Was going to install SSD today, should I wait?

[powerbook911]

I have a 2011 mac mini server with 2x500GB hard drives 7200RPM.

Right now it is setup as RAID 0. I was going to put a SSD in the lower drive today, Crucial MX100 512GB. This would hold everything on my machine, except my iTunes content. Outside of the iTunes, it would have been about 210GB. iTunes is a bit complicated because I have most of the video located on another drive, but iTunes is approx. another 250GB for the non-video stuff I was going to try to move it to be solely on the upper factory hard drive in the box.

I'm simply finding it difficult to deal with iTunes content especially since I already had it split between two locations, and I'm not sure I'm going to like dealing with this. One option is to learn to deal with that both now and going forward.

Or, I could return the MX100 arriving today and for only about $140 more, wait a week and switch to the M500 960GB. Would I lose lots of performance on this older generation drive?

As a third option, I could install the MX100 today but set it up as a Fusion drive alongside the 500GB hard drive that I am leaving in the machine.

What would you do? Thanks!

 

[hfg]

I have a 2011 i5 Mini being used as a iTunes server and a TimeMachine/Archive NAS. My current solution is to replace the upper hard disk with a 2 TB Samsung 5400 rpm hard disk, and put a Crucial M4 256 GB SSD in the lower bay. The hard disk is fine for serving up streaming video and music. The NAS TimeMachine backup for all my household's computers is done to an external RAID-5 box and gives the Server something to do when it is (mostly) idle. I have also just recently put my Pegasus J4 (same form factor) with 4 ea. 1TB 7200 raid disks in RAID-5 to act as an "archive and data" NAS storage for access from all my computers for stuff that doesn't need to be on the local SSD. Since the Mini is self-contained for iTunes Server functions, I can remove the external drives at any time as my needs change.

Note, I had previously replaced both original hard disks with 2TB 5400 disks running in RAID-0 and it worked great as a mostly unattended Server for iTunes content and shared NAS data archive. Granted, the boot time was slow, and when I logged into it to perform any maintenance, and it felt typically sluggish after becoming accustomed to SSD response times.

 

[powerbook911]

Thanks hfg!

I may go ahead and install what I have tonight. If I waited, the 960gb seems the better long term value if the m500 is not too inferior to the mx100, but then I got to thinking that who knows in 6 or 9 months I may want a retina iMac or something, so I might as well save some money for now. I think I finally got the iTunes stuff copied correctly too, my fingers are crossed.

 

[powerbook911]

I got the upgrade completed for '11 mini server. Mx100 on bottom drive 512gb with factory 500gb 7200rpm on top.

It would have been thirty minutes or less but I kept trying to make things perfect. Noticed a sound when I shake mini, but it's the power supply slightly moving that I never touched so I disassembled again for nothing haha

I hope to not have to open it anytime soon if ever. It's not that hard but I was concerned something could happen.

Time machine restore is 55 percent there. Can't wait to live life on a ssd. Normally a time machine restore, this computer would get noisy. I guess ssd is so cool that the fan doesn't have to run as loud. Cool. Computer is so cool to touch.

The factory 7200 drives on top of each other was probably fairly warm I'm guessing.

 

[hfg]

Congratulations ... glad your upgrade was successful!

 

[powerbook911]

I'm fully up and running now. It flies compared to my 2 7200 RPM hard drive Raid 0 setup before it. It must prolong the entire machine's life as much cooler as it seems to run.

Funny thing, I remember at one time computers felt nearly this fast navigating the OS and apps with hard drives. I guess ever increasing application sizes, operating systems, etc. got the better of hard drive speeds over the years.

I'll have my fingers crossed the drive remains reliable.