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Mac Mini - 2 Internal Drives

S

strawberrynatto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2014
12
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I ordered a late 2012 Mac Mini. My best friend gifted me a new Samsung 840 Pro 128gb SSD. Overkill or not, this MM is for use as a headless server for my music system.

I have a PSU for the MM, as well. So that, plus the SSD will see me gutting the MM (I have experience; no worries). Since going this far anyway, I decided I want to add a second drive to use solely for my music library. Library size is currently at 350gb and growing at an average pace - a few gb per year.

I can go SSD or HDD, but want to do what makes the most sense. Not just one or the other for the sake of doing so.

If SSD, I want to stick with Samsung, and that leaves either the EVO 750gb or the EVO 1tb. Not sure if theres any issue with using a Pro along with an EVO?

If HDD, I would go with either a Western Digital 1tb or Samsung 2tb (M9T - but guess I have to break it out of an external case, correct?).

Not sure if I want to spent $500 for a 1tb SSD, when I can get a 1tb HDD (or larger) for less than half the price.

Any thoughts on one way over the other?
 
strawberrynatto said:
I ordered a late 2012 Mac Mini. My best friend gifted me a new Samsung 840 Pro 128gb SSD. Overkill or not, this MM is for use as a headless server for my music system.

I have a PSU for the MM, as well. So that, plus the SSD will see me gutting the MM (I have experience; no worries). Since going this far anyway, I decided I want to add a second drive to use solely for my music library. Library size is currently at 350gb and growing at an average pace - a few gb per year.

I can go SSD or HDD, but want to do what makes the most sense. Not just one or the other for the sake of doing so.

If SSD, I want to stick with Samsung, and that leaves either the EVO 750gb or the EVO 1tb. Not sure if theres any issue with using a Pro along with an EVO?

If HDD, I would go with either a Western Digital 1tb or Samsung 2tb (M9T - but guess I have to break it out of an external case, correct?).

Not sure if I want to spent $500 for a 1tb SSD, when I can get a 1tb HDD (or larger) for less than half the price.

Any thoughts on one way over the other?
Click to expand...

The data rates for streaming music are very low so no need for an additional SSD as the main music store. I presume you already have a backup-up strategy in place ? Maybe a set of external drives might make more sense unless you want a more compact config.
 
If hard drives are set to sleep when not in access, it may result in a minor second delay, when starting songs in iTunes (The first one only).

Also, the EVO at 250+ GB will have faster write speeds than the 128GB Pro, so I would use the first one as the boot/software drive.
 
It sounds like a terrible, terrible waste of an SSD.

You might as well keep the 128GB in there as the system disk, but I don't think there's *anything* to be gained by keeping your music on SSD rather than any cheap 5400rpm HDD.
 
drsox said:
The data rates for streaming music are very low so no need for an additional SSD as the main music store. I presume you already have a backup-up strategy in place ? Maybe a set of external drives might make more sense unless you want a more compact config.
Click to expand...

I prefer a more compact config, and honestly, wanting to minimise the amount of cables in this system, as it tends to be the weak link for sound. And if gonna open the MM up, seems logical to take advantage of the space for a 2nd drive.

Was thinking a Western Digital Blue 1tb HDD (7mm), or the HGST 1.5tb HDD (no experience with it). I'd jump on the 2tb Seagate/Samsung but it's not out anywhere, correct?

----------
mojolicious said:
It sounds like a terrible, terrible waste of an SSD.

You might as well keep the 128GB in there as the system disk, but I don't think there's *anything* to be gained by keeping your music on SSD rather than any cheap 5400rpm HDD.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I could sit and ponder the terrible waste of half the stuff I own, but life goes on. The MM is a reasonable amount of money for what it can add to a music-only system, in my opinion. The SSD boot drive was a birthday gift, so it can't get any cheaper than free.

It only leaves the main storage drive, which I was simply wondering if there's any benefit or not to going SSD. Lots of audio people seem to think yes, but in hat realm, I'm not a blind follower. Just like hearing opinions.

I'm happy to toss in a HDD and be done with it.
 
strawberrynatto said:
It only leaves the main storage drive, which I was simply wondering if there's any benefit or not to going SSD. Lots of audio people seem to think yes
Click to expand...
What reason do these 'audio people' give, though?

Seriously, chuck a 1TB HDD in there to hold the library. If it doesn't perform to your liking you're €50* down, but I genuinely can't think how an SSD will improve upon an HDD.

*****

EDIT

*For some reason I'd thought you were European, but looking again you don't give a location. Feel free to translate that €50 into whatever currency you fancy.
 
mojolicious said:
What reason do these 'audio people' give, though?

Seriously, chuck a 1TB HDD in there to hold the library. If it doesn't perform to your liking you're €50* down, but I genuinely can't think how an SSD will improve upon an HDD.

*****

EDIT

*For some reason I'd thought you were European, but looking again you don't give a location. Feel free to translate that €50 into whatever currency you fancy.
Click to expand...


One of the debates with SSD (no moving parts) vs. HDD (moving parts) is that the movement with ultimately lead to a loss in sound quality. I'm not an engineer nor a scientist, and not sitting in my listening room taking readings and measurements.

Do you think a 5400 vs. 7200 is worth the minor extra cost? Any experience with the HGST 1.5tb?
 
How on earth is a mechanical hard drive going to affect your sound quality? I think you must have misunderstood something, unless you prefer to listen to your music at 0,5 db.
 
strawberrynatto said:
One of the debates with SSD (no moving parts) vs. HDD (moving parts) is that the movement with ultimately lead to a loss in sound quality. I'm not an engineer nor a scientist, and not sitting in my listening room taking readings and measurements.

Do you think a 5400 vs. 7200 is worth the minor extra cost? Any experience with the HGST 1.5tb?
Click to expand...

Makes no difference to the audio quality if the drive moves or not. It's all about the format of the audio files and the quality of the end D:A converter. Ambient noise is another matter. If the Mini is near to your ears, then the SSD will make a difference. On the other hand a 5400rpm drive is pretty quiet (quieter then a 7200rpm drive), but most 2.5in drives are quiet anyway. HGST used to be Hitachi and they didn't make quiet drives (not as quiet as WD). Samsung used to make the quietest drives, but IME also the least reliable.

IMO the best place for a music server (or a video server, or any server) is in another room.
 
strawberrynatto said:
Do you think a 5400 vs. 7200 is worth the minor extra cost? Any experience with the HGST 1.5tb?
Click to expand...
I have a WD Scorpio Black 750GB running at 7200 and am very pleased with it, it was a good price vs storage volume (I was comparing to a 500GB SSD). I cannot hear it and I couldn't hear the prior OEM 160GB drive either. I perceive (rightly or wrongly) that the 7200 rpm is just newer better technology so that's what I went for. The Blackmagic test shows about 110 read/write (older disk was around 75 I recall and an SSD would be 250) as I have SATA 2 inside my 2009 Mini
 
strawberrynatto said:
Any experience with the HGST 1.5tb?
Click to expand...

I have one coming in a few days.

I have two 750 GB HD's in my MM.

The boot drive is a 7,200 RPM hybrid which gives me 30 second boot times.

The other drive is a 5,400 RPM which is 95% full with movies and music. Upgrading this drive to the 1.5 TB. Very fast music and movie serve times.

Hope the new drive works well...
 
strawberrynatto said:
Any thoughts on one way over the other?
Click to expand...

You do realise that your external drives thanks to USB3 are as fast as internal drives?

(My 4Tbyte USB3 disk is the fastest non-raid disk I've ever had..)
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I boot from an SSD which makes for a snappy system and store my iTunes library on the stock 5400rpm drive. It's fast where it needs it and has enough storage for my music library. I have a fast external 7200rpm drive partitioned 300Gb for multi-track audio recording and the rest for other media.
 
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