Swap Mac Mini SSD with SSD from iMac?

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Swap Mac Mini SSD with SSD from iMac?

Hi all,

I have a 1TB SSD that I'm using on my iMac (mid-2011 running High Sierra). I have a Mac Mini coming in that has a 256GB drive in it. I would like to just swap out the drives in the Mini, but I don't know if that will work. Would there be anything on the iMac drive that would prevent High Sierra from detecting the hard ware changes (i.e., it was on an iMac and now it's on a Mini) and booting up successfully?

I have way more that 256GB of data on the iMac, so I can't migrate the iMac data to the smaller drive. I would rather not have to buy another 1TB SSD, clone the Mini 256GB drive on to it, and put that in the Mini, then mount the iMac drive as an external drive to the Mini and then start copying over my data to the new drive. That seems like a clunky and time consuming way to do it.

Unfortunately, I can't upgrade the iMac past High Sierra, so I can't convert the iMac 1TB drive to match the same OSX that will be running on the Mini before I swap them out. I'd feel more confident that the if the OSX version were the same a straight swap out would be much more seamless.

Anyone have ideas? Can this even be done? Or should I just transfer all my iMac data to a third drive (or cloud backup), blank the 1TB drive, clone the 256GB drive to the 1TB drive, install the 1TB drive into the Mini and then restore my data back down from the third drive (or cloud backup).

Thanks!

Posted on Aug 28, 2020 1:53 PM

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Answer 1

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barretto94 Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 28, 2020 8:28 PM in response to samtenor

Thanks. I did not know the SSD was soldered in, I thought it still used the SATA interface. I was looking at a 2014 model but it had soldered RAM, and but a replaceable hard drive. I guess I'll just hook up an external SSD via one of the USB-C connectors on the back.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

83,296 points

Aug 28, 2020 5:27 PM in response to barretto94

samtenor is spot-on.

You can not move the 1T SATA SSD to the 2018 Mac Mini and even if you could, the new Mac Mini can not run High Sierra.

Which leaves you 2 options.

Return that Mac Mini and order one with a 1T, so that you can migrate all of your user data over from the 2011 Mac Mini.
Run macOS and your App's on the new Mac Mini's 256GB and access your user data from the 1T SSD in an external enclosure or better yet, copy your user data from the 1T SSD to another external drive to use with the new Mac Mini.

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Answer 3

samtenor

Level 4

1,828 points

Aug 28, 2020 3:49 PM in response to barretto94

2011 Mac Mini -- is SATA interface drive.

If you odered 2018 and later MacMini -- you can not make this swap -- because 2018 MacMini's SSD is ON-BOARD, soldered.

You even can not use external enclosure to make this SATA SSD as boot-drive, due to T2 chip.

After 2011 Mac Mini -- only 2012 and 2014 (certain model -- such as HDD models) MacMini utilize SATA drive.

The most you can achieve is -- use enclosure for the SATA SSD for data swap/storage in 2018 MacMini.

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Swap Mac Mini SSD with SSD from iMac?

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