![ifixit mac mini late 2014 hdd upgrade ifixit mac mini late 2014 hdd upgrade](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/29474-47733-mac-mini-late-2014-drive-swap-disassembly-26-m.jpg)
IFIXIT MAC MINI LATE 2014 HDD UPGRADE UPDATE
Excluding one possible warning about some small capacity mismatch, all operations should finish successfully and you should be able to update macOS to the latest version without error. Both operating systems are running properly but many, many times faster.įinally, just in case boot in a macOS Recovery Mode and perform a Disk Repair of a Fusion Drive and a Macintosh HD partition as well.
IFIXIT MAC MINI LATE 2014 HDD UPGRADE UPGRADE
I want to upgrade it to a combo SSD + HDD because you know why, but I cant find a way to know if it is possible or not to add a second SATA connector (like some you can find really cheap on Amazon), or if it comes with a PCI connector (like it seems to be the case, via iFixIt). Still don't try any action with a PCIe partition!Īfter complete operation, disconnection of external drives and restart, the mini instantly started up exactly the same as before the disk replacement. I recently bought a Mac Mini (late 2014), with these characteristics. Then I cloned the whole HDD with the "as is" option to the new SSD without automatic resizing! (SSD was a little bit bigger so I tried that but the result of such attempt was a Fusion Drive malfunction, no access to a Recovery Partition and impossibility to update macOS because of an error). When the SSD was already inside (I didn't touch a PCIe disk at all), I attached the old HDD as an external drive through a USB enclosure and booted up from an external optical drive with an Acronis True Image HD bootable DVD (you can try another such third party software but I found that cloning a Boot Camp Partition with the Apple Disk Utility doesn't work well).
![ifixit mac mini late 2014 hdd upgrade ifixit mac mini late 2014 hdd upgrade](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/29474-47726-mac-mini-late-2014-drive-swap-disassembly-19-xl.jpg)
A detailed instruction of disassembling a Mac mini is available on iFixit. The mini turned from a very slow computer to a very quick one. I bought a 250 gb Samsung SSD and hooked it up to one of the mini's USB 3 ports through an enclosure. Lack of a special T6 Security Torx Screwdriver was a little problem but I luckily could brake out security pins from the chassis screws, making all of them a regular torx (though I strongly recommend buying a proper screwdriver on eBay as well as the logic board removal tool instead of my laundry wire hanger, especially if your Mac is still covered by a warranty). I went for another option with my 2014 mini. I carefully replaced the original internal Apple HDD with the same capacity ADATA SU800 1TB SSD. You can then use the HDD as a backup or spare. Boot from the SSD to verify everything is working properly. The basic process will be the following: Clone your existing HDD to the SSD. I backed up all my data first so I could try a couple of methods before I found the right one described below. They also provide HDD to SSD upgrade kit which I have used on a number of my old Mac.