.

Performance shows a 2-3 fold increase in read and write speeds, both random and sequential.

• Xbench results
• Xbench of similar stock model

More details found on my project page:

• http://beta.ivancover.com/wiki/index.php/Mac_mini_external_sata_hard_drive

 

[robbier]

Wow, a very ambitious project, I really like the looks of the Mac Mini after you were finished with the upgrade. As a bonus future project, maybe you could power the hard drive directly from the Mini's power supply, so you then only need one power cable, only for the mac mini and the whole thing is like one computer with one power cable.

EDIT: The hard drive you took out must have had a connection to the power supply via a standard molex connector, so maybe you could extend that one to reach into the new part of the case. Just a thought.

Nice work
-robbier