New Mini Mac owner

[craig73]

Hi,
Always worked on MAC's but never had the chance to own one till now,
brought my mini off a friend who couldn't get used to it (their loss my gain at £100).
Now I'm looking to upgrade it and hope this is the best place to get advice.
It's the 1.83 GHz Intel core 2 duo with 1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 75 GB hard-drive and is currently running Mac OS X 10.5.8.
What I really need to know is how easy is it to upgrade OS, ram and hard-drive as I'm only use to tinkering with (dare i say it) PC's, and what would be best for this particular set up.
Thanks in advance for any help
Craig

 

[miles01110]

You can find some guides on how to replace those various parts here:

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Mini_Model_A1176#guideList

You should be able to decide for yourself if it's something you can do at home. Different people have different comfort levels opening up electronics.

 

[Neodym]

I do recommend switching to SnowLeopard (OSX 10.6), as it is easy to upgrade and offers nice performance improvements at a low price, which may come handy on the older hardware in your mini.

Hardwarewise you should upgrade the Ram to at least the officially supported 2GB (unofficially 4GB Ram using 2GB modules is said to be possible, though resulting in 3GB usable Ram due to hardware limitations).

Upgrading the hard drive may also be a good idea - depending on your budget a SSD should bring the biggest noticeable performance improvement.

If you're interested in more details about your mini, you could check out EveryMac.com as well.

 

[satcomer]

Watch some install videos on you Mac Mini model. You will get a lot of pointers from those videos.