Adding external SSD to boot OS X El Captain on 2014 Mac Mini

[tekio 117]

Ok - so I'm a dork but really do love Macs. I wanted a decent Mac Desktop at home. Of course as much as OS X is cool (chime in anytime Scrappy or Dins :-P  ), Apples hardware sucks! Was not gonna finance a Mac Pro or (even worse) an iMac. So I got an opened box Mac Mini 2014 2.6Ghz i5 (dual core i5) for a deal at Best Buy. Then a 27" Dell Monitor. 

 

This was decent as follows:

- 8GB DDR (no upgrades on the 2014)

- Iris graphics

- 2.6Ghz i5 

 

But on HUGE problem: internal 5400RPM HDD. This was unusable... And who would buy a damn Hybrid drive for a Mini??? Even worse the Mac Mini needs to be outfitted from Apple for a Hybrid drive - it uses a special logic board with an mSSD slot. Not available on the Mac Mini that ships with a 1TB HDD...

 

The problem I soon discovered is Apple has really locked the hardware down for the 2014. 1) they use secured custom torx screws now. 2) if that were not enough - even buying the a custom torx wrench from iFixit will void the warranty. Even to replace the hard drive!!!!  

 

The Mac Mini with the Fusion Drive is waayyyy to much $$$ for a desktop that uses a laptop CPU. And still, one can only have a 64GB SSD (mSSD) and 1TB HDD (remember pulling the Logic Board out voids the warranty now ;-)   ).. All storage  is also governed by "it works" Apple technology :: we will put stuff where its best... This would be great for my mom.... But not anyone reading this...

 

Figured out a way to do an external SSD for boot, apps, etc... , and use the internal SLOW ASS 5400RPM 1TB HDD for data storage and/or backups. This, IMO, is better than adding 1TB SSD:

 - no need to tear the Mini apart (iFixit rates the 2014 Mini as "moderate")

 - no voiding the warranty

 - have two storage devices (currently no way to get 2 in the 2014 Mini with no Hybrid option)

 - no Hybrid drive to automagically make one curse when it automagically won't do something

 - save $$$

 

What you will need :: 

2.5" SATA enclosure. Will want USB 3.0 and I'd recommend a slim profile. I chose this one:  (unsure but I think the 2014 Mini is the first with USB 3.0. If your's doesn't have USB 3.0 you'll want to use Firewire800 or fork out for an enclosure supporting Thunderbolt but thunderbolt stuff is pricey)

http://www.amazon.com/Insignia-Desktop-Hard-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B00OU56UBO

 

A decent, speedy SSD. Look for close to 500MB/S read and write. Anything reading "Sandforce controller" will probabIy work great.  chose this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178967&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-N82E16820178967&gclid=COe1vr-DzMwCFRCRaQodaeACCA&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

 

1) make OS X El Captain install USB stick.

    - download El Captain Installer from the Apple Store

    - insert an 8GB or better USB thumb drive and run the following command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyUSBVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

 

2) With Mac Mini powered on, unplug all USB devices. 

 

3) Insert USB 3.0 Enclosure (with SSD installed) and re-insert all other USB devices. (i read OS X will give through-put and power priority to the first devices inserted. The USB 3.0 root hub actually divides bandwidth and power to all devices. So don't have any high-powered USB devices or this could maybe not work. :-(

 

4) Reboot - then hold the Option key. 

     - select your USB El Captain Installer.

 

5) Follow the installer and install OS X to your new SSD. 

 

6) After install system will reboot - hold the Option key on boot.

 

7) Select your SSD

 

8) Follow the Apple "first steps" wizard.....

 

9) Notice how much better your Mac Mini is.

 

10) Go to system preferences and make sure your new SSD is the preferred boot drive, in startup manager.

 

 

 

Done...

 

 

 

Pretty simple for most people in here.... But some Apple people might find this useful.  :-)

 

 

 

[dinscurge 51]

for someone voiding the warranty might be able to replace the dvdrom as with many other laptop or laptop based devices to gain another sata device

[tekio 117]

That picture and post are really gonna confuse some Mac users. LMAO 

 

 

EDIT: the Mini has not had a DVD/CD ROM for years. I think Sata Supports two disks per wire as long as the firmware does. The older Mini's with that have a Mini Server Sibling to their line supported port multiplying. There was a port multiplier cable thing-mijigger for supported Mini's by third parties. And even a place to mount a second 2.5: HDD (the Mini Server came with two 2.5 and an Apple port multiplier.)

 

Unsure if the 2014 will support a port multiplier like the earlier models - I could't find one. :-(  Even if - good luck mounting it. Possible? Yep... But most Mac users it would be unlikely.
 

 

EDIT2: Or maybe the older Mini had two SataPorts? I cannot remember.... I bought one really cheap once in the local newspaper: put a modern version of OS X, 16GB DDRL3 ; and added a cheap 128GB SSD with the cable and sold it on eBay for almost 1000.00. LMAO

Edited May 13, 2016 by tekio

[dinscurge 51]

23 hours ago, tekio said:

That picture and post are really gonna confuse some Mac users. LMAO 

 

dunno lol was just first pictures came up from a google search was the older one with a slot drive or something, least that version you could like most laptops get a conversion thing that takes a 2.5in drive and mounts in same place/uses the plug for the dvdrom for about 10-15$. else yea probably have to external

[tekio 117]

Mac users will tear the thing apart looking for it. Not the post, they're a different breed from BinRev people, that's all. Sorry. :-)

 

Apple was/is  a Pioneer of "DVD's should go to the Museum".  Unsure: but I think Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison started the "No DVD or software in boxes." thing to kill Microsoft's business model. Unsure but have heard both Steve Jobs and Ellison rant about how software shouldn't be in boxes and in the next sentence talk about how bad Microsoft is/was. (Even though Microsoft did save Apple's ass from bankruptcy)

Edited May 14, 2016 by tekio

[dinscurge 51]

dunno, if it comes in a box, going usb like windows 10, or sd or something could be cool, especially given the state of the infrastructure where there are still areas where people basically have to get dialup or satellite internet and all these city folks, just download it, its only 40gb its faster than installing it. plus.. the whole thing where companies are dicks about pricing.

 

i.e. if your browse steam and look at games, and then look at say amazon for physical copies for some of these exact same games even on steams platform, most all of the time outside specific shortage issues, the physical copy always drops in price faster, but even besides that software, or software with atleast mostly physical backup, box, boxart, shipped for the exact same price if you want things on launch day. seems sort of a rip off if you consider how much more money went into delivering you a physical copy.

 

not to mention the over time, depending on popularity/quantities that these online vendors have in stock, can get stuff for 50-75% lower than on steam or wherever pretty regularly. when you start talking games people arent currently rushing to buy that are say 1-3 years old.

 

atleast thats been my experience not that i dont think downloading stuff isnt a valid delivery method, just not everyone prices things accordingly/reduces prices in as timely of matter. besides having to read TOS/TOU stuff, where you may not be guaranteed access to the content/have to worry about backing it up anyways, which is also an issue for physical copies as well though for online activation stuff

[tekio 117]

People with dial-up will be left behind. The DVD is going bye-bye... as is software in a box. Windows 10 MS business model that is fading like Microsofts strangle hold on I.T. Microsoft was like Goliath in the 90's. Glad to see them getting surpassed and needing to assess serious risk now. Their business model was software in a box and licensing an operating system and other software for too much money. Even Adobe has changed to cloud. Oh.. and Office 365.

 

I mean  you can buy Office in a "box". But for someone on dial-up for any reason (especially if they cannot afford broadband) office 365 and Adobe cloud are far more economical than boxed versions (if someone is needing to dialup for economical reasons - good luck scraping up $300 - $800 for software. But they may be able to afford $30 per month for Office.  I don't think games would be a high priority, But they could get a sone they like for 1.29 before the entire CD at 18 - 20). I think Office 365 proves the MS business model of gouging consumers and forcing paid upgrades is going bye bye. 

 

Unsure - I read a few years ago iTunes was the 4th largest music seller and only profiting a few million. It's not like putting a Linux FTP server up and letting people download stuff. There are a lot of costs involved in bandwidth (that is non-profitable) and infrastructure. I have noticed even MS is now using slow ass links for trials of their all their products to cut infrastructure costs. 

 

Even movies are fading away via physical medium... Apple doesn't even make hard-copies of OS X anymore. Digital music in sales has far surpassed physical medium sales. I mean there are still people that live in the Ozark Mountains and that didn't stop brick and mortar to doing business and succeeding by making products targeted at their market? Never seen a Walmart in the middle of nowhere. Business caters to the masses. I don't think people with dial-up are a huge profitable market. 

 

Sucks for people who are dial-up for whatever reason.... But chances of someone who needs to use dialup Internet for whatever reason are unlikely to spend a thousands a year on new software.... But someone with Google fiber is. So.... dial-up users will left with dial-up and old software for whatever reason... Or will need to do what people living in bum-fuck egypt do - figure out a way to get into a place offering what they need (like a Starbucks).

Edited May 14, 2016 by tekio

[tekio 117]

EDIT: not mention the fact when I was working freelance I needed Office for a three or four projects. I was not forced to buy Office that would need to updated in 3 years (paid). Think I just used a trial of Office 365 for a month then canceled. 

 

About two months later I needed Office again. Then paid like $35.00 and canceled again. Also, paying 24 per month is much better (for me) to have access to all JetBrains IDE's. That would have been a an investment of 1000.00. Now if the time comes I find better IDE's I'm not locked into the JetBrains stuff just because I spent over 1000 on all their products. :-)

 

Like Microsoft in the 90's. ;-)

[dinscurge 51]

well grand theft auto 5 had made something like 800m on release day(probably including preorders not sure..). just saying for things like mp3s and whatever its much easier/faster adoption rate, things that are 20>GB a shot, isnt as accessable when you may only be able to get say 5-10Mb i mean 10/8-1.25MB, 50,000/1.25=40k seconds, or ~11hrs. isnt like its just people in wyoming where you've been driving for 3hrs without seeing a single person, you can be within 30miles of a capital city and not be able to get actual fast connection. you start talking games, 4-8k media the average us speed is only ~12Mb, you start talking heavily compressed 8k if we factor 4GB for a heavily compressed 1080p film at 120m long, if its 8x that you get 32GB, or 16MB a second or 128mb, so if the average speed goes up atleast 10x within say 10-15years it might be just doable for the average person. i mean if you looked at 4k now probably like 50-70% of the us couldnt stream, or consume that product they might consider another format

[tekio 117]

PC gaming is dying for several reasons. Mainly because for the price of a PC to rock the latest whiz-bang DX11 graphics - I can get a 1080P TV, XBOX and kick back in my recliner and play. IF you 3 kids are you gonna get an X-Box 1 or a gaming PC you'll need to build for them? 

 

1080P on Vudu looks just fine to most people. They don't want to go to Wal Mart and buy a blue ray. They need to  get out of their Lazy Boy recliner to manually change it. Most stuff like that is impulse purchase anyway..... I purchased Crysis and Crysis 2 online. Think it was slimmed down and missing the cut scenes with video (but that is a feature to me).

 

You can love physical medium - but its going bye bye.  :-)

 

 

EDIT: there will always be a niche for PC Gaming. However, its an expensive hobby and (for the most part) requires some degree of technical knowledge to do without games always getting bogged down by poorly configure and under-powered PC's. 

 

XBOX 1 or Play Station 4: : $350.00

Decent Low Cost 34": 1080P T.V.:    $300.00

HDMI Cable:      $15.00

 

That's under $1000.00 and only plugging in an HDMI cable with two power cables.  Gaming machine in really high maintenance for the average Joe who has kids, a day job, and limited time. That's why PC gaming is niche. Unsure what games console are like online. But pretty sure they will be delivered over the Internet soon. But gaming consoles will be the last to lose the drive. As console games do have longer shelf-life than movies. 

Edited May 17, 2016 by tekio

[scratchytcarrier 105]

They still have Offi¢e? Christ I'm still using my old 16-bit Word 6.0 and Excel packages that I bought brand new 20 years ago.

I remember trying out Word 2003 or whatever it was called and couldn't believe how bloated it was. Like having a 2-trailer Century Class ST when the most you really need to do the job is an F250. Strictly IMHO, Office after about 2000 are just crap piled on top of, well, more crap. 1GB+ total disk and RAM required just for a stupid word processor? Shit, I can do all that I need to do in maybe 15MB tops.

And Doom II in 480I S-video on a 36" Trinitron looks fine to me. But then I'm not real picky.

[tekio 117]

I do like Libre Office. It does what I need. However in business (say using GP Dynamics, ASPX, C# and/or other MS technologies) it has a place. Like maybe exporting data using eConnect from Dynamics GP. One can sit around and fiddle with complex left joins... Or use eConnect and import/export GP Dynamics data to/from Excel (with Office installed)  Letting eConnect do all the dirty work of extracting data in tables at the business layer is nice. Also it adds a lot of libraries to C# / VB .Net for importing and exporting other stuff (but of course needs to be installed on the client and dev machine)

 

But again, the average student, office worker, etc... will never need to do that. But they cannot pretty OpenOffice M.S. certs to hang on a cubical

 

Trinitrons were the best! My old 36" was a bitch to lug upto my bedroom though.

Edited May 17, 2016 by tekio

[dinscurge 51]

besides them still pressing new records, im mostly arguing the time frame probably isnt going to be as soon as some expect given the disproportionate rate between the size of media and the average internet speed, especially if one is hoping for cloud only instead of just digital delivery but you still have to store it locally i mean 8tb drives are pushing 2-300MB and it would still be faster for load times/better experience for ssd, by the time average speed is that fast the current fast 1000-1500MB nvme stuff will be ancient dont think that will doable for quite awhile, but for just digital delivery probably guess 5-10 years before consoles without drives/most everything digital delivery. i mean lets say osx or windows hell linux, how easy is it exactly to download/install an os without an os or another computer for someone that just uses facebook or whatever.

 

for gaming pc the cost is definitely debatable. i mean the figures you gave, if you substitute a 100-150$ monitor instead of 300$ tv can do like:

100-150$ monitor,

50-75$ mobo

<50$ ram 2x4gb ddr3

athlon x4 <100$

hdd 50-60$(1-2tb sata 3)

ssd 40-60$(128gb boot drive)

cheap case 50$

only 545$ for max ranges so far

can get like r7 360 for 100$, if you went lower ranges for some of the stuff/ swung 200 could get 380,

 

have to know what to get/where to look of course but its totally doable at cost without even looking for sales/bundle deals used anything with a better performing/all around experience. but the whole pc gaming dying thing is kind of a misnomer, sales of hardware is down and stuff but that's because a i7 980 can render faster than i7 6700k. i mean if you have a 2600k, you could get a 3770k for a 3% increase in performance or just clock it up from 3.5>5 and then it will take like 3-6 generations for stock to catch up. the game sales are still selling just the growth was eclipsed by console/tablets smartphones whatever. is similar to if say chevy started selling alot more cars, just because that happens doesn't mean ford automatically dies, especially if ford is still profitable/and making decent returns

 

[tekio 117]

Gaming experience for the price???   34" 1080P TV or $150.00 monitor?   With crappy speakers or crappy video (since 1/4 either goes into cheap speakers and sacrifices display).

 

You forgot a chair to sit in and a room to put it in. Hahaha  

 

 

IF you don't get it: ask a lady to come over for a date. All things being equal she'd rather come over and sit on your couch and play xBox on a 34" 1080p, Rather than go into your little office, sit on a little chair and play video games on a little 150.00 monitor. Why? Better gaming experience. MUCH BETTER. :-)

 

How did we get on this? I forgot? :-P   

 

How have things been going Dins? Long time - no debate. Hahahaha

Edited May 19, 2016 by tekio

[dinscurge 51]

well if they didnt go ssd/lower price range for couple other options and swung the 200$ gpu option the experience would be more like the leaked specs for the ps4 neo which is bit more than 2x the speed of ps4 with xbox one being bit slower than that. and tv's usually have bad sound also, for less than the cost of a surround reciever, not even the speakers also one could get a decent 2.1, desk chair is much cheaper than a couch etc. as far as screen choice depends on what the user wants :p. tv usually not nearly as sharp/has messed up text and that whole thing where you have to sit a distance away from the tv say a 63" 1080p sure it looks good at 8-12feet away, at 3feet not so much.

 

idk.

 

going i guess. you?

[tekio 117]

Do you ever invite girls over?  :-P

[dinscurge 51]

On 5/21/2016 at 7:27 PM, tekio said:

Do you ever invite girls over?  :-P

not for gaming lol.

 

computer is either just play online or youd be playing different games but they'd have to bring a system. maybe once finish system and get ahold of a tiny 4k display