2014 Mac mini 2.5" SSD upgrade

With my great regret - T6 will not work unless there is some modification.

I received my 2014 Mac Mini this afternoon. After my tea time, I anxiously set up my iPad - iFixit website, digital camera etc.

Open the plastic cover is really easy - then...... sigh... BIG ONE.

The 6 screws (three flat to the case, and three big ones as their function - to be snapped with the plastic cover.

Here is the kicker - T6 will fit BUT -- every screw's center - are NOT "flat" for the T6 to have a solid contact with the screw.

There is a small "pin" in the center - protruded to prevent regular T6 to get in.

I do not try to fool around further after some gentle pressure to see if I can get the T6 turning.

No luck. I am waiting for iFixit to ship the TR6 Torx Security Screwdriver for 2014 Mac Mini.

Now, just wait........ stay tune.

Sam

T6 Torx security screwdriver arrived. It took me no time to open it up ( I have decent experience from previous 2009 - 2012 Mac Minis).

I have to say, the process is not that intimidating. Unfortunately, the 2.5" Drive bay is in the bottom from the working position - unlike 2010-2012.

There are two extra screws - one to stabilize the SATA cable and one for the wifi antenna cable.

Boot it up, using my USB Yosemite to install the 512Gb Crucial SSD, then using time machine to restore my previous system.

Of course, need a new license key for 2011 Office, passwords for 4 different e-mail accounts and other softwares (such as Rosetta Stone).

I compared this new SSD with the old HDD (I did turn it on to make sure the system worked before the teardown).

No surprised, SSD outshines the stock HDD, however - I am not too impressed with 2014 Mac Mini.

First - screen flickering issues (both SSD and HDD) - (it happened with HDMI, HDMI->DVI and thunderbolt -> DVI), no matter which port/adapter I used - the screen flickering is annoying. The flickering also caused the stutter of key strokes - making the typing inefficient.

I did several PRAM resets - not successful.

Now, I have to wait until Apple to do some firmware/software update for his annoying issues.

I wish I had got 2012 i7 quad core!!!!!

My spouse uses 2012 Mac Mini, i7 quad core, 16Gb with 1T SSD.

Hand off works great, and air drop performs seamlessly between iOS ( iPhone 6, iPad 3, iPad air etc) and OS X (10.10.1).

My 2011 Mac mini ( 256 GB dual SSD, 8Gb memory, i7 with AMD 6630 video) has became an outcast among these devices - air drop required extra steps to communicate with my 2014 Mac Book air and 2012 Mac Mini; let along with air drop with iOS devices - which apple did not support for 2011's model.

I took a gamble and chose 2014 model rather than 2012 (i7 quad core) model - knowing 2012 model will not be supported on future update (just like the fate of my beloved 2011 Mac Mini)

Guess I am wrong this time.

Hoping Apple will fix the video woo soon - as my 2014 Mac Mini is sitting sideline until the fix.

After few days of testing.

I finally solved the problem of screen flickering ( when an app is opened, or few apps are opened), the screen will flicker on the app(s). This happened on Firefox, MS Word, Soundtrack (yes, I am still using it). iTunes, iPhoto, even "system preferences" etc etc.

First, my system was built via Time Machine restore - after SSD (Crucial 512Gb) on the SATA-3 port. ( theoretically would be slower compared to PCI-e SSD) on my 2014 Mac Mini 2.6Ghz, 8Gb memory. ( I chose the basic 2.6Ghz base model to save few $$, since I have two 512 Gb SSD laying around, instead of custom-build for 512 GB SSD PIC-e, with USD 1,299.00 price tag).

I tried numerous methods to avoid the flickering ie - PRAM reset, HDMI -> monitor, HDMI -> DVI cable, Thunderbolt -> DVI, Thunderbolt -> VGA on two different models of screen : no success.

The only time I could get a normal decent "flicker free" was when I booted into safe mode - after reboot - same issue.

I also used hardware check as Mini indicated "no issues" on the hardware.

I went to Apple Store and play with their set up - no issues (of course, Mac Mini was hooked on the Apple Display, wow!)

I started to wonder - either it would be OS X issues or "third party" software??

So, I took the 512 Gb SSD out (it is some sort of "pain" to open 2014 Mini), then used another SSD (120 Gb) for a clean install.

A fresh 10.10.1 on 2014 Mac Mini without other 3rd party software - worked great, no flickering at all.

I started to add the apps I normally have, one by one to test - UNTIL -- Microsoft Office 2011 (home and business version)

I have Outlook to synch with my Calendar, and typical Word, Excel, Powerpoint on my system.

As soon as I put Office 2011 on it - Voila! I found the culprit. It was running 14.4.6 version.

So, I put my 512Gb Crucial SSD back (another pain again) and booted up normally - same issues.

I have been check Apple to see if OS X 10.10.2 becomes general public release (hoping the problem would be accidentally fixed) - in the mean time, I was using my 2011 Mac Mini as the main system. 2014 Mac mini was on the disable list.

Until today, Office 2011 released 14.4.7 - I gave it a try and finally, Mac Mini 2014 with Iris GPU would not demonstrate "flickering" issues after the update!

Whew!!

Sam

I used 2.5 inch SSD for my 2014 Mac mini (i5, 2.6Ghz, 8gb memory) without major issues - after I found out the screen flickering was caused by Microsoft office 2011. however, it was fixed by microsoft office's update.

I saved my Yosemite on an USB drive, and used it to install on this Mac mini, via time machine restore method.

Unfortunately, I did not try to "enable" the TRIM under 10.10 - that I had been using the terminal to enable TRIM up to 10.9 - unless you are willing to fork out some extra $$ for Apple OEM SSD for TRIM to be activated natively. I left it as is without any hack to enable the TRIM.

I did order the TR 6 security screw driver from ifixi.

I also notice that you can get PCI-e cable to take advantage of the new SSD standard on Mac system, but for now, I just used one of my extra SATA-3 SSD for this Mac mini.

Sam