7 Responses for "Mac mini Hard Drive Upgrades"

1. Toejam

   January 27th, 2005 at 9:20 pm

   1

   I happened to read this on the macintouch website. (There was no direct link to the info…you’ll have to scroll down the macintouch site to find the text.)

   We received the fast Hitachi 60GB drive we ordered and installed it in the Mac Mini last night. Here’s a tip: Don’t even consider doing a hard drive installation in the Mini unless you’re a confident, hard-core hacker. It’s neither easy nor fun, and there’s a lot of potential for trouble.
   Just opening the case is pretty tricky (although a thin kitchen spatula worked as the crucial tool). Once the case is open, doing a RAM upgrade (at least in a model without AirPort and Bluetooth) seems pretty reasonable. But changing the hard drive is far more difficult, involving lots of different-sized screws (some very tricky to access), dismantling multiple components (surrounded by multiple wire assemblies, taped in place), removing a fan to access the last disk-mounting screw, and so forth. Keeping track of everything for re-assembly is quite a challenge, and even putting the enclosure back together at the end is tricky.

   They also go on to mention they had a hard time getting OS X to install on the new hard drive.

   With that said, I did run across another article/blog where the individual didn’t appear to have any problems with a new hard drive install. Sorry, but I don’t remember the site. If I can find it when I get home, I will pass it along.

2. JC

   January 28th, 2005 at 11:00 am

   2

   I have to wonder… what about getting a nice 7200 (or faster) firewire drive and installing all your apps on that… would that offer similar performance gains or do you lose more than that by moving to an external hard drive?

3. MacGeek

   January 28th, 2005 at 12:18 pm

   3

   Actually, you can even boot off the external firewire drive, so you could essentially “replace” the slow internal drive with an external version.

   Of course, I think that defeats the purpose of the “mini” in mini.

   Now we need some vendor to come out with an external enclosure for 3.5″ drives that has the same form factor as the mini and can sit underneath (since you are not supposed to put anything on top!), to add to an elegant stack of mini peripherals.

4. Andrew Greenway

   April 26th, 2005 at 5:15 am

   4

   M9 -Mac Mini Enclosure

   http://www.macpower.com.tw

   Macpower & Tytech Technology Co., Ltd. has long been well respected by Apple users for its unique smart storage solutions and USB/Firewire external enclosures. Macpower has furthered its commitment to support Mac users with the launch of its new M9. The M9 is a new external disk drive enclosure which also has a built in port replicator. It was created specifically to complement.

   Technical Specifications:

   4 USB 2.0 High Speed Ports (Hub)
   3 Firewire Ports
   Interactive Cooling System (Heat Sink & Auto Sensing Smart Fan)
   Supports any 3.5″ Hard Drive (ATA 6 Compatible)
   External Power Adapter

5. Guy

   May 9th, 2005 at 1:47 pm

   5

   Looks like this might be where MicroNet got the case for their new miniMate.

6. Keith Rowley

   May 17th, 2005 at 8:27 am

   6

   Yes, i agree that MicroNet’s MiniMate uses the Macpower enclosure. But it looks like MicroNet is only selling their MiniMate with hard drives included, not enclosure only. And they are not cheap. I just inquired at Macpower’s website about the possibility of purchasing JUST the enclosure, without a hard drive…

7. KipJT

   January 22nd, 2007 at 2:28 am

   7

   Has anyone else run into the issue that the hard drive was physically soldered onto the bus connector?