So I "upgraded" my Mini hard drive
I figured it might be worth reporting in case people are thinking about trying it. Today, I successfully replaced my 4200rpm 80gb drive with a Hitachi 7200rpm 40gb drive. While I know it's half the space, that's not much of an issue, as I've never filled a 40GB drive to this day. I was looking for speed, and I seem to have found it. Programs open very quickly, and boot times are a tiny bit faster. I suppose I can run xBench if people are curious, but I hear the HD part of the test isn't very reliable. I do have the old 80gb drive to compare it to, however.
The only installation snag I had was getting OSX to install to the disk. After booting to the OSX install DVD, I had to use Disk Utility to partition the drive. Once that was finished, installer would see the drive, but still wouldn't let me install to it (had a red exclaimation point on the disk). I found that I had to reboot to the installer DVD one more time after partitioning, after which OSX would then allow installation to the new drive. It was smooth sailing from there.
The only installation snag I had was getting OSX to install to the disk. After booting to the OSX install DVD, I had to use Disk Utility to partition the drive. Once that was finished, installer would see the drive, but still wouldn't let me install to it (had a red exclaimation point on the disk). I found that I had to reboot to the installer DVD one more time after partitioning, after which OSX would then allow installation to the new drive. It was smooth sailing from there.
Comments
Yes, I would like to see xbench scores with the 7200 RPM drive.
Congratulations on your very nice upgrade.
Originally posted by Wingnut
I figured it might be worth reporting in case people are thinking about trying it. Today, I successfully replaced my 4200rpm 80gb drive with a Hitachi 7200rpm 40gb drive.
Excellent. That's the way I would go too, as I never use anywhere near half of the GB that they give me.
If you'd like to briefly explain the steps to get the hard drive out, I can make it a sticky - I imagine there are going to be a lot of people wanting to do this.
-Johnny
It's a pretty complete breakdown, you have to pull the cage off the mainboard, and remove the cooling fan to swap the drive.
It's more of a pain than I'd expected, but not as bad as upgrading a current powerbook.
I put in a 7200RPM Travelstar and a 512MB stick.
Makes a major difference in performance.
You can find the service manual online if you look around..
NOTE: Make sure you pay attention to how things are before you take it apart--this is how it needs to look when you are done putting it back together!
NOTE2: Be careful when handling a mobile hard disk. The metal enclosure is very thin on top and bottom. Excess pressure on top and bottom might damage the drive components!
Procedure:
-Open mini with "putty knife trick."
-Pull the RAM.
-Undo 3 screws on the drive assembly and then lift it up.
-Unplug the cables to the speaker and fan.
-Take out the 4 screws on the optical drive and push it AND the riser card back towards the duct exit until you unplug the hard disk. This will free the optical drive and riser card.
-Unscrew the fan and move it aside-3 screws.
-Unscrew the hard disk and replace-4 screws.
-Reattach the fan.
-Bring the optical drive/riser card back in. Make sure you line up the hard drive port when bringing it back in. Reattach the optical drive.
-Reattach the fan and speaker cables. Check at this time to make sure the cables are routed the same as before.
Drop the assembly back into the mini. Make sure you get the riser card back into the slot.
-Put your RAM back.
-Put the cover back on the mini.
Initializing and installing OSX:
-Start the OSX installer via the boot DVD.
-Go to the menu bar on top and run "Disk Utility"
-Erase and partition the newly installed drive as desired.
-Reboot the machine and enter OSX installer again. The Drive should now be ready to accept OSX.
-Install OSX as desired and enjoy your newfound speed!
4200RPM score
7200RPM score
As far as real world usage, boot times aren't that much improved, but everywhere else I see a big improvement. The Gimp loads 2x as fast, as does NeoOffice. All the other apps open almost immediately. The drive seems pretty quiet, though I do hear it working. It's not loud, but I know when it's busy.
EDIT: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/
Originally posted by lundy
Excellent. That's the way I would go too, as I never use anywhere near half of the GB that they give me.
-Johnny
From what I've read somewhere, hard drives slows down noticeably as the drive becomes full. So if you care about speed enough that you are willing to swap drives, might as well get an oversized drive to ensure that the speed will last.
Besides, aren't larger drives faster because of the higher data density?
Originally posted by Wingnut
I figured it might be worth reporting in case people are thinking about trying it. Today, I successfully replaced my 4200rpm 80gb drive with a Hitachi 7200rpm 40gb drive.
I always find fast HD's make a huge "user" impression than the test results suggest - ill be recommending this little upgrade with an external case for the 80G - for storage.
Actually, one of the easiest ways to upgrade an old computer is to put a new hard drive in it. If you have a 3-4 year old system, chances are the thing is running on a super slow 4200rpm, or maybe 5400rpm drive with 512kb of cache. Newer drives are bigger, faster, and quieter (well, most are), so it can really make the difference sometimes.
I've watched the movie, but the fellow removed EVERYTHING, before swapping the memory. Can the memory be swapped with removing all the other guts?
I just got a Mini today, and really like it. But want to up the memory to a gig. Think this guy it going to be perfect for my Mac needs.
Storage specialist Seagate today introduced what it claims is the world's highest capacity hard drive for notebook computers - and its first Serial ATA unit for laptops.
Part of the company's Momentus line-up, the 2.5in, 120GB drive is nonetheless only set to spin at 5400rpm - it you want a faster unit, you'll need Seagate's 7200rpm, 100GB model. That said, the extra power consumption of the higher spin speed means it's largely a niche market, such as the blade server systems Seagate is also pitching the Momentus family at.
Off-topic trolling and Mac vs PC nonsense removed.