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User profile for user: casper117
casper117 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Slow Mac mini 2014 - Can I use an external SSD to "upgrade" it?

Hey guys. I have the base model of the Mac mini 2014 and it's just a pain to use because it's so slow. I wanna use this MM to play Netflix on my TV using Philips Hue Sync to get the lights in my home theater to correspond with the movies I'm watching on the MM.


Now, is it possible for me to buy an external SSD and install MacOS on the external ssd and then boot the entire OS on that SSD? If so, is it possible to be completely separate from my slow internal HDD? I only want it as a media player, so I only need to be able to run MacOS on the SSD and be able to install Philips Hue Sync on it and that's it. It will be used exclusively for watching movies. I don't need for it to be super fast, just not as painstakingly slow as it currently is.


Thanks for any and all help! :-)

Posted on Sep 11, 2019 7:51 PM

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User profile for user: dwb
dwb
User level: Level 7
33,100 points

Posted on Sep 12, 2019 9:23 AM

Purchase a high quality USB 3 drive (I'm partial to the drives at macsales.com) and plug the drive directly into a USB 3 port on the mini - not a hub. When I did this I used CarbonCopyCloner to clone the internal drive to the SSD external and then rebooted after switching the system drive in System Preferences -> Startup Drive.

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User profile for user: dwb
dwb
User level: Level 7
33,100 points

Sep 12, 2019 9:23 AM in response to casper117

Purchase a high quality USB 3 drive (I'm partial to the drives at macsales.com) and plug the drive directly into a USB 3 port on the mini - not a hub. When I did this I used CarbonCopyCloner to clone the internal drive to the SSD external and then rebooted after switching the system drive in System Preferences -> Startup Drive.

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User profile for user: casper117
casper117 Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Sep 14, 2019 10:49 AM in response to dwb

Thank you so much for your help. I tried it using your method, but it turns out that when I copied it, the external SSD simply wouldn't show up in startup drive. So I found out that I could simply download a copy of Mojave to the External SSD and use that drive to start up from. It doesn't give me access to the things I had on my HDD, but that doesn't matter, since I'm only using it for media playback and I have most of my stuff stored in the cloud anyways. Thanks anyways :-) Have a great weekend!

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Slow Mac mini 2014 - Can I use an external SSD to "upgrade" it?

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