Skip to main content

Announced on October 16, 2014, identifiable by the model number A1347 and EMC 2840.

196 Questions View all

Mac mini 2015 Dual hard Drive Possible?

Im planning on buying a Mac mini 2015 with 16GB of RAM, but i would really like to have dual internal Hard drives, is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

Is this a good question?

Score 4
Add a comment

6 Answers

Chosen Solution

Not two traditional 2.5" SATA drives, no.

The current generation minis don't have two internal SATA connections, like earlier generations. Instead, they have one SATA connection for a traditional 2.5" drive and one PCIe slot for a large solid-state flash storage. Depending on what you order, you'll either get:

  • one SATA drive (500GB/1TB 5400 rpm platter drive)
  • one PCIe card (256/512/1TB SSD flash storage)
  • one SATA drive + one PCIe card (1TB 5400 rpm platter drive + 128GB PCIe card = 1TB Fusion Drive)

The PCIe bus is much faster than the SATA bus*, so data transfer to/from the SSD is faster. The downside is, we've lost the ability to easily swap drives in and out. Although the PCIe interface is standardized, Apple is using special firmware on the SSDs using that socket; you can't just buy a generic SSD card and expect it to work, and you can't plug a traditional SATA drive into the connector. The price of progress...

If you're looking to get the most space available without losing speed, I recommend ordering the 1TB Fusion Drive. It automatically/dynamically stores the data you use most frequently in the SSD section, and pushes the data used less often to the slower mechanical SATA drive. Then, if you need more storage, you can offload to an external USB 3 or Thunderbolt drive.

*EDIT: And of course, flash storage is much faster than platter drive storage. I can't believe I forgot to mention that.

Was this answer helpful?

Score 5

4 Comments:

Slight correction the SSD slot is called M.2 and the method of I/O is PCIe. Otherwise adlerpe is spot on!

by

I don´t think the question was answered directly.

Can the mac mini 2014 have 2 independent hard drives? This means that they won't work in fusion mode... I basicly decide what I want to have in the ssd and in the hdd....

by

If I understand you correctly, then I think the answer is yes. You can format the SSD and the HD either as a Fusion Drive or as two separate volumes using Disk Utility. As I recall, SSD+HD in a mini automatically comes formatted as a Fusion Drive; if you want to reformat as two distinct drives/volumes, you would boot off an external drive, reformat as two separate drives using Disk Utility, then install a new OS on one of the bare volumes.

by

It's possible IF you have a Fusion-drive model and split the Fusion Drive into its 2 physical drives - which you can then both upgrade to your wallet's liking

by

Add a comment

I don't have one of these myself, but looking at the HD replacement guide Mac mini Late 2014 Hard Drive Replacement it appears that it will support Flash storage + HDD, but there aren't mounting brackets where the flash storage would go to permit a second HDD.

Was this answer helpful?

Score 2
Add a comment

Not sure how they're doing it, but OWC is coming out with a kit soon that will allow 2x SSDs inside the 2014/2015 Mac Minis.

Was this answer helpful?

Score 0

2 Comments:

I think all there doing is selling their blade SSD now that they have tested it and made any needed tweaks. I'll bet they'll also offer some more iMac options too!

by

How about removing the PCIe Wireless card and replacing that with a second PCIe SSD ?

Would this be possible ?

I never use wireless or bluetooth on my Mac mini's as they are all accessed via Remote Desktop.

by

Add a comment

Eduardo, if your're referring to the latest Mac Mini version, bear in mind that it is the Late-2014 model -there is no 2015/16/17 version-.

You can refer to my thread, there I mention the exact config I'm using to add a standard (non-Apple branded, nor used) new PCIe SSD drive, to the factory HDD: PCIe SSD on Mini Late 2014

Regards!

Was this answer helpful?

Score 0
Add a comment

I'm curious about the opposite of this.

If I buy a 2014 Mac mini new from Apple with only a 256 GB SSD installed, will I be able to open it up and toss a hard drive in the empty hard drive bay?

In the past (2012 mini), you've needed a kit that consisted of just a cable, and some mounting screws & grommets.

What is needed with the current Mac mini? Or does it come with the cables and grommets ready to go?

Was this answer helpful?

Score 0

1 Comment:

Were you able to do this? I tried adding a 2.5" SSD hard drive to the empty bay and connected it to the SATA connector on the board. The mac mini still doesn't recognize the 2.5" SSD, I have tried 3 different SSDs, a 2TB, 1TB and 500GB. It doesn't seem to recognize it nor does it show up as a new drive via disk utility. Does anyone know why this is the case?

by

Add a comment

Related… I have a 2014 Mac Mini with a 3TB Fusion drive. Budget permitting, I’d like to put a larger (and hopefully faster) blade drive into the PCIe slot, and a 2.5” SSD in there to replace the platter drive. I won’t need the Fusion function at that point, 2 SSDs as separate volumes should be great. A couple of questions:

  1. I understand that the PCIe slot is a proprietary Apple design. Is the OWC Aura product a working replacement for it, or do I need to order an Apple product from Ebay etc? I chatted online with an OWC rep recently and s/he said it would work, but I wouldn’t mind some confirmation of that.
  2. Following adlerpe’s 2017/06/05 follow-up comment to his primary comment, I should be able to disable the Fusion function when booted up from an external drive by using Disk Utility to reformat the drives separately, right?

Was this answer helpful?

Score 0

2 Comments:

1) OWC now has both Aura blade cards (apparently rebranded as "Aura N") and the higher-speed Aura Pro X cards listed for 2014 minis. The SATA bus will accept any normal 2.5" SATA SSD.

2) Yes, when you erase the Fusion volume, you'll be able to format each drive with a separate volume. I've occasionally heard anecdotal reports of Fusion volumes unexpectedly breaking, leaving two unreadable volumes which must then be reformatted either as separate volumes or as a joined Fusion volume. It makes one wonder how stable the Fusion system is, really.

by

I have the Aura Pro X card in a 2014 mini, great drive, however, you cannot install Boot Camp on it regardless of the size. I would like to install an SSD in the second bay and use it for that purpose, don't know if that's possible??

by

Add a comment

Add your answer

Eduardo will be eternally grateful.
View Statistics:

Past 24 Hours: 2

Past 7 Days: 3

Past 30 Days: 10

All Time: 21,885