I have a late 2012 Mac Mini and I was having the hardest time installing OS X with the HDD in the “Original” spot and the SSD using the data doubler from OWC. Even when I got OS X installed on the SSD, rebooting would show the “no smoking” symbol and I could not get back into OS X. A comprehensive video tutorial demonstrating how you can install a 2nd hard drive (SSD in my case) into a 2011-2012 Apple Mac Mini desktop computer.

I have added a Samsung 512 GB 850 Pro and 500 GB EVO drive with the fixit.com Kit and 16GB (2x8GB) corsair sticks of Ram to my October 2012 2.3GHz Mac Mini. I would say that all you need is the MB removal tool and a T6 and T8 and (T8 Security)Though I think it is important that your tools be long bladed as a couple of times you are removing screws at an angle. It is fast I use the EVO as the time machine drive. Windows 2016 download.

I am very happy with the kit though the walk throughs failed at key steps and they really should have a put it back together walk through rather than saying 'do this in reverse'. I used the fixit magnetic mat and it served the purpose beautifully, holding the screws in place until I was ready to replace them.

The marker is a nice fine tip which made making notes in the boxes nice. I used two different guides for the teardown and rebuild.

Hello guys and sorry for the lame question: i was an happy mac mini 2011 user, now i turned into the new mac mini late 2012 but it turned into &%*#! First i wasn't able to add a second drive (seems like apple doesn't let you use the ifixit cable for the main drive and suddenly it worked only chaning the main sata cable: i used the apple one with my new samsung 830 ssd e the ifixit one with the original hard drive hitatchi 1tb. Now i'm going nuts with the os installation: i can't install it. I tried to download the os from apple store and it says: your computer is not compatibile. I tried to load the os on an usb stick and if i try to boot from usb shows a circle with a slash and everything freezes. Now i tried the net installer: it downloaded the os for almost 3 hours and now, after the first reboot it says 'i can't install os mountain lion, please try again' what the &&@! There some kind of apple hardware protection over here?!

My hardware is mac mini i7 ghz, 4 gb ddr 3 1600 and hd 4000 thank you! I added a Samsung 830 128GB (MZ-7PC128B/WW) and experienced the same problems as with only 1 screw holding the antenna and the SSD lying in the mac mini without any screw holding it; shook it too and seems nice though. I cloned the old system via carbon copy cloner, after reseting the parameters via cmd + alt + p +r on start-up everything is running preety fast. Update: Just added upgraded another two MacMinis with Samsung 830 128 GB SSDs. Everything went well, all screws fit this time, didn't have to remove the logic board as well. Well I have been using the Samsung 830 and Crucial M4 for some time and no problem (not in a Mac though) I find they behave better if you set them up properly before installing too. - not absolutely necessary but good practice in my mind The easiest way to align an SSD is to create an aligned partition on the SSD with the help of Diskpart.

Open an elevated command prompt and run the following sequence of commands – each line followed by Enter. Diskpart List disk Select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your SSD in List disk) Clean Create partition primary align=1024 Format fs=ntfs quick Active (assuming you want to install an OS) Exit Note: If you want to create a 100MB partition with alignment, the create command is: Create partition primary size=100 align=1024 The size unit is always MB. Verification If you want to verify the alignment (e.g. For a SSD where you are not certain whether the proper alignment was done), you use the following commands. Diskpart List disk Select disk n List partition.

== Keep in mind that adding the additional drive will require that you completely disassemble the Mac Mini. This is no small task and took me about an hour to complete fully. == That being said the before and after - 4GB Ram + 1TB spindle vs 16GB Ram 512GB 850 Pro SSD speeds are MONUMENTALLY different and WORTH THE EFFORT. Before: and after: I have added a Samsung 512 GB 850 Pro and 500 GB EVO drive with the fixit.com Kit and 16GB (2x8GB) corsair sticks of Ram to my October 2012 2.3GHz Mac Mini. I would say that all you need is the MB removal tool and a T6 and T8 and (T8 Security), though I think it is important that your tools be long bladed as a couple of times you are removing screws at an angle. The improvement is awesome and I use the EVO as the time machine drive. I am very happy with the kit though the walk throughs failed at key steps and they really should have a put it back together walk through rather than saying 'do this in reverse'.