SSD drive for Mac Mini (Late 2009)

Question

SSD drive for Mac Mini (Late 2009)

I have a Mac Mini (Late 2009) and have the 320gb 5400 rpm drive installed currently. I am considering replacing that drive with a solid state drive (SSD). Does anyone have any experience with this Mac Mini (Late 2009) and replacing the internal drive with an SSD?. I am mostly curious as to how large an SSD I would need? I am currently running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I would then use the the current 5400 rpm drive in an external enclosure. I would also be curious as to what kind of performance improvement I can expect. Any thoughts or assistance would be appreciated. Thanks!

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 8 gb RAM

Posted on Aug 29, 2011 1:23 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

John Beatty1

Level 6

12,020 points

Aug 29, 2011 6:30 PM in response to Jeffrey Bivans

I just put a SSD in a core duo MacBook pro.....It is noticeably faster, my son with an i5 MacBook pro ( stock) says it feels faster in general use than his.

Do some YouTube searches on Mac mini SSD and I think you'll find some pretty similar to your situation. Thats kinda what convinced me to get a new mini server with a SSD. IMHO, it screams.

As to size, how big is your current system and applications folder combined? I think you want that big plus some breathing room for swap space, and maybe some big working files at times (movies, DVDs, large pics, etc.)

Jb

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Answer 2

Star1

Level 2

465 points

Aug 29, 2011 11:46 PM in response to Jeffrey Bivans

Hi Jeffrey,

one of my Minis is the same year as yours & I've put an SSD HD in it a year ago.

It's just 64GB and I put the 320Gb (original) in an external enclosure.

Never had any trouble in the year I'm using it...

But also I have a lot of external storage (8TB) which I share between Macs & several PCs.

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Answer 3

Aug 30, 2011 5:14 AM in response to Star1

Oh, cool! Whose SSD did you install and did you notice a significant improvement in perfromance? I have been looking at one of the OWC (Other World Computing) SSDs. Thanks for your input!

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Answer 4

Star1

Level 2

465 points

Aug 30, 2011 10:19 AM in response to Jeffrey Bivans

Hi again,

yes, it makes a quite a difference, since I have another Mini (the same) without the SSD & that one seems like it's a generation back...

The Mini starts in 20~25 sec and restarts in 15~20.

There is not 'bouncing beachballs' with starting any applications - even CS4 or AutoCad 2011...

I actually have 3 SSDs (one in my gaming PC for a year) and never had any problems.

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Answer 5

Aug 30, 2011 12:14 PM in response to Star1

Thanks again for your input! Any recommendation as far as whose SSD you might consider the best for the money?

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