While I'm reasonably handy with this sort of stuff, my confidence of pulling this off is maybe 70%.Īnother complicating factor is that I want to run MS Office 2011, which means I should install Sierra or HIgh Sierra at the latest. It requires completely disassembling the mini and reassembling it.

I've also seen videos about installing a 1 TB SATA SSD to replace the the HDD entirely. But it's unclear to me whether that works on a HDD-only mini (Is that why you need to buy the cable, or is there more to it?) and whether the PCIE can be the primary (and only) boot drive. There seems to be a fairly simple upgrade, if you purchase a special cable, to install a PCIE ssd. I've watched a couple of youTube videos about performing the upgrade.

I'm trying to avoid buying a brand new machine, and I figure this chassis with a 1 TB SSD would run quite well for what I need, which isn't very intense. That's two Apple failures in two weeks, machines that have been reliable for years (sigh, are we sure Apples can't get COVID-19?). If I try a normal boot, it stops about 70% through the normal cycle and turns itself off. Now I can only boot the machine into recovery mode or safe mode. So I ran First Aid, then First Aid from recovery mode, which both failed. Anyway, I got it all set up for her, when I noticed the HDD was booting slowly. Previously I'd use the mini as a media computer and a Plex server.

Can I swap a SSD into my late-2014 mac-mini to replace failed HDD? I've been trying to configure my late 2014 mac mini (8 GB, 1 TB HDD) to allow my wife to work on a mac at home since her old MacBook Air just died.

Imac 27 late 2013 pcie ssd