My Problem
My 2011 base-model Mac Mini (2.3GHz i5) was showing its age - or so I thought. I had replaced almost every other spinning platter hard drive with solid state drives, but this Mac Mini was my holdout. After looking up processor benchmarks and realizing that it should be every bit as fast as my 2011 MacBook Air (1.8GHz i7), I decided to take the plunge and add an SSD on top of the hard drive that it came with.
My Fix
Overall, the repair was pretty easy. I've pulled apart many Macs over the last fifteen years, and before that made side money by building and selling computers. The 2011 Mac Mini is pretty straightforward, especially with iFixIt's guide. The only finicky bit is getting the Airport antenna's holes to line up with the chassis, but this is a great indicator that you didn't do something quite right. After five minutes of re-working it, I had it sorted out. A clean install of Yosemite and this little hunk of aluminum is a screamer.
My Advice
The iFixit guide is pretty great, and they correctly point out that the Airport antenna is finicky. My advice is, make sure you get this right when putting it back together. It pays to take your time and not force it.
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