# SSD in a Mac Mini (intel)



## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

was just about to pick up a dual G5 2.3GHzbut decided to soup up the Mac Mini instead.

the prices are just too good now for SSD's ($189). so I plopped in a 60GB OCZ Solid Series SSD drive last night in my Mac Mini core duo 1.66 (these are the latest value series SSD from OCZ)

one major surprises.

- 10.5 is mandatory which is a shame since I had to upgrade my PS to CS2 instead of running the faster PS7. Just slows down the one thing I wanted to speed up.

xbench drive tests shows it's about 75 now versus the stock drive recording 35

boot times on restarts and applications are greatly improved as expected. So far no real surprises.

next upgrade piece to go in is the core2duo chip 1.83 that I just ordered.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Congrats on the Mac Mini - it's a great little machine!



focal said:


> 10.5 is mandatory which is a shame since I had to upgrade my PS to CS2 instead of running the faster PS7. Just slows down the one thing I wanted to speed up.


Why not go with CS3 - a native intel suite rather than CS2 which has to run in Rosetta? If you can upgrade cheaply, I'd say put CS3 on there rather than CS2 - it'll be much faster as it's intel native instead of G5 emulated.



focal said:


> next upgrade piece to go in is the core2duo chip 1.83 that I just ordered.


Awesome, I've upgrade my CoreSolo Mac Mini to CoreDuo - its not too hard - just be sure you don't break any of the pins that hold the heatsync down on the processor - I broke on and had to order HS screws from eBay. :S


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## [email protected] (Sep 24, 2007)

cool upgrade!


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## Moscool (Jun 8, 2003)

I have an original Mini (see my signature). I there anything I can do with it outside using it at a music server for my HiFi (it's getting pretty slow under Leo and I am not interested in having different OS versions). I assume you can't upgrade a Power PC machine with an Intel chip...


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## (( p g )) (Aug 17, 2002)

Sounds like a really cool upgrade! :clap: What's involved in dropping the SSD into the Mini? Do you simply plug it into where the old hard drive was located? No other special parts are required?

I imagine that this might also work well for the AppleTV.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

(( p g )) said:


> Sounds like a really cool upgrade! :clap: What's involved in dropping the SSD into the Mini? Do you simply plug it into where the old hard drive was located? No other special parts are required?
> 
> I imagine that this might also work well for the AppleTV.


SSD drives are the same format and connections as a standard 2.5" SATA drive, so it's plug and play.


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## (( p g )) (Aug 17, 2002)

Good to know. What kind of heat do SSDs give off? I'm wondering if installing one of those would help alleviate the remarkable amount of heat generated by the AppleTV.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Moscool said:


> I have an original Mini (see my signature). I there anything I can do with it outside using it at a music server for my HiFi (it's getting pretty slow under Leo and I am not interested in having different OS versions). I assume you can't upgrade a Power PC machine with an Intel chip...


No no, you cannot upgrade the the PowerPC to an Intel chip. YOU can also add in an SSD if you like - might make things "snappier" 

Something like this would work:

Canada Computers - Flash Memory/Drives > Solid State Disk : Transcend 2.5" IDE MLC Solid State Disk 32GB (TS32GSSD25-M).

Again, SSDs are faster, but they are generally smaller (less storage space) than HDDs.

EDIT: Also, just make sure you can an ATA/IDE SSD - most these days are SATA - but he G4 Minis Use an IDE Hard Drive interface.


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## macbearps (May 21, 2008)

*Choose an IDE/ATA SSD carefully*

Something like this would work:

Canada Computers - Flash Memory/Drives > Solid State Disk : Transcend 2.5" IDE MLC Solid State Disk 32GB (TS32GSSD25-M).

EDIT: Also, just make sure you can an ATA/IDE SSD - most these days are SATA - but he G4 Minis Use an IDE Hard Drive interface.[/QUOTE]

I'd be really leery of that particular Transcend IDE SDD linked here. It's a DOG SLOW model from Transcend's earlier (discontinued) generation of SSD drives. 

Agreed -You really do have to search carefully for an ATA/IDE based SSD since most are SATA. But you can find them and you want _this years_ models and not last years. Google up the part/model numbers and look for specs that show read speeds over 100+ MB/s range and writes not much below 75 MB/s.

Remember the IDE/ATA spec maxes out at 100 or 133 MB/s - And solid state drive technology has advanced sooooo much in the past year that current SSDs are now faster than an ATA bus! So that's why _MOST_ SSD's are using SATA 150 or 300 so that it can actually keep up! 

FLASH! Cheap, Low-Cost, High-Performance SSD Upgrade Drives


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## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

fyrefly said:


> Congrats on the Mac Mini - it's a great little machine!
> 
> Why not go with CS3 - a native intel suite rather than CS2 which has to run in Rosetta? If you can upgrade cheaply, I'd say put CS3 on there rather than CS2 - it'll be much faster as it's intel native instead of G5 emulated.
> 
> Awesome, I've upgrade my CoreSolo Mac Mini to CoreDuo - its not too hard - just be sure you don't break any of the pins that hold the heatsync down on the processor - I broke on and had to order HS screws from eBay. :S


I love the Mac MIni and changed over all my PM G4's to them years ago (5 in the company now). Then transitioned a few to Intel versions. 

CS3/4 isn't in the budget, but I just may have to bit the bullet to get the native software. Our company isn't a power user and usually upgrades by necessity every 3 versions to keep our license current.



(( p g )) said:


> Good to know. What kind of heat do SSDs give off? I'm wondering if installing one of those would help alleviate the remarkable amount of heat generated by the AppleTV.


it's hard to gauge the heat as the temp gauge doesn't register now or I forgot to hook up something.



Moscool said:


> I have an original Mini (see my signature). I there anything I can do with it outside using it at a music server for my HiFi (it's getting pretty slow under Leo and I am not interested in having different OS versions). I assume you can't upgrade a Power PC machine with an Intel chip...


3 of our Mini's are dedicated to running business aps (excel and filemaker). And when the staff should be working instead, surfing terminals. it's cheap and effective.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Tigerdirect.ca has a somewhat decent deal on a SATAII SSD drive right now - 

OCZ Core Series 64GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive OCZSSD2-1C64G in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

$127.99 after $100 MIR for a 64GB SSD, seems ok. The OCZ CoreSeries seems like a middle of the road SSD. I'd assume Mac users would have a better time with this drive 'cause Windows (at least XP) is not optimized for SSD use while I assume OS X is (since Apple sells SSD-equipped computers).


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## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

fyrefly said:


> Tigerdirect.ca has a somewhat decent deal on a SATAII SSD drive right now -
> 
> OCZ Core Series 64GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive OCZSSD2-1C64G in Canada at TigerDirect.ca
> 
> $127.99 after $100 MIR for a 64GB SSD, seems ok. The OCZ CoreSeries seems like a middle of the road SSD. I'd assume Mac users would have a better time with this drive 'cause Windows (at least XP) is not optimized for SSD use while I assume OS X is (since Apple sells SSD-equipped computers).


it's online ordering as I went to the store and they didn't have any SSD. I ended up getting the newer SOLID series at Modcom.

I read people getting the CORE series to work with 10.4, but the SOLID series only would format with 10.5.


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## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

fyrefly said:


> Awesome, I've upgrade my CoreSolo Mac Mini to CoreDuo - its not too hard - just be sure you don't break any of the pins that hold the heatsync down on the processor - I broke on and had to order HS screws from eBay. :S



just finished with the Core2Duo 1.83 upgrade T5600

as expected I broke two of the heat sink clips and had to order from ebay 

luckily this SSD drive had a USB port so I just booted from it on another mini and kept on working while I waited for the nylon screws

xbench is up to 139 now with the SSD and core2duo

Xbench: Comparison


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## Gossamer (Oct 30, 2006)

*Focal - about your SSD drive install....*

I'm thinking of installing an OCZ drive too, the OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 120GB SATA II
found here: PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs

I wanted to ask, have seen a significant increase in cold boot time, working with media files etc? I'd just like some idea of what to expect in real world terms.

Last, in your post you mentioned "_next upgrade piece to go in is the core2duo chip 1.83 that I just ordered_.

What will that do may I ask? I'm currently running the latest mac mini: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz.

Thanks.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Gossamer said:


> I'm thinking of installing an OCZ drive too, the OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 120GB SATA II
> found here: PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs
> 
> I wanted to ask, have seen a significant increase in cold boot time, working with media files etc? I'd just like some idea of what to expect in real world terms.
> ...


He says in his first post, his Mini was a Mac Mini core duo 1.66, so the 1.83 is a bit faster.


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## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

computer's been great....it's a workhorse at the office for day to day office stuff...but I still boot up CS5 PS and IL for some light duty touch up work.

cold boot up times are as reputation for an SSD, fast...system updates don't require downtown for more than a few minutes from shut down to working again.

I have the same OCZ solid SSD in my older MacBook also now. wouldn't hesitate to upgrade low storage requirement computers to SSD.

the core duo to core2duo upgrade was more a hobby thing... I did it cause I could. I am not a power CPU user, but a power user (lots of programs used and multitasking), but using a MacPro or an up to date iMac really shows my mini is starting to age....gracefully though....





Gossamer said:


> I'm thinking of installing an OCZ drive too, the OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 120GB SATA II
> found here: PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs
> 
> I wanted to ask, have seen a significant increase in cold boot time, working with media files etc? I'd just like some idea of what to expect in real world terms.
> ...


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## Gossamer (Oct 30, 2006)

*SSD Drive Upgrade...*

Sorry guys, I just made the assumption you had a 2.4 core duo mini. I love mine so far, but I might wait awhile until the price of the OCZ's come down a bit - maybe in the spring, we'll see how much a 240GB goes down.

Much thanks.


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## focal (Jan 7, 2003)

Gossamer said:


> Sorry guys, I just made the assumption you had a 2.4 core duo mini. I love mine so far, but I might wait awhile until the price of the OCZ's come down a bit - maybe in the spring, we'll see how much a 240GB goes down.
> 
> Much thanks.


120/250GB will not be enough...

just get a 120GB and use an external drive...you'll get most of the benefits of SSD

another option is the hybrid drive...4GB flash and 500GB disk. My brother uses that drive in his Mac Pro


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