I've built all my PC's after my IBM PC-AT (vintage mid-'80's). My two PC's are holding up so it's been about 6 years since I've built my last PC although I need to go in every so often to poke around. It's not quite the same and the OWC/iFixit videos make it look easy-peasy. I would guess that the other folks who have contributed to this thread also have had experience opening up computers. While we've been successful at replacing the drive, we know how fragile these small components are. In my case, I can also say that one of the connectors to the logic board was different from what was in the videos and the way it came off was not the way I would have expected. In the case of the Mini, people who claim to have worked with computers before have broken the clips that hold the RAM, fer godsakes! - and then they blame Apple for that. So - we're just making our best assessment of the risks and benefits of the different scenarios that your situation presents.
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which SSD for 2012 Mac Mini
- Thread starter chadcj7
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I've bought 2012 Mini Servers for a reason. Listen to treekram, I'll never try to remove a Mini's upper drive again...
Make sure you call your best 6-inch-tall friend, and that they bring over a bottle of Bushmills 16-year...
You both are starting to make me nervous!!! I am looking forward to this challenge now. I went ahead and ordered the OWC kit to hopefully help with this. I will keep everyone updated. Also does anyone have any small friends I can borrow for this project on Wednesday?LOL. Thanks
The OWC kit is great and the videos quote instructive. I got it for my parents' 2012 Mac Mini (with drive in the upper bay), and installed this last year. I didn't need to remove the logic board or anything like that. Trust me, you'll be fine - just take your time and follow the videos!
The only really fiddly bit that I remember is rerouting and reattaching the antenna connector.
The rest is pretty straight forward although detaching and reattaching the IR sensor and the power connector always makes me nervous.
I upgraded my 2012 Mac Mini with an 850 evo this weekend. Overall it was pretty straightforward. The only step that took some time was properly reattaching the antenna plate. I had a hard time getting it to fit properly. With patience and some fiddling I eventually got it in properly in place.
I have two 2012 Mac Mini servers. One of the reasons I decided to get the server version was that they came with two drives and I didn't have to order the kit to add a second drive.
I use 500 Gb Samsung 850 Evo on both. I doubt that I can tell the difference between the EVO and the PRO, unless I put two identical machines, one with the EVO and the other with the PRO side by side, and time them.
I've been in and out of the Minis so many times that I can get to even the top (most buried-in) HDD in less then 10 minutes. To replace the bottom disk (easy), I just remove the grill that holds the WiFi antenna but leave the antenna wire connected, remove the fan, remove the black plastic shroud on the side and wiggle the disk out. Don't even bother to remove the memory as it is not in the way of anything.
If you need to get to the top disk, have no fear. You don't need any of the fancy tools like the logic board remover. Just use two small watch repair screwdrivers and pry the board out as it is shown on the OWC video. You can still leave the memory chips in. I don't know why do they tell people to remove them. Pay close attention to detaching the power cables gently from the logic board and watch the video carefully on how to remove the power supply. The rest is easy.
For the record however, both my Minis never boot as fast as my 2012 MBA. Black Magic tests reveal that the W/R speeds are about 550 on all machines, yet MBA still boots much faster.
With the SSD, Mac Mini server is plenty fast to launch and run programs once its up. For some reason, one of the most taxing jobs for the Mini is importing video clips to iMovie. It takes nearly an hour to import an hour long video. While the CPU is not even maxed out during the import, the CPU fan works like a hair dryer.
Have fun modding
I use 500 Gb Samsung 850 Evo on both. I doubt that I can tell the difference between the EVO and the PRO, unless I put two identical machines, one with the EVO and the other with the PRO side by side, and time them.
I've been in and out of the Minis so many times that I can get to even the top (most buried-in) HDD in less then 10 minutes. To replace the bottom disk (easy), I just remove the grill that holds the WiFi antenna but leave the antenna wire connected, remove the fan, remove the black plastic shroud on the side and wiggle the disk out. Don't even bother to remove the memory as it is not in the way of anything.
If you need to get to the top disk, have no fear. You don't need any of the fancy tools like the logic board remover. Just use two small watch repair screwdrivers and pry the board out as it is shown on the OWC video. You can still leave the memory chips in. I don't know why do they tell people to remove them. Pay close attention to detaching the power cables gently from the logic board and watch the video carefully on how to remove the power supply. The rest is easy.
For the record however, both my Minis never boot as fast as my 2012 MBA. Black Magic tests reveal that the W/R speeds are about 550 on all machines, yet MBA still boots much faster.
With the SSD, Mac Mini server is plenty fast to launch and run programs once its up. For some reason, one of the most taxing jobs for the Mini is importing video clips to iMovie. It takes nearly an hour to import an hour long video. While the CPU is not even maxed out during the import, the CPU fan works like a hair dryer.
Have fun modding
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Thanks for this quick run down. I did buy the kit and probably could have gotten by without it but I guess it was a small insurance policy! I am really not worried about doing this. I am actually really looking forward to it as I have not played around inside a PC in a while. I may actually end up using this more of a desktop PC once I get done with it as it may run better then my macbook pro. I did go with the PRO due to getting free shipping and only a small difference with amazon prime
No worries, take your time, heed advice and watch the iFixit videos first! Good luck!
I'm in the same school of thought as bingeciren regarding buying the Server model if you can get your hands on one. I keep an external SSD with OS X 10.10 on it to RAID 0 the two spinners until an SSD gets installed, and am considering putting a couple of 850 Pro SSDs in RAID 0 in my personal Mini now that the prices are dropping...
Back in the 80s I used to autocross a Datsun 510 that I pretty much built and modded myself. The first time I took out and replaced the struts and rear springs it took me 3 hours, but I got it down to under 20 minutes for a full strut/spring change at the track - practice helps! I liken this to your upcoming challenge - getting under that Datsun was tough at 6'7", always could have used a bit more room for the tools...
In my research on prep for surgery of my mac mini tomorrow I did a little research on getting the drive setup. I have thought about setting it up before I even install since I already have a boot up usb. Also I was reading in to trim. Does everyone enable trim on their drive now that it is available via Apple? Also I have read some areas where people don't think is is supported by the samsung 850 pro? Thanks
I always enable Trim. I used to resort to using 3rd party programs like the Trim Enabler but now that It's available from Apple, I use that one. So far I haven't seen any adverse effects but to be honest, I don't know if it really helps either.
There are huge discussions all over the place, including this forum, about what it does and how it differs from the built in garbage collection.
After reading many of those articles extensively, I concluded that no matter what the manufacturers like OWC or Samsung claims that their controllers are doing essentially what Trim does, none is a substitute for the actual Trim.
I wanted to give every one an update. Received my SSD today from Amazon and after about 30 minutes of looking at pics on the internet I had my drive in. I will be honest, I did not find it very hard at all. It was actually pretty straight forward. I am actually having a harder time getting the OS on there. I am now restoring from a Time Machine backup, since I think my El Capitan start up usb was bad. If I notice issues after i get things up and running I will create another USB start up and install that way.
For anyone on the fence on this upgrade I would recommend it. I am sure I will notice speed increases especially with the 16gb of ram I put in last week. Thank you everyone for the advice on this fun upgrade process
For anyone on the fence on this upgrade I would recommend it. I am sure I will notice speed increases especially with the 16gb of ram I put in last week. Thank you everyone for the advice on this fun upgrade process
Did you just put in the SSD and leave the HDD where it was?
If you did, as one of the posts suggested you can just clone the HDD to the SSD. If you prefer not to do that, you can put the install application on the HDD and just run the program from there. If you took out the HDD and have a USB enclosure or docking station you can also do this (you will need to boot from the disk where the install program is). For one of my installs, I tried it from a bootable USB and it didn't work for me. It installed but upon restart, it couldn't get past about 3/4 of the progress bar. I tried to figure out what the problem was and retried it but there was nothing obvious so I copied the same installer program onto an HDD and it worked from there. I see a fair number of posts from people having problems when they do the install from a bootable USB so while it does work for the majority of people, I think that if you have problems and if you can, you should install from an HDD (the system needs to be booted from this HDD).
If you did, as one of the posts suggested you can just clone the HDD to the SSD. If you prefer not to do that, you can put the install application on the HDD and just run the program from there. If you took out the HDD and have a USB enclosure or docking station you can also do this (you will need to boot from the disk where the install program is). For one of my installs, I tried it from a bootable USB and it didn't work for me. It installed but upon restart, it couldn't get past about 3/4 of the progress bar. I tried to figure out what the problem was and retried it but there was nothing obvious so I copied the same installer program onto an HDD and it worked from there. I see a fair number of posts from people having problems when they do the install from a bootable USB so while it does work for the majority of people, I think that if you have problems and if you can, you should install from an HDD (the system needs to be booted from this HDD).
I replaced the old drive with the new SSD and did not leave it in there. I am still running only one drive. The reason for this is I don't need the extra space as I have a NAS with a lot of space.
I cleared the drive with the disk utility and then after not being able o reboot I actually just put mountain lion on it as it was an option. After installing that I then restarted and did a Time Machine backup. It is finished this morning so i will see how things run. If for some reason there are issues I created another usb with el capitan and will try that
Actually there are some quick and easy ways to transfer the contents of your old disk to a new one.
1) Before you install the new drive in, connect the new SSD with the help of a drive enclosure or SATA->USB adapter, boot from the recovery partition by holding Command-R during the boot, and use the Disk Utility to clone your existing drive to the USB SSD.After this you can install the SSD into your Mac.
2) Install the SSD into your Mac, connect the old drive to the USB using the same SATA->USB adapter, boot from the USB drive while holding the ALT key as you boot and choose the USB drive to boot from, then again clone your USB drive to the SSD in the Mac.
3) Use the Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and clone your drive to the SSD the same way and install into your Mac. CCC will also ask you to create the recovery partition in the new drive. Do it!
Number 3 is my preferred method and I never use the Time Machine approach because it just takes too much time.
1) Before you install the new drive in, connect the new SSD with the help of a drive enclosure or SATA->USB adapter, boot from the recovery partition by holding Command-R during the boot, and use the Disk Utility to clone your existing drive to the USB SSD.After this you can install the SSD into your Mac.
2) Install the SSD into your Mac, connect the old drive to the USB using the same SATA->USB adapter, boot from the USB drive while holding the ALT key as you boot and choose the USB drive to boot from, then again clone your USB drive to the SSD in the Mac.
3) Use the Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and clone your drive to the SSD the same way and install into your Mac. CCC will also ask you to create the recovery partition in the new drive. Do it!
Number 3 is my preferred method and I never use the Time Machine approach because it just takes too much time.
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Congratulations on the successful SSD install - that's good time for the upper drive replacement.
Yes, that was a smooth installation. By the way, I think that r6mile meant the lower bay in that post about his or her parents' drive replacement.
Yes, that was a smooth installation. By the way, I think that r6mile meant the lower bay in that post about his or her parents' drive replacement.
Sorry if that was confusing. I meant to say that my parents' 2012 Mac Mini was a one of a few units which came with the existing HDD installed in the upper bay, so the SSD had to be installed in the lower bay. This is what OWC said: