My Problem

I wanted to add a second hard drive to a Mac mini.

My Fix

Excellent!! All the required parts were in your kit and it took about 45 minutes, since I was being extremely careful to follow your instructions exactly. If I did it again, it would take even less time. I installed a second SSD and created a RAID configuration using two identical 256GB SSD's. It works great and is now super fast compared to the OEM magnetic drive that I bought it with.

My Advice

It would have been IMPOSSIBLE to do this upgrade without your kit and the included parts. I don't even know where to get all the screws, connectors, etc. I am sure that Apple doesn't/won't sell them outright. I didn't think to take any photos, since the repair manual had everything pretty much covered!

Thanks!!

My Problem

Wants a faster boot drive so I added a SSD

My Fix

I used 2 guides for this project. First the ifixit guide and another I found searching the internet. I didn't want to complete tear down the mini so here is what I did.

Unscrewed the fan. The fan connector would not release and I felt it might break so i left it attached. moved to one side.

Removed the cowling and WiFi cover. Disconnect the HD cable. Removed screw for logic board and disconnected the IR wire. I move the board back enough with the logic board tool i got from iFixit, to give me some room and remove the old HD. The old HD is in upside down and the electronics are covered. I took out the screws i and use the ones i got with the kit on back side only. No screws in front. I insert the rubber grommets on the back side and drop the HD in the bottom tray. Because of the grommets it was a little hard to get the drive in place.

Next I used the original HD screws and connect them to the SSD. Place the SSD in the top bay.

Connect both cable and put the MAC back together.

Used Carbon copy cloner to copy my original to the SSD and them booted from the SSD. Formatted the HD and then copy the user dir to the HD. So my user file are on the 500 GB HD and the mac OS on the SSD. The boot time is awesome and apps snap open.

My Advice

Check the SATA cable twice before installing the cowling. I had to tear it apart again to fix a loose cable.

My Problem

I have Mac mini with only 128GB SSD and empty 2nd bay. Time Machine backup stored on external USB HDD and used 1 usb port out of 4. As you know, USB ports are never be too many :) Previous minis has 5 ports and its covered all my external devices. Mid 2011 model have only 4 ports and useless SD card reader I never used. As you, dear reader, huh? :)

My thoughts was to use 2nd bay for Time Machine HDD and free USB port.

My Fix

I have 2,5" HDD 500GB and googled iFixit dual hard drive kit with genuine Apple SATA cable and useful things to upgrade mini by myself. Guide was perfect and process takes only 30 minutes. Thanks iFixit!!

My Advice

No advices, guide is smooth and clearly written. Just do it step by step. And yes - make backup before you start. Just in case :)

My Problem

2.7 processor, 8 Gb RAM and 750 Gb 7200 rpm were already there but sometimes you want more. In comes the iFixit kit. I got the OWC 6 Gb/s SSD drive to go with that, a 60 Gb version for just the OS...

My Fix

Well, built some pc hardware together before so I am a little experienced but I did get a little nervous with this one. If something brakes, no warranty will help me. But the how-to-video helped me out great and everything went fine. I think that a next round will cut my fixing time to half.

My Advice

In my case, the original drive wobbles a little when you place it on top of the new SSD because there are no little foam cushions to stick on it and go between. You can make some yourself by cutting some foam from a packaging fill and just tape it to the closed side of the original drive. Makes a perfect fit then.

My Problem

adding a second hdd to my mac mini

My Fix

good all in all.

My Advice

be very careful with the sata cales

i had to replace the other sata cable as well, because it broke during the reaasembling of the mac mini

My Problem

HDD that comes with Mac Mini is quite slow, already used to performance boost offered by SSD I decided to upgrade my Mac Mini, but I needed traditional HDD capacity too.

My Fix

Relatively easy, all in all it took about fifteen or so minutes. Since I tend to carry it with me to office - checked so that both HDD and SSD sit tightly in case and don't jump around, nice.

My Advice

Take your time, don't rush it, before taking next step take a closer look to ensure you have not forgot any cable. Just have to be careful and patient - connectors are tiny.

My Problem

We decided to refresh our developer workstations from 27" iMacs to Mac Mini machines with 16GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 500 GB of "Mechanical HD" and 27" Thunderbolt display. First we wanted to trial this configuration for a two months for 2 developers. Dual HD requirement meant we needed the 2nd SATA cable. Looking for it online brought us to ifixit dual HD kit for mac minis.

My Fix

First one took 30-45 minutes and we had a few issues. For example, the power socket was not as easy to remove as we thought initially. The biggest and costly (time-wise) mistake we made in first run was due to not formatting the original 500GB "Mechanical HD" before putting it in as the 2nd SATA drive. It turned out that Disk Utility fails to format the 2nd drive if it happens to be the original drive. We had to undo the entire setup and take the "Mechanical HD" out and use a USB 2 SATA cable to format it and then redo the entire process. It worked and the second mini upgrade took less than 30 minutes!

My Advice

If you are doing the same thing -- at least trying to upgrade a Mac Mini to Dual HD -- remember the following:

1. Use SuperDuper to create a disk image of your original drive onto another one and boot your system from the copy to make sure it works. Copy the image using SuperDuper to your new boot disk (in our case the SSD)

2. Make sure disk you wish to make the 2nd drive (on 2nd SATA bus) is already formatted. In our case this was the big issue. We were using the original "Mechanical HD" as the second drive and did not pre-format it before putting it inside the empty space for 2nd drive. So MAKE SURE YOU FORMAT YOUR 2ND DRIVE IF IT IS THE ORIGINAL HARD DISK. OF COURSE SAVE YOUR DATA FIRST TO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!

3. We had 1-2 left over screws as we did not keep track of them as we should have. So if you really want to be perfect, make sure you get a piece of paper and draw out screw locations and place the right screws on your paper to keep track of them

4. The power connector does not twist as easily as seen on videos so be aware of it

5. Last but not least, use a anti-static mat connected to a metal ground (we connected ours to Thunderbolt display's metal base to be safe from static electricity danger.

Hope you have a great success!

Cheers!

Kabir

My Problem

I didn't want to pay Apple's high upgrade price for an SSD so I ordered with the base 500GB drive with the intent of keeping it as the secondary data drive and installing my own SSD for the system drive.

My Fix

I followed the guide and it went exactly as described with no issues. The procedure took about 45 minutes.

My Advice

Instead of re-installing Lion or using Lion Recovery, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the original disk to the new SSD and then set the SSD as my boot disk. This only took about 20 minutes and kept my system in exactly the same state. If adding your own SSD, also look up how to enable TRIM in Lion as it is only enabled by default if you order one from Apple.

My Problem

Needed to add SSD capability to my Mac Mini

My Fix

Very smooth except one screw removal was different on my Mac Mini. Also putting the upper drive back in can be tricky.

My Advice

Do it! You'll love the speed using a SSD or the extra storage using a non-SSD drive

My Problem

Installing a second hard drive into the Mac Mini 2011. I wished the Mac Mini's all came with 7200 rpm hard drives. I've opted to add a SSD for programs and use the 5400 RPM for media file purposes for performance and storage reasons.

My Fix

Bought the dual harddrive kit to perform the upgrade and referenced the website to perform the upgrade. It was fairly simple and straight forward. However, I do wish there were some videos to show how to perform certain steps. As a person who is new with opening up Macs (done PCS without issues), it did take a while to figure out how to pull certain wires in tight spaces. Once I went through the process, I was very comfortable with putting and disassembling the to perform the task.

My Advice

Small ruler will help with some of the screw measurements when putting the Mac Mini together. I would also recommend air blaster (not the can) but the ones used for cameras to clean out the computer.