Mac Mini Upgrades - Recommendations?

memory upgrade if it support it

otherwise a ssd disk

your program are not really very cpu depending or video card depending not that you can change any of those two.

Best thing I ever did for my Mac Mini's, was to replace the HDDs with an SSDs.

Best Buy has 240GB and 480GB SSDs in your price range, see > http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ssdsearchpage

Or go to > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/, they have a

240GB SSD for $105 at > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_6G/ plus a DIY video at the bottom of the page.

For another good DIY, check out > https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Mini_Unibody

The 2011 iMac can handle up to 16GB. Photoshop, inDesign, and Word are all memory intensive by themselves, running two or more of them together will certainly make the 16GB upgrade worthwhile and that will take you be right at the $100 budget you set. Check out macsale.com or Crucial for pricing. These are my go to sites for RAM. Upgrading the standard HD with an SSD is also within your budget for a 256 (sometimes labeled as 240GB) drive. While small, you could use your other drive for storing data if you find 256GB too limiting. This is a good upgrade choice if you are constantly shutting down and starting programs.

Your biggest bottleneck would be the stock 5400 rpm spinning hard drive. Replace it with an internal SSD, and while you got the case open, upgrade the RAM to the maximum.

Check macsales.com - Apple always specifies what’s available when the computer ships. If at a later date larger SIMMs become available (which usually does happen) Apple doesn’t revise their specs.

The max is 16 Gigs:

Source: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_Mac_mini/DDR3_1333

Checkout their SSDs too.

The only external graphics "cards" that can display graphics are via a USB and they are really no better than what you have now.

You can purchase a Thunderbolt expansion chassis and insert a PCLe graphics card but yo can only use that card for calculations, not video display

tkperlman wrote:

Thanks! Love the DIY video. I'm all over that.

What do you think about an external graphics card?

Your Mac with the Intel 3000 graphics uses system memory as graphics memory.

That screen typically mean problem with the graphics

The screen you see together with that it works OK if your reinstall the original memory indicates problems with the new memory.

What specific memory did you install?

Did they say it will work with a 2011 Mac Mini?

Try using only one stick of new memory with the other slot empty as a test.

You can also try interchanging the two sticks in the slot

Did the ones you procured say they will work with your Mac?

Crucial sells memory with same specs but different part numbers that do not say these will work with your Mac.