Just installed a 750GB HDD in my Mini...

[MattA]

...and I've got about 4 hours remaining until it's restored. Good thing I have my trusty iBook to get me by!

I ordered a Seagate 750GB 7200rpm drive for it. the 320GB was getting a bit crowded, and I'd like to install Windows using bootcamp in order to keep the PC packed away.

I really hate opening the mini up to replace parts in it. It always feels like somethings gonna break.

 

[MattA]

The restore from time machine got to 3% and then failed. Ugh. Now I get to try to install snow leopard and then restore. If that doesn't work, I get to put the old drive back in and back it up again (which doesn't sound fun.)

Why do these things never work right away?

 

[MattA]

ok, success!

What I had to eventually do was put the 320GB drive back in, erase the time machine disk, do another backup, and then install the 750GB drive. After that, the restore only took a couple hours and I was up and running. It only took an entire day to do the upgrade!

And now that I've gotten it installed, a 1TB 9.5mm 7200rpm 2.5" HDD will be out next week. Yay.

 

[Cave Man]

Well, the word is 1 TB platters will be available by the end of 2011 in 2.5" format, so getting a 2 TB 9.5mm should be doable.

 

[talmy]

For the record, the cleanest way is to get an external drive case, swap drives and put the old one in the case, boot from the external, then clone the external back to the internal.

 

[Cave Man]

My view is you should put the new drive in the enclosure and clone the old internal drive to it. Then boot from the new drive while it's still in the enclosure to verify the cloning process worked. After that, put the new drive in.

 

[MattA]

Both of those are excellent ideas. Now I just need an enclosure for next time.

BTW, the 750GB drive is performing perfectly. It's completely transparent from the 320GB except there's more space. I installed bootcamp with Windows (so I can ditch the PC), and all is good.

I love my mini.

 

[Baby Mac]

You'd love your mini even more with an SSD, but they are still pretty small and you'd be using that enclosure to store your music, pics and videos. OWC has some pretty stylish enclosures.