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HDD Replace Question...

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xheathen

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 5, 2010
300
17
I'm reading iFixit's 2011 Mini tear down... and it looks exceptionally easy to get in there and replace the HDD.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Mid-2011-Teardown/6131/1

What I'm not seeing, and I think this is probably because veteran experienced Mac owners probably know instinctively, is how the drive connects to that 1st SATA port.

I can kind of see that it's a custom port, but the adapter can just connect to any ol' laptop hard drive? It seems like the only reason why you couldn't add a second is the lack of the 2nd adapter, right?

I was thinking of getting one of these momentus drives from Seagate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148599. Has anyone used one of the XT hybrid drives??? I'm seeing them on sale $50 off for the 500gb on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1311374877&sr=1-3). Then I'm assuming you'd just do the CMD+R (if I remember right) and it'll do the internet based self recovery lion install??
 
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xheathen said:
I'm reading iFixit's 2011 Mini tear down... and it looks exceptionally easy to get in there and replace the HDD.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Mid-2011-Teardown/6131/1

What I'm not seeing, and I think this is probably because veteran experienced Mac owners probably know instinctively, is how the drive connects to that 1st SATA port.

I can kind of see that it's a custom port, but the adapter can just connect to any ol' laptop hard drive? It seems like the only reason why you couldn't add a second is the lack of the 2nd adapter, right?

I was thinking of getting one of these momentus drives from Seagate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148599. Has anyone used one of the XT hybrid drives??? I'm seeing them on sale $50 off for the 500gb on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1311374877&sr=1-3). Then I'm assuming you'd just do the CMD+R (if I remember right) and it'll do the internet based self recovery lion install??
Click to expand...

The connector is just a standard sata plug with power all in one, yes you can use just about any 2.5 drive in there. And yes the CMD+R does work that's how I installed with my new C300 ssd on my 2011 mini. However I recommend getting an SSD if you can and then using some sort of external firewire or thunderbolt drive for storage. It really makes a big difference.
 
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Awesome :) That ram is actually from my desktop windows box. I ended up buying a miniITX that takes SODIMMs. So I'll just swap them out.
 
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