I recently was hit with a ransom email

Then there's nothing to do on your Mac. That is, what you're seeing has nothing to do with the email.

What it may have done to your wife's Windows computer is another matter. But that's only if she got the same type of email with an attachment that automatically ran. If she didn't, then the Windows computer isn't the issue, either.

That all said, your Mac is very obviously limping quite badly. But it would be nothing more than a coincidence the behavior started at the same time you received the scam email.

What it sounds like is the Mac's hard drive is about to take a permanent dirt nap. It's a nine year old machine, and that's a lot of time and use on the original drive. I truly hope you have a recent backup. If this were my Mini, my next move would be to replace the drive. Actually, the first move would be to try and backup any important personal data to an external drive.

Did this email claim they have a video of you doing naughty things, and unless you pay a big ransom in Bitcoin, they'll release it? If so, it's nothing but a scam. Or, as you noted, they had part of a password. This is from the numerous massive hacks you've read about where crooks made off with millions of user account data. They in turn are using that info to make the scams sound more real. They have nothing.

Explain in detail what you did in regards to that email. Did you follow a link and fill in personal information? Did you run or install an attachment. Did you simply delete it without doing anything else?

An email is just an email. If you didn't run or install any attachments (if there were any), then it did nothing.

AV software, cleaners and apps that claim to speed up your Mac are all 100% useless junk. Do not use any of them.

Try explaining what you believe is wrong, as "wonky" doesn't tell your fellow users much.

That's frustrating! Being told yes, only to find it isn't true. I don't like any cloud service, no matter whose it is. I keep two separate backups of our Macs right next to them. The odds both external drives would fail at the same time the main drive did is astronomical. But mainly, I simply will not ever put my personal information on a remote server.

If you want to go with an SSD for the 2011 Mini, I wouldn't spend any more than necessary. By that, I mean a 6G drive would be more expensive with no gain since the Mini's bus can't go that fast anyway. A 3G drive would be a better match and cost less.

Be aware older versions of the Mac OS do not have a clue what an SSD is. You cannot, for example, install Snow Leopard or Lion on one from scratch. You'd need a bootable USB installer of El Capitan or better to setup a bare SSD.

Yes, the 2018 and 2020 Minis are virtually identical, as far as hardware specs. The only differences are a 2020 will have Catalina as the oldest OS you can install on it, and the 2020 costs a fair amount less than the 2018's did for the same machine.

The vast majority of those are pure fakes.

You're welcome. 🙂