This tutorial is for the Apple Mac Mini SSD upgrade is for the model before the 2018 model. It will work on the 2014-15 model that apple sold until the 2018 model was released.
I agree: One of the BEST tech vids on RU-vid. Very clear video. Good caution statements where needed. I'm still cautious to try to upgrade my late 2014 Mac-mini to a 4TB SSD by Micron. But you made a fine DIY video. Thanks.
I did this today, and this guide was perfect. Thank you! I think I had everything taken apart and back together in about 20min. The SSD makes it SO much faster.
Works perfectly as many others have discovered following your video. Great simple explanation and step by step with the hints and tips on what to watch out for is excellent. Many thanks
Hi Scott, im also thinking about to upgrade my mac mini with a ssd drive, but is there really a big difference? Im running big sure on my mac, ok it isnt very fast anymore but it works... is it running much smoother with the ssd?
Wow, great tutorial! Thank You!!! Really valued the putting it all back together. The tutorial from the site I purchased the SSD from just ended with, " now just reverse all the steps".
Just perform something I've never thought I could do, I had cloned my HDD to SSD, and booted it up with SSD. Just under one hour, I followed your video. And behold, not a screw left over. In the end you said, you should have 6 screws left. My heart dropped for a second! Now I have a "new" Mac mini!! Thanks for such a great video. Bless!! 🙏
Big thank you for this tutorial. Used it all the way, paused and did exactly as you said. Turned out perfectly! Switched the standard 1TB 5400rpm HDD to a 240GB Crucial BX500 on a Mac Mini late 2014 (2,6ghz and 8gb ram) and the results are astonishing. It's like a new computer now. Once again thank you very very much for the best tutorial on youtube! :D :D :D
I want to reiterate my gratitude for this tutorial! After loading the OS and setting the computer back up, it's, literally, like a new computer. I bought this computer to be used as a media computer, new, in 2018 but because we moved into a new home, it wasn't even taken out of the box for 11 months. The hard drive had errors from initial setup and between the errors and the overall "slowness" of the drive, it was torturous to use. I've built PC's before but Apple's proprietary nature made the prospect of replacing the hard drive seem to be above my pay grade, so to speak. Following his tutorial made the entire installation really easy and I'm super-grateful to have stumbled upon it. My only additional request would be for a tutorial on how to install the OS using Apple's Internet Recovery...with a Windows keyboard🤔. This was certainly a multistep prospect. Thank you, again.
Thank you so much for this. I’m winning a 1TB SSD on eBay and I’ll be doing this if I win that drive. Awesome tutorial. I know this wasn’t part of the tutorial but I’m going to clone the drive first through disk utility before I swap 👍🏽👍🏽
Hey, I can’t thank you enough for putting up this video. I’d looked at several others for this upgrade and yours was by far the best: sharp presentation, straightforward steps for disassembly/reassembly. I was kind of nervous about taking apart my Mini, but you made it really easy. Thanks again! 👍
Did this tonight. Took about an hour with being really careful. Most times he says "use your fingers", better use a prying tool instead or a mini screw driver. This was actually doable. The things that actually slowed me down were snapping back the power port and reattaching the antenna.
I'm showing up a little late to the party... A huge thank you for doing this. You are a great communicator. If you aren't an educator in one field or another.... you may have missed your calling!
Thank you for this tutorial, just done ssd replacement using this video as guide. I don't have long small screw for pushing the logic board, so I just carefully push it from the end of the board where hard drive sit. Also for removing the drive, in my case it was using T8 not T7.
Thank you SO much! I had actually spent €1200 on a new (2018 version) Mac Mini because mine was so slow, it would take maybe a full 2 minutes to open Safari and even longer for bigger programs like iMovie. The new Mac Mini wouldn’t stay connected to the keyboard and trackpad, just would disconnect and reconnect over and over again, sidecar would connect either. Even after upgrading to a 2nd gen keyboard & Magic Trackpad (total now at €1500, it still continued with the same problem. I really didn’t know what to do. This video really saved me and now my old mini works like a Ferrari. Thank you!
Man, you are awesome! Thank yo so much. Jamas hubiese podido hacerlo sin tu ayuda. No soy nada tecnico pero con tu ayuda logre actualizar el SSD de mi Mac Mini. Mil gracias desde Puerto Rico.
WOW + WARNING TIP! Followed step by step and went through until I realized that I ripped off the hard drive power connector. You mentioned that you were able to get it with your nails but I took it off from the wrong side. What I suggest is to unfold a paper clip and gently slide it under the HDD cable branch to lift it carefully. The cable should come out pretty easily. If you happen to rip it off like I did, don’t worry, it’s a very common mistake and an electronic shop doing micro solder should be able to fix it. Other than that, the explanations were exceptionally good!
I was considering going with an NVMe SSD for a fusion drive, but honestly with the price of a 500GB SSD now and that requiring no additional parts purchase I'll likely just go that route via the tutorial above. Thanks!
The question no one can answer is can you do both! They have adapters for the fusion housing for traditional ssd cards. Why can’t we do both methods and walk out with dual ssds?
Great tutorial...thank you! Does anyone know of a good tutorial for software migration...the step before this one? I need to do this but I'm more familiar with Windows and don’t have a clue about how to do this on a Mac.
I got the OWC Aura Pro ssd (still on its way) for my Mac mini 2014 w/ fusion drive. But I'm thinking about replacing the HDD as well... Wht ssd do you recommend (seagate, kingston, crucial, wd)? Coz I've heard Sandisk its not the best option for macs...
Good Lord what a lot of work. Great video though! Thanks!! My 2011 Mac mini is in perfect condition, easy to upgrade, but sadly not on the list of upgradable to Big Sur.
Just ordered the same SSD for my 2014 mini today, got it for less than $100. Very excited to have it installed! My mini is unusably slow and the SSD should help tremendously!
@@yusufhanyorulmaz5709 I would recommend instead of changing the 2.5" HDD for a SATA SSD it is better to just add a NVME SSD it is much easier to install and it is also a faster drive. That way you will have two hard drives, then all you have to do is install the latest OS X on the SSD and migrate you data from the HDD to the SSD when you first start your mac from the new SSD. I did this a couple of weeks ago and went from read/write speeds below 100 MB/s to above 700 MB/s.
I managed to destroy the IR cable pin’s trying to plug it back in so no remote control use going forward (never used one anyway) and the power light no longer works but it seems to be going through the fresh install fine, only 2h 30m to go for Yosemite and then comes Monterey.
Thanks so much for this tutorial! With the help of you and a RU-vidr named luke Fugate I was able to clone my SSD and install it to the system I'm using as I type this comment. I used a 2020 SK Hynix 1Tb Gold S31 SSD. It hasn't turned my Mac Mini into my Ryzen 2700x gaming PC, but it's much faster than it was before. After I first booted up the system I noticed that my power LED had stopped working. I re-watched the video and think I followed every step correctly. Do you know what could have happened? I wonder if I may have damaged something when either removing or re-installing the power supply? Any help would be appreciated!
When you unplug the IR remote cable, be extremely careful because it breaks of the board very easely. (if it breaks it is not a disaster, the remote and power light wil not work anymore) BUT THE FAN CABLE!! Don't unplug it. You can remove the main board with the fan unplugging. This fancable plug also breaks off the board like it is made of paper. If I would do it again, I would even tape it securely. Please give this reaction some thumbs up. Not for my ego, but to get it higher in the listing to help new fixers.
It's fine if you lift it straight up. I figured you need the fan housing out of the way to get to the other connectors. But I guess if you can leave it on, that's best. This thing really need to be handled with kid gloves and lots of time, all of those board connectors are crazy small.
Excllent video I have a late 2014, so would i have to save all my data on a dvd or flash drive, install the SanDisk SSD PLUS 2.5 2TB and then transfer the data? Thanks alot for your detailed work cheers!
Correct. Or upload everything to the icloud and and then you can put everything back. You just buy the storage you need for a month then get rid of it. That would be the cheapest and easiest way. I do this all the time very easy
I purchased mac mini around 2017-18 currently it takes very long time to initiate. Like it just keep load tab in chrome browser, takes long time to open any folder. I am very disappoint with it. Can changing the hard drive with SSD solve this problem?
Hey Folks, I just want a quick information: Is it worth to upgrade RAM and HD, keeping the i5 1.4ghz? Will the processor support and delivery a good performance later? I work with Photoshop and other Adobe softwares, so I definitely need some performance. I'm looking for a powerful SSD and something about 16Gb, but looks that I can't upgrade the processor. Is it a good idea or may i sell the older mac and buy a new one. (obviously, i'm looking forward to upgrade 'cause will be cheaper than to buy another one). Point is: i5 1.4ghz processor (mac mini late 2014) 240Gb SSD HD 16Gb RAM It will upgrade that much for a 4Gb RAM and 500Gb Sata?
I’m looking to do this exact upgrade but I’m wondering if I should do a 2012 Mac mini instead and upgrade that. I am wanting it for editing on light room.
@@ezraross5194 I would recommend instead of changing the 2.5" HDD for a SATA SSD it is better to just add a NVME SSD it is much easier to install and it is also a faster drive. That way you will have two hard drives, then all you have to do is install the latest OS X on the SSD and migrate you data from the HDD to the SSD when you first start your mac from the new SSD. I did this a couple of weeks ago and went from read/write speeds below 100 MB/s to above 700 MB/s.
How did you clone? I want to upgrade but I'm worried about losing boot partition data and the lower-level stuff that might not transfer over using a migration tool..
I used Carbon Copy Cloner. I will have video out shortly explaining how to do this. But it’s not not hard to do. You put both hard drives into external hard drive enclosure then connect both hard drives via usb to other Computer to run the software.
Hey great video, I just bought a 2014 mac mini and I want to do it, my unit comes with fusion drive 128gd ssd plus 2tb hd, my 3 questions are, did you format or configure the ssd before instaling it?? In the case of my unit it is ok to keep the ssd blade and later fusion both ssd units?? At this moment I'm seeing the both units separates which I think means there is no fusion, it is ok If I clone the hd to the new ssd before installing it?? not afraid of dissasembling and working phisically on the unit but lots of dubts in terms of configuration, thanks for your help in advance !!
Yes, you can keep the PCIe ssd that’s in your Mac mini. When you take the metal cover that hard drive is located right on top. You can also upgrade that 128gb to 480gb eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/S3DAB2MM05K/ then upgrade the mechanical 2tb that in there to a ssd of your choice. You can clone the drive while it’s in the machine or when you remove it it’s up to you.
I used disk cloning software. Once the hard drive was removed I used another mac computer to clone the hard drive. Once installed you just turn it on and it works. The one I used is not around anymore but Super duper is a good one .
How solidly is the ssd attached inside the 2018 mac mini? is it possible to remove even if the drive is destroyed while not damaging anything else in the mac mini(like cut it out)?
Nope, it's not possible. The flash storage chips are soldered to the logic board. You're stuck with what you get. But you can run The Mac mini off a ssd drive externally. I’m going make a video on this soon.
I knew you can’t upgrade memory but assumed the sod would be a fairly easy swap...... as much as your video was great I could just see too many opportunities for my fat fingers breaking some thing , losing patience and smashing something up. Might have to sell on and buy an ssd machine 😩
Thanks for the video. Yours make the process clearer to me than the others I've watched. One question - you say you need a T7 torx iFixit has a T8 torx in its kit and others say a T9 torx? Which is the right one?
@@RB-hj7qc Upgrading the drive to an SSD still would have made it faster. Also, couldn't you upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB or more when doing this upgrade?
@@jamiechampion299 Memory on my model cannot be upgraded. It's soldered on to the logic board. Yes, an SSD will make it faster but the application I want to run needs more than 4GB of memory. So it will still be swapping all the time. But now that I actually think of it, this will now be much faster too. So I should see an improvement in speed. Will revisit this as my Mac is currently a paperweight and there aren't many place I can go. :-) Thanks!
Ive been repairing Macs for years but never repaired a Mac mini which is a testament to reliability. my 2012 Wass much easier than this to upgrade. Ive just got 2014 to upgrade hd. Couldn't believe how hard it was, even had to buy new screwdriver (t6 security) used a tiny screw driver ( from xmas cracker!)in the logic board each side a little bit at a time.
Hi, does this mac mini model, have soldered rams, or it's easy possible to change it ?. It was one of the best tutorials for mac mini, clear and make it so simple.
@@carsandcamera I change de HD for SSD and its amazing, great and fast. I spend a lot of time changing de OS to one aproppiated for the old 2014. It work with mojave with out any problems.
@@carsandcamera Thanks. I have a movie editing program that requires at least Intel HD Graphics 5000. My 2011 Mac Mini has 3000. How can I upgrade to the 5000?
