Replace HDD with SSD, will any SSD work (Mac Mini mid 2011)?

Yes, any SSD will work. I'm running an OCZ Vertex2 120 GB SSD. Just make sure you upgrade to the drive's latest firmware version after installation.

As for OS install, I put the old drive into an external enclosure and booted from its Recovery partition. From there, I did a fresh install of Lion on the internally installed SSD. But I should have researched better. Holding COMMAND+R brings up Internet Recovery, which will install Lion, pulling it from Apple's servers, on even hardrive without any data on it.

More here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/

If all you're doing is replacing the hard drive that's already there, then you're just performing a basic hard drive swap. Make sure you've got the right size (a standard 2.5" 9.5mm laptop drive), and you're good to go after installing the OS. I personally prefer to just use a Time Machine backup to restore to the new drive.

Update

I have become aware that the OS install is quite a bit different for Lion than for Leopard and Snow Leopard, thanks to the other people providing answers. I would trust someone more fluent in Lion than myself for OS install tips, but my answer about the physical hard drive is still correct.

Check this out, everyone! Pretty slick, isn't it? Those are ThunderBolt speeds! And some of the better ones at that!

I just got my Mac mini yesterday, and today, I faithfully put 8GB of RAM into it. This is off-topic, but boy does the extra 4GB make a difference when you're dealing with the OS paging to the 5400rpm stock drive. lol...

At any rate, regarding the aforementioned article, the trick as to how to get the almost 1GB/s for both read and write speeds is to get two (2) SATA III (6Gbps) solid state drives. Doesn't have to be OWC's. It can be a couple of OCZ's or a set of Intel 510 drives.

Incidentally, if anyone has any questions about OS X 10.7 Lion, I think I'll be able to help. I have been using Lion exclusively since Dev. Preview 4 and the installation shouldn't get in the way of this at all. There are a number of different ways to install/upgrade/clone, etc. We should be fine. I've also been an enthusiast when it comes to SSD technology for a while. My first one was the 1st gen. Intel X25-M 80GB and it cost me a hefty $550 and that was considered very cheap at the time. There were no fancy features such as TRIM or NCQ either. In fact, the initial firmware crashed my then-ThinkPad laptop and it took a while to remedy the issue.

Anyway, as we talked about, to get one of these bad boys into the Mac mini is relatively easy, as you're just doing a swap. And I'm sure that some of you may just be happy as a clam with "just one" SATA III SSD. After all, you'll be getting around 500-550MB/s for r/w speeds and the random 4K block speeds are equally as impressive. However, I can't UN-read that OWC article. I'm going to need that 2nd drive in my mini! lol...And the second empty 2.5" slot IS there, seemingly ready to receive SSD #2, but as I understand it, the (likely proprietary) SATA connector/cable/whatever is missing! :-((( This is only true for the NON-server models, but I bought the one with the AMD Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics chip, because let's face it, the AMD chip w/ GDDR5 VRAM is significantly better than Intel's integrated Sandy Bridge GPU, the HD 3000. Yes, I get it, it's the "server edition", which "doesn't need fancy graphics", but come on, Apple...:-(

Assuming that my assumptions are correct - and I genuinely hope that I am wrong - the question becomes as to where, o where, can we obtain one of those (proprietary?) SATA III connector/cable/whatever for the 2nd 6Gbps SSD?

Sorry for my long post...We must tackle this issue together because if we fail to do so, the tyrants will have won! :D

My Mac Mini i7 (non-server) is due in a few days and I'll be upgrading the RAM to 16GB and replacing the stock HD with a 240GB SSD. I'm looking forward to the online recovery for Lion. I also have a 3TB 7200 Drive that I will probably be dropping in as the 2nd drive to house my iTunes (Music and Movies).

I'm getting an OCZ Agility 3 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC SSD and I'm hoping it screams. What I'm really waiting on is more 3rd Party Thunderbolt Cases and Cabinets. Then I can completely dump the other HTPC.

Hello, is it possible to indicate the website and the reference of cable to buy to install an SSD Vortex 120 for example? Thank you

Renaud

Hello, is it possible to indicate the website and the reference of cable to buy to install an SSD Vortex 120 for example? Thank you

Renaud

Crunch - i installed an OWC 240 6g ssd in my mac mini server and it flies. - i am going to get another one and raid it as well but i am having issues with bluetooth now for some reason - been all over the internet trying to figure out - also on phone with apple. - they cant seem to figure it either - i installed this myself according to video from owc and i did not run into any problems per se. i am wondering is Lion has issues with bluetooth connectivity. - i configured the mac mini server i7 with a logitech dinovo (windows) keyboard and MX performance mouse but i want to use the track pad and bluetooth wireless keyboard - it wil not find ANYTHING when i try to discover. - my macbook pro sees them both fine very quickly. - any thoughts?

BY the way, the mid 2011 Mac mini will hold, use and acknowledge 16GB of ram. Yeah, I'm running 10GB right now and I'm waiting for another chip

to get me to 12GB. I would go the whole 16, but I'm waiting for the 8GB chips

to come down.

Right now Newegg has the 8GB Singe channel Corsair for $139. Has anyone kept the OS drive and just replaced the extra 500GB hard drive in the i7 quad mac mini?

They have 2 500gb drives and I want to replace the non OS one and use all of my photo processing apps in the SSD for faster processing.

I am adding a 2nd SSD to my 2011 Mini (using the ifixit kit) and started with a Samsung 830. Samsung had released a firmware update to fix a BSOD problem with Windows in January so I updated my drive before installing it. The drive does not work with the Mini. Sometimes it didn't recognize the drive and couldn't partition it.

I swapped the 830 with a Samsung 810 from an older Mini running Snow Leopard. Both drives work fine in their respective machines now so I suspect its a problem between the firmware and Lion. The machine with the 830 will probably never move beyond Snow Leopard since I need Rosetta for some old PPC applications .

For the record, if you install Snow Leopard with the Combo 10.6.8 Update, it runs perfectly well on the Mac Mini. The trick is to do the installation on an older machine that supports whatever 10.6 install media you have, or to use InstaDMG. We back Mac Minis down to 10.6.8 all the time for clients wanting to run the Final Cut Server client interface on them.

i am not so sure any SSD drive will work in a Mac Mini. While the FIXIT kit and instruction set is wonderful, my MAC Mini did not recognize the SAMSUNG 830 SSD 512GB i threw at it. I then tried to update the firmware in a Windows machine (no OSX support here), but Samsung Magician said it was an unsupported SAMSUNG SSD. I then tried another SAMSUNG 830 SSD, 128GB, and while it is still in the Mac Mini, it does not show up after booting. Nor does the Disk Utility see it. Perhaps another obsolete SAMSUNG firmware, which to remedy takes a WIndows configuration. Funnily both drives had been identified, initialized and formatted using disk utility with the USB adapter on my MACBOOK before installing into the Mini.

I think I am going to give our Korean friends a middle finger and stop buying from manufacturers not supporting the OSX system.

Cheers.

Cor

So i have a question to add, as i am receiving my first Mac ( I7 server model ), ram and SSD in the next few days. I am planning to go the option of installing the SSD before first using the Mini and using recovery to install OSX on the SSD.

MyY question is, does this meani do not need to format the SSD first?

I will be using an OWC Mercury 6Gb SSD.