ssd mac mini questions that i cant find.

[waltercln]

first off i am really no pro at this, and im thinking of taking a shot at it. my question to you all is i have the 2011 mac mini and everything it pretty much stock on it. Im confused after watching this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wcKCYo_Xw

so there are two hard drives in the mac mini correct? i would like to put an ssd in one of these slots but still maintain the hard drive that the os is in with all my files, is this possible? i would like to avoid formatting and reinstalling lion at all costs, don't have the time for all that. I just want to install an ssd but keep the hard drive with everything intact, all my files plus the os on. My question is this possible? and if so do i remove the first hd or the second one on the bottom.

any help is much appreciated.

 

[ivnj]

Just get an external and save the trouble. Intel can boot from both usb and firewire.

 

[waltercln]

Just get an external and save the trouble. Intel can boot from both usb and firewire.

didn't think of that, so what im asking isn't possible? do you know of any good external ones?

 

[philipma1957]

okay only one 2011 mac mini comes with 2 drives the others have and empty spot and you need to buy a cable. it is not that easy to put in the second drive. my advice is use thunderbolt and an ssd. here are two threads


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1317577/

 

[spike8585]

...i would like to put an ssd in one of these slots but still maintain the hard drive that the os is in with all my files, is this possible?

The benefit of an SSD is the speed. You will only really benefit from the speed if you put the OS and all of you apps on it.

I would suggest adding your SSD, then when you have time, use lions TimeMachine migration to move everything to your SSD. (edit: then make sure to go to settings, startup disk, and select the SSD as your startup disk. If you fail to do this, you will have to hold option while you boot, then select the SSD to boot from.)
You would then see a HUGE speed boost. Until then, you would just have fast transfers to the secondary drive, limited to the read speed of the mechanical HDD. If you use photoshop or any other programs that use a scratch disk, you could also use your SSD this way, and it would give you huge improvements in that application.