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I own this item
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmultidock

I also have a lot of ssd's

I have been booting with
thunderbolt external drives for years. So my cost is zero. I have no need use the expensive small internal pcie's options.

there are cheaper thunderbolt 2 externals then this one.

These externals end up being used for 2 or 3 pc upgrades. As mac decides to lock down it's desktops these are a work around. also this blackmagic will allow you to run 2 mac at the same time.

I see. That is serious business! Well, I do have my mini in a 15U rack, but I don't see myself springing for that Blackmagic dock that you have :p
 
I purchased the base 2014 and the mid 2014

every here is missing that these minis allow for t-bolt 2 booting. no muss no fuss really fast stable external ssd . use the crappy internal for your backup.
you won't need more ram as the ssd will swap out and ram won't be as bad not like swapping out to a 5400 hdd.

The base mini is cheap 499. the 5000 graphics are better then the current 4000 and the top speed of the cpu is not 1.4 but ramps to 2.7 while the i5 mid ramp to 3.1 ... If you are like me and going to run you mini with an external t-bolt 2 ssd you will be fine with the stock cheap 499 model. besides after I test both models I will return one . so if the stock 499 is too slow I will just keep the 699.

down side of these minis is lack of quad cpu.

Have you considered a USB 3 enclosure with UASP support? You could get 400 Mbps read speeds with one of those for much cheaper than thunderbolt, unless of course you have drive(s) that far exceed 400mbps or a raid setup that could really use the thunderbolt bandwidth.

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Never mind, you stated why you use thunderbolt.
 
Have you considered a USB 3 enclosure with UASP support? You could get 400 Mbps read speeds with one of those for much cheaper than thunderbolt, unless of course you have drive(s) that far exceed 400mbps or a raid setup that could really use the thunderbolt bandwidth.

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Never mind, you stated why you use thunderbolt.

yeah I have about 11 ssd's most at sata III speeds. I am keeping my 2012 quad and one of the 2014's.
 
What so good about Thunderbolt booting? I assume you mean for OS X?

Assume you upgrade via BTO to a 256 or 512GB PCIe SSD for you boot/applications, is using TB2 for booting faster in this situation?
Using Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 will significantly reduce performance (latency, IOPS) as compared to a direct PCIe installation.
 
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PCie Connector / Flex Cable

Now waiting patiently (or not) to see how the PCie SSD attaches and if a cable will be made available. so that I can install the SSD
 
Good news. The tear down from i fixit show a second Apple PCIe slot on the motherboard. For those willing to loose wireless, that slot may be able to support a second Apple PCIe blade Ssd. The only limitation would be the number of PCIe channels that are assigned to the slot.
 
Good news. The tear down from i fixit show a second Apple PCIe slot on the motherboard. For those willing to loose wireless, that slot may be able to support a second Apple PCIe blade Ssd. The only limitation would be the number of PCIe channels that are assigned to the slot.

I'm thinking you could still get wireless with a USB dongle.
 
Good news. The tear down from i fixit show a second Apple PCIe slot on the motherboard. For those willing to loose wireless, that slot may be able to support a second Apple PCIe blade Ssd. The only limitation would be the number of PCIe channels that are assigned to the slot.

You'd also lose bluetooth wouldn't you ? Which is required for handoff, airdrop etc..
 
I own this item
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmultidock

I also have a lot of ssd's

I have been booting with
thunderbolt external drives for years. So my cost is zero. I have no need use the expensive small internal pcie's options.

there are cheaper thunderbolt 2 externals then this one.

These externals end up being used for 2 or 3 pc upgrades. As mac decides to lock down it's desktops these are a work around. also this blackmagic will allow you to run 2 mac at the same time.

Are you dual booting Windows with this thing? I went ahead and ordered a nMP, and have been exploring options to dual boot with the Windows OS exclusively on a an external SSD.
 
philipma: did u test thise new minis? which obe do you plan to keep?

all: can anyone owning new mini confirm that it will be possible to update 5400rpm only config with aftermarket PCIe flash? (without loosing airport of course) - in other words, is in no ssd/fussion config one spare PCIe port that may be used with aftermarket PCIe ssd? thx
 
all: can anyone owning new mini confirm that it will be possible to update 5400rpm only config with aftermarket PCIe flash? (without loosing airport of course) - in other words, is in no ssd/fussion config one spare PCIe port that may be used with aftermarket PCIe ssd? thx

From the teardown it appears there is an unused PCIe bus waiting for a cable/adapter to be attached when only a spinner is present (see step 8). As with other parts that weren't included in previous models, 3rd parties came up with them over time for later expansion.
 
Are you dual booting Windows with this thing? I went ahead and ordered a nMP, and have been exploring options to dual boot with the Windows OS exclusively on a an external SSD.

philipma: did u test thise new minis? which obe do you plan to keep?

all: can anyone owning new mini confirm that it will be possible to update 5400rpm only config with aftermarket PCIe flash? (without loosing airport of course) - in other words, is in no ssd/fussion config one spare PCIe port that may be used with aftermarket PCIe ssd? thx

At this point I have 1 2014 on hand using a base model. All I have done is copy the internal stock booter on the 2014 to a 250gb samsung ssd in the black magic 4 drive unit.

I can say this much so far the picture is really good for netflix. watched the Arrow 3 episodes

amazon video watched 6 episodes of alpha house.

ulive watched some house hunters.

my base model was stock 499 4gb ram.

ran a black magic speed test and got 350 read 450 write for the samsung.

I need to load a windows via bootcamp an see if it works. since I have 4 ssd slots it should work. I also have been able to run a second mac mini with this . the unit has 2 t-bolt slots and I was running 2 minis with it but that needs further testing.

I will make this statement an ssd thunderbolt as your booter and the base 2014 mac mini is very good media pc running a 1080p tv.

it is easy to see the picture is better. with the 5000 graphics.
 
I will make this statement an ssd thunderbolt as your booter and the base 2014 mac mini is very good media pc running a 1080p tv.

But you are only dual-booting via TB2 for OS X, right? I have not found an elegant way to dual boot for a Windows OS, that is 100% separate from OS X.
 
But you are only dual-booting via TB2 for OS X, right? I have not found an elegant way to dual boot for a Windows OS, that is 100% separate from OS X.

For now that is correct.

I have been very busy and have not set this up as a bootcamp. I used to do it with my 2010 mac pro. I had a program that allowed for a drive choice. between winodws and I think snow leopard. I will play with it for the next week.

For now I can use 1 2014 base 499 model as a killer apple tv.

I still need a quad core for other work.
 
For now that is correct.

I have been very busy and have not set this up as a bootcamp. I used to do it with my 2010 mac pro. I had a program that allowed for a drive choice. between winodws and I think snow leopard. I will play with it for the next week.

For now I can use 1 2014 base 499 model as a killer apple tv.

I still need a quad core for other work.

Well if you come up with a solution, please share! :)
 
Just ordered the $699 2004 mac mini and upgraded to the 256 gb pciE flash. We'll see what apple gives me.

Do you plan on opening it up for a peek under the hood?

Still can’t find any definite confirmation on whether the $699+256gb Apple SSD config can easily (or somewhat easily) accommodate a 2nd 2.5" SATA drive.
 
256GB SSD is sufficient but we never buy "sufficient" when we go for Apple.
I think one poster is right that Apple should not even consider offering the 1.4Ghz model. I don't mind the soldered RAM but at least offer us quad-core machine with dual SSD RAID function. Maybe next year, maybe next year.
 
Just ordered the $699 2004 mac mini and upgraded to the 256 gb pciE flash. We'll see what apple gives me.

I'm going for the same config $699 + PCIe SSD. Did you get the 16GB RAM option? If not why not ?
 
Good news. The tear down from i fixit show a second Apple PCIe slot on the motherboard. For those willing to loose wireless, that slot may be able to support a second Apple PCIe blade Ssd. The only limitation would be the number of PCIe channels that are assigned to the slot.

the pcie drives are slow actually really slow in the most critical spot 4k reads

if you do t-bolt externally your 4k reads will be quicker which is what you want for a booter.
 

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I just read that Apple disable TRIM on non-authorized SSDs. First time I've heard of anything like this. Will I get TRIM if I were to buy a 2.5" SSD or any third party PCIe SSDs for the 2014 Mac Mini? If I can't get TRIM, then that's a bit of a dealbreaker.
 
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