Funny you should pick Crucial for this research. My tongue is hanging
out for their MX500 drive! Big LOL! Thanks very much for this.
On 5/12/2018 5:16 AM, Nickus de Vos wrote:
Hi Steve
This website will tell you everything you need to know regarding
pricing and compatibility of SSD drives and RAM for your late 2012 Mac
Mini.
http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Apple/mac-mini-%28late-2012%29#
Crucial is a good brand and most places doing Apple upgrades highly
recommend using only their stuff.
You want to go for the 16 GB RAM kit and then depending on your
budget, I’d say a 512 or 1 TB SSD.
As for the job of replacing the drive, it looks a bit more complicated
than I initially thought.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/11716#s27513
Replacing the RAM is very easy though
https://support.apple.com/en-za/HT205041
By all means get a quotation from Apple on this job as well, but don’t
discount a third party computer shop who will probably be a lot less
expensive.
As for the external drive enclosure, pretty much any 2.5 inch drive
enclosure should do it, as long as it’s USB-3, something like this.
https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Inch-Drive-Enclosure-External/dp/B00FCLG65U
If it was me, I’d buy all the parts and install the RAM myself. I’ll
then install the SSD in the external enclosure and first try it out
that way.
Remember by doing only the RAM upgrade you won’t see such a big
difference in performance, where doing only the SSD upgrade will
result in a huge difference. So if you can’t do both at the same time
and you have to choose, rather do the SSD first.
P.S. I don’t know where you people are seeing specs on a new Mac Mini,
apart from speculation I can find nothing official.
Nick
On 12 May 2018, at 03:51, Steve Matzura <numb...@noisynotes.com> wrote:
Nick,
If a new Mini is on the near horizon, then I can hold my breath and
see what it's like when it arrives. But a disk upgrade could always
be useful, even if I buy the new Mini later.
Re upgrading, memory and SSD are the highest of priorities. I already
have my eyes on solutions for the disk. I don't think I'd want to
waste one of four USB ports for a boot device, though, except if it
was just for short-term testing and setup. I'm thinking of paying
Apple the dollars, about a hundred fifty of them, to swap the drive
and double the memory for me (plus parts, of course). I just have to
obtain the correct sticks, as you say. Any advanced info before
searching for info thereon would be most appreciated.
Re the external MyBook with TM backups and samples on it, the samples
and other music production library stuff is all 100% duplicated on a
drive on a Windows machine, and even if that breaks, it can all be
re-downloaded from the sites from which it was purchased. Once the
SSD is installed in the Mini, that data gets moved there, giving the
whole 3TB MyBook drive over to TM.
About the Mac Pro, I think I'm off that idea for good, and not just
because of your explanation. Yes, the ones I'm seeing on eBay are
2013 build models, therefore not upgradable. But with eight cores and
32GB memory, I don't think any upgrading would even be necessary,
with the exception of swapping the internal drive it comes with for
an SSD. What kind of killed the whole idea for me is that I think
these machines only have SATA2 interfaces.
So let's talk more about booting from a USB-connected SSD. The
specifications really say it all. Have you any recommendations for an
adapter, caddy or enclosure for a SATA3 SSD? I don't really need one
of those big three-and-a-half-inch enclosures, and I've never met one
I really liked anyway. When I buy the SSD, I'll of course buy the
two-and-a-half-inch form factor unit that will fit into the Mini, but
I'd like to set it up and test with it before taking the Mini in for
the permanent transplant, which is why I'd want the enclosure or adapter.
Other than that, I don't think there are any other considerations to
ponder before starting to order parts and make appointments to have
the surgery done.
On 5/11/2018 4:11 AM, Nickus de Vos wrote:
Hi Steve
Firstly when talking Mac Pro I presume you are referring to the
cheese grater, since that’s the only Mac Pro which is upgradable,
the newer trashcan isn’t at all upgradable when it comes to drives
and RAM.
The last cheese grater is already older than your current 2012 Mac
Mini, without some hacking the last model cheese grater can for
example not run High Sierra where your Mini is still officially
supported. The other problem with the cheese grater is the wifi and
bluetooth on it which can’t be upgraded very easily, same with the
USB-2.
I saw a post on another platform the other day of a guy who upgraded
a cheese grater, it took him a lot of tinkering and hacking, a lot
of searching and expensive Ebay shopping, but eventually he could
upgrade the wifi and bluetooth to more current versions, he
installed USB-3 and he installed PCI SSD storage. The entire modding
process eventually costed him more than what he bought the second
hand machine for, and in the end he commented that it was probably
not the smartest money he ever spent.
I own a late 2013 iMac which probably has much the same internals as
your Mini, also 1 TB drive, also 8 GB RAM, I gave this machine of
mine some new life the other day. The iMac can’t be opened up easily
to upgrade the internals and I wasn’t willing to pay Apple to do it.
I rather decided to get a external USB-3 SSD to be used as the boot
drive. I installed High Sierra on the external SSD along with all my
other stuff and now I use the internal 1 TB HDD only as mass
storage. The iMac runs like a dream, it’s nice and fast again,
almost as fast as my 2015 MBP with 256 GB SSD and double the RAM.
If you are very confident in your abilities or have a friend who can
do it, then I suggest you install a SSD in your Mini to be used as
your boot drive, 512 GB even 256 GB should do it. I can’t remember
off hand, but if I recall doing this on the 2012 Mini is still quite
easy, I doubt any special tools are needed for example.
Next while you are at it and if you have the budget, upgrade the RAM
to 16 GB, just read up and make double certain you get the correct RAM.
As for your external drive with your samples and time machine
backup, have you got a backup of all samples and another time
machine drive or is this your only copy of this data?
I suggest you get a second external hard drive of the same or bigger
size and make a clone of your external drive so that you have 2
copies of that data. I also suggest you partition the drives to
split your sample library and time machine to two partitions.
If you can’t install a SSD in to your Mini then do what I did, use a
external SSD as your boot drive,, but SSD is definately the way to
go here. Another advantage of doing it this way is that you can very
easily reuse that external SSD for something else should you stop
using your Mini one day.
Before you purchase anything, maybe wait till WWDC next month, a new
Mac Mini model is long overdue and I hope we will see one announced
then.
Nick
On 11 May 2018, at 03:50, Steve Matzura <numb...@noisynotes.com> wrote:
I have a quad core i7 late 2012 Mac Mini with the stock 5400rpm 1TB
drive and 8GB RAM. I use it exclusively for music reation and
education (mainly my own) with Logic and Pro Tools. My sample
libraries are stored on an external MyBook 3TB drive which is also
shared with time Machine. Consequently, once per hour, there's a
little gligtchiness sometimes if I happen to be playing something
that draws heavily on sampled content when TM runs. Granted, it
only lasts for a second or two because the machine does not require
much in the way of backups, as very little on it changes.
So I'm starting to think it's time for an upgrade. But what to upgrade?
Clearly more memory would help, as well as replacing the mechanical
drive with a solid-state drive. There's also the main hardware,
which surely can't be upgradable to the next operating system
forever. I ran into this with a 2009 iMac when Sierra was released.
For disk replacement, Crucial has a 2TB drive for five hundred
dollars--that's just twenty-five cents US per gig--a very nice
price. I'm quite fond of Crucial solid-state disks, as I already
own two other smaller units used in other machine. I figure if I
changed out the 1TB rotating drive for a 2TB SSD and moved all my
sample libraries to that drive, that would also eliminate the USB 3
slow-down (if there really is one, which I'm not convinced there
is), then that USB drive would be used exclusively for Time Machine
backups.
Another option is to purchase an empty Mac Pro and put the Crucial
2TB drive and lots of memory into it, then set the rest of it up as
above. But how long will a Mac Pro last before it, too, can no
longer be upgraded? With the price of Apple hardware ever
increasing, will I eventually get priced out of upgrading?
Everybody says it's bad practice to mix system and data files on a
drive. But if it's a solid-state drive, how could this be bad?
If I obtain a Mac Pro, which model year has the highest
expandability quotient? i.e., which one can I keep the longest and
expand the most into the future before it won't be expandable/
upgradable any more, like my old 2009 iMac turned out to be when
Sierra was released.
So, what would you do?
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