Mac Mini Fusion Drive or self built SSD / Fusion drive

Hi,
I am contemplating to buy a Mac Mini i7 2.6GHz but don't really know what I want to do with the Harddrive. One option would of course be to add a Fusion Drive for 200 bucks. However, apple doesn't say anything about the brand or model that they use for the SSD's which is a bit upsetting. Another option would be to go with the basic 1TB hard drive and replace it with a really good SSD (also around 200), or the third option would be to perhaps create your own Fusion Drive by going with the basic 1TB hard drive and simply add a SSD.
Any suggestions, recommendations, potential problems of eacht etc?
Thanks very much in advance

I have used a Fusion drive (120GB Intel SSD + 500GB HDD) which worked really well, handled all the file movement between the SSD and HDD and made a Mini fast. I added the SSD myself using a dual drive kit (with tools) from iFixit.com.
I would go with the idea of purchasing a 3rd party SSD (Samsung, Crucial, OWC), a dual drive kit from either iFixit.com or OWC (Macsales.com) then install it yourself. Both iFixit.com and Macsales.com have excellent guides on how to do this. With OS X Mavericks you'll be able to have the OS create a Fusion drive or you can manage the drives independently.

Similar Messages

Mac Mini Won't Boot or Internet Restore - Hard Drive Boots on Macbook

Late 2012 Mac Mini. I cloned my 10.10.2 installation of Yosemite over from my Macbook pro 6,2 to a 1TB Samsung 840 SSD. It booted with no issues besides the keychain being lost and all passwords having to be re-entered.
After a week of going perfectly, it stops recognizing the USB keyboard after I unplugged it and plugged it back in. So I rebooted and get the dreaded stop sign after the boot failed. Oops. I enabled trim before I cloned, but forgot to check if it was working in the cloned drive (seems it was in the end). Since there was no recovery partition, I booted into Internet Recovery, but that hung using both WPA and WPA2 router logins. It obviously was syncing with router, but I got error -2002f in every configuration I tried. It also didn't seem to recognize an ethernet connection. Weird stuff.
I remembered I had an issue with a previous Mac Mini of the same model and the permissions after a clone. I repaired permissions and that was that. This is different because it wouldn't boot into Safe Mode. Resetting the PRAM did bring back an audible chime at least.
I pulled the SSD out of the Mac Mini and alt booted in from my Macbook 6,2. No issues (except the keychain thing again( and it loaded quickly. Nothing seemed to be wrong.
Then I put it back in the Mac Mini and tested it with known working RAM. Still the same thing. So now I am going to sleep on it and try to figure it out. It is unlikely to be a hardware failure as the Mac Mini was made in May 2014 and I bought factory refurbished. It seems to be an issue relating to the SSD as it boots other drives.
Any ideas?

Fix The Bugs Please wrote:
It is unlikely to be a hardware failure as the Mac Mini was made in May 2014 and I bought factory refurbished. It seems to be an issue relating to the SSD as it boots other drives.
Any ideas?
Is this SSD an additional drive added to your Mac Mini or did you replace the HDD with it? If it's an additional drive and since it's a Samsung, depending where you purchased your drive doubler kit (iFixit or OWC) you can try swapping the drives in the bays. I know for a fact that Samsung SSDs do not work right with the iFixit drive doubler kit's SATA cable. But it does work correctly with the Apple supplied SATA cable. If it's the OWC SATA cable, I know for a fact those are much more reliable with Samsung, OWC, Intel, Crucial SSDs. Another thing, I would NOT enable TRIM (my opinion) using a 3rd party trim enabler if you're running Yosemite. There are issues with trim enablers and Yosemite. Just let the built-in Garbage Collection take care of things.
If it's not an additional drive that was added, does your Mac Mini boot and work fine with the stock drive that it came with? Even though it's a 2012 model, if you purchased it refurbished from Apple in May 2014, you're still under warranty (same 1yr as new Macs) and if it's having same or similar issues working with the stock drive, you can take it to a local Apple Store for warranty repair. You would need to have only the stock drive installed (no SSD) before you setup an appointment.

Hello, I've just purchase a mac mini 10.9 it doest have a cd drive and so I can't install my Photoshop Elements 4.0. How can I update/upgrade Adobe and in stall in my computer?

Hello, I've just purchase a mac mini 10.9 it doest have a cd drive and so I can't install my Photoshop Elements 4.0. How can I update/upgrade Adobe and in stall in my computer?

that's no longer available for download. in addition, it's unlikely it would work on your mavericks os.
you could purchase pse 12 upgrade, Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 - Buying guide

HT201456 Mac Mini OS X 10.10.1 VMware Fusion Bootcamp 5.1 driver

I have a mac mini 5.2 with OS X 10.10.1 and VMWare Fusion 7.01 (no BootCamp Mac OS / Windows dual boot, the Mac Mini boot only OS X !!) and run multiple virtual windows machines on it.
If I want to mount a CD into a virtual Windows 8.1machine, I get the message that I need to install the Bootcamp dirver in this virtual machine.
I created a USB Stick with Bootcamp 5.1 drivers and want to install these drivers in Windows 8.1 virtual machine, I get the message that this Version of BootCamp can't run on this computer modell.
Has any one experience with bootcamp drivers for Windows 8.1 in VMware Fusion environments ??

Hello Loner T,
thanks for yor reply, install only AppleODDInstaller64.exe solved the problem. I had just to remove before any parts of older bootcamp driver. Interestingly, if I try to install the complete bootcamp driver packet with setup.exe BootCamp directory, I get the same message, that this Version of BootCamp can't run on this computer modell.
But anyway, the AppleODDInstaller64driver solves my CD/DVD mount problem.
regards Uwe

How do I install Windows 8 on Mountain Lion (mac mini) 2010 Server using bootcamp with out Optical Drive?

I have a 2010 Mac Mini server running 10.8.4 (12E55). I just bought a brand new copy of Windows 8 from micrsoft. I have tried using boot camp and it will not recognize a burned DVD in my remote optical drive on my laptop running windows 7 or my macbook running Lion 10.7.5. I have had Microsoft on both of my computers remoted in for about 8 hours and they tried just about everything that I've tried.
Microsofts tech support has made me a bootable DVD and a bootable Flash Drive through remote desktop (awsome good job microsoft tech support). I have even tried formatting my mac mini's second 500GB hard drive to FAT32 using this whole disc as my windows partition. I know that when I go to install windows 8 it is going to reformat the drive to NTFS but all the articles that I've found, say this is what you have to do to get the drive formatted properly to get the ball rolling and get windows will fix it when it goes to install by reformatting to NTFS.
Ok so right now I have my second 500GB hdd on my mac mini formatted to FAT32 and I have tried to reboot holding my option key like I do on my mac book. If I want to boot to a different hdd on my macbook all I do is hold the OPTION key during start up and you get prompted to choose one of the bootable disc that is on your computer. Well if I put my USB drive which is bootable on my macbook into my macbook and do this right now its not showing up.
Now I just put the DVD that they made me in my macbook and it shows up as bootable disc. But the USB doesn't. (1 hour later) I just got microsft to remake the USB drive and am going to try that again so ta ta for now and I'll come back on to post to tell you if it works.

mikkel-kj wrote:
These apps paralells and fusion and virtualbox, are they in Mac App Store? And when I have the app installed what then, now it ain't only bootcamp what shall I do now to install windows 8?
Mikkel
Parallels, Fusion, and VirtualBox are available from their respective sites. Read their installation instructions which explain how to install Windows.

SSD upgrade Mac Mini 5,2. Preparation of SSD prior to installation

Mac Mini 5,2
i7, 2.7 Ghz
8 Gb RAM 1333
Mac OS X
HDD failure requiring replacement.
I am experiencing an HDD failure, I have decided to replace the traditional HDD with a SSD. I am comfortable with the process of replacing the drive itself, but I would like to know what the appropriate steps are to preapre the SSD prior to installation.
I have regular TM backups.
Question is: What is the most efficient process to get my machine back up and running?
Is there a need to install Mac OS X on the SSD prior to replacement, or can this be done after the replacement is complete?
Thank you for your help, in advance.
WG

Before you install the SSD, check the vendor’s process for firmware updates. Does the vendor only provide a Windows firmware updater, or additionally, a downloadable Linux .iso that permits firmware updates on OS X?
Is the firmware update process itself data destructive. Even if it is claimed otherwise, a solid backup or two (clone of your drive) are good safety precautions. If your SSD is a couple of firmware updates behind, you may find a dual-step firmware update process where the first step is destructive, and the second is not.
Last summer, before I installed my OCZ Vertex 4 in my mini, I realized that the firmware update process was two-phase as described above. I had a PC tower next to my desk. The side panel came off and a length of SATA cable connected to the SSD. Ran the firmware updater on Windows. I have since acquired an external USB-SATA drive cradle. OCZ does have a more modern OS X firmware update solution now.
I clean installed OS X onto the SSD from a USB stick after the mini drive surgery. Works perfectly.

Mac Mini slow when accessing hd - NVidia MCP79 SATA Driver Problem?

I bought a Mac Mini (Early 2009) a while ago. Unfortunately i have a problem concerning speed and responseability which i couldnt solve even with a lot of googleing.
I noticed that problem first time when i tried to play a video file from hd. The video does not play as smooth as it should. It stutters from time to time. It is like a short interruption. The picture freezes for half a second and replays the lost frames very fast after that. These freezes do not occure periodically. It seems to appear randomly. The wierd thing is that the cpu usage is very low and there is enough free ram and disk space.
So i think its not a ressource problem. I noticed that these freezes do not only affect video playback. The whole system is kind of unresponsive. And thats the the case if there is some sort of hd or dvd access. When i try to copy a huge file these freezes are increasing rapidly. The more hd access the more the system is unresponsive and cannot be used anymore.
All these effects reminded me of a faulty dma/udma setting on windows machines. So i tried to check the transfer mode for my macs hd controler. But i didnt find any place where to check that. And i dont really think it is running in pio mode because that would result in a high cpu usage.
I played around a little bit to understand whats going on. So this is what i found out:
When i play a video from the hd its stuttering. It increases if i copy a file from or to the hd. Copying a file from the dvd-rom increases the effect as well. It is not influenced by a copy from AND to an external usb hd. And the whole effects do not appear under Windows Vista no matter how much i acces the hd.
So i come to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the SATA controler driver which is a NVidia MCP79. Unfortunately i have no idea what i can do to solve this problem. And i didnt find any advice or something in the internet.
So i would appreciate any suggestions.

Ok, I think I was jumping to conclusion. Disabling journaling didnt remove the problem. It just seemed so because my problem is much less distinct with Leopard. Bad luck I guess.
kmac1036, to answer your questions. For sure I dont have warranty anymore. Maybee I should have posted that I upgraded my Mac to 3 GB RAM. Furthermore I replaced the original Hitachi HD with a Western Digital 500 GB model.
Somehow that may be connected to my problem. I've read that many people have problems with the WD HD and those beachballing issues with SN. (I do so too)
But my performance problem when accessing the HD did also exist with the Hitachi. In fact the Mini was extremly slow with the original 1 GB RAM. I think putting some additional memory into the machine helped because it reduced hd accesses.
Ok, I am not an expert. But if I had to guess I would say the following seems to happen. There may be an operation in the hd driver that takes longer than it should. Because of that it maintains cpu cycles and prevents the kernel to continue scheduling. That would explain why the freezes are not connected to a high cpu usage and why the systems seems to catch up things after the freeze very fast.

My Mac Mini keeps restarting it self in the middle of working on any program.

I was working on my computer a few days back, and it restarted. And it has been happening ever since. I get a grey screen saying that my computer was restarted because of a problem, and to press a button or wait a few seconds to restart.
What can I do to get rid of this problem.

Interval Since Last Panic Report: 15 sec
Panics Since Last Report:          2
Anonymous UUID:
Fri Nov 15 17:11:11 2013
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff8021ab8945): Kernel trap at 0xffffff8021a20ade, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x0000000080010033, CR2: 0xffffffff8948394f, CR3: 0x0000000059f8e027, CR4: 0x00000000001606e0
RAX: 0x0000000100000000, RBX: 0x0000000000001100, RCX: 0x0000000000000000, RDX: 0x0000000000002000
RSP: 0xffffff81e1ef3e90, RBP: 0xffffff81e1ef3eb0, RSI: 0x0000000000001100, RDI: 0xffffff8055e6c6b8
R8: 0x0000000000000001, R9: 0xffffff81e1ef3e98, R10: 0x00000000000010bc, R11: 0x0000000000000206
R12: 0xffffff80220c0ba8, R13: 0xffffff80436526a8, R14: 0xffffff8055e54000, R15: 0xffffff8055e6b000
RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0xffffff8021a20ade, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0xffffffff8948394f, Error code: 0x0000000000000002, Fault CPU: 0x0
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81e1ef3b30 : 0xffffff8021a1d636
0xffffff81e1ef3ba0 : 0xffffff8021ab8945
0xffffff81e1ef3d70 : 0xffffff8021acebfd
0xffffff81e1ef3d90 : 0xffffff8021a20ade
0xffffff81e1ef3eb0 : 0xffffff8021a10448
0xffffff81e1ef3f00 : 0xffffff8021a1961b
0xffffff81e1ef3f70 : 0xffffff8021aa6546
0xffffff81e1ef3fb0 : 0xffffff8021acf473
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: WindowServer
Mac OS version:
12F45
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 12.5.0: Sun Sep 29 13:33:47 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2050.48.12~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: EA38B02E-2B88-309F-BA68-1DE29F605DD8
Kernel slide:     0x0000000021800000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8021a00000
System model name: Macmini6,1 (Mac-031AEE4D24BFF0B1)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 1593537241656
last loaded kext at 265388008666: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs          1.8.1 (addr 0xffffff7fa2090000, size 65536)
last unloaded kext at 328849478885: com.apple.driver.AppleFileSystemDriver          3.0.1 (addr 0xffffff7fa3644000, size 8192)
loaded kexts:
net.kromtech.kext.Firewall          2.3.5
net.kromtech.kext.AVKauth          2.3.5
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager          4.1.7f4
com.apple.filesystems.autofs          3.0
com.apple.driver.AGPM          100.13.12
com.apple.driver.ApplePlatformEnabler          2.0.7d2
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformShim          1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC          1.60
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver          124
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient          3.5.12
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl          1.1.11
com.apple.driver.AppleSMCPDRC          1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelHD4000Graphics          8.1.6
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA          2.4.7fc4
com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport          4.1.7f4
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyDriver          2.4.7fc4
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI          1.0.11d1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet          1.0.0d1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X          7.0.0
com.apple.driver.ApplePolicyControl          3.4.5
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC          1.6.3
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelFramebufferCapri          8.1.6
com.apple.driver.AppleIRController          320.15
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless          1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib          1.0.0d1
com.apple.BootCache          34
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter          404
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage          2.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub          635.4.0
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4331          615.20.17
com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC          1.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI          4.9.9
com.apple.iokit.AppleBCM5701Ethernet          3.6.2b4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBXHCI          635.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI          621.4.6
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort          2.6.6
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC          1.5
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons          1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET          1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS          1.9
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC          1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC          1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient          214.0.0
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall          4.0.39
com.apple.security.quarantine          2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement          214.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily          10.0.6
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily          3.5.6
com.apple.kext.triggers          1.0
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily          74.15
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib          2.4.7fc4
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily          1.9.2fc7
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib          1.12
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP          2.2.5
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport          4.1.7f4
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController          1.0.11d1
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface          86.0.4
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily          4.1.7f4
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformPlugin          1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC          3.1.5d4
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily          5.4.1d13
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController          2.4.7fc4
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily          2.4.7fc4
com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsControl          3.4.5
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport          2.3.7
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily          2.3.7
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub          621.4.6
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPInAdapter          2.5.0
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPAdapterFamily          2.5.0
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltPCIDownAdapter          1.3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver          623.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite          621.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltNHI          1.9.2
com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily          2.7.7
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family          530.5
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient          630.4.4
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily          4.5.5
com.apple.iokit.IOEthernetAVBController          1.0.2b1
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily          3.0
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily          635.4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily          2.5.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM          2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime          2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily          1.8.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily          1.1
com.apple.security.sandbox          220.3
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch          1.0.0d1
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet          7
com.apple.driver.DiskImages          345
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily          1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore          28.21
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform          1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily          2.8
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily          1.4
com.apple.kec.corecrypto          1.0
System Profile:
Model: Macmini6,1, BootROM MM61.0106.B03, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.5 GHz, 16 GB, SMC 2.7f1
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Built-In, 768 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x0000, 0x202020202020202020202020202020202020
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x0000, 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x10E), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.17)
Bluetooth: Version 4.1.7f4 12974, 3 service, 21 devices, 3 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: APPLE HDD HTS545050A7E362, 500.11 GB
USB Device: Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v7.0, 0x045e (Microsoft Corporation), 0x0745, 0x14400000 / 1
USB Device: hub_device, 0x8087 (Intel Corporation), 0x0024, 0x1a100000 / 2
USB Device: hub_device, 0x8087 (Intel Corporation), 0x0024, 0x1d100000 / 2
USB Device: USB 2.0 Hub [MTT], 0x1a40 (TERMINUS TECHNOLOGY INC.), 0x0201, 0x1d110000 / 9
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424 (SMSC), 0x2512, 0x1d180000 / 3
USB Device: IR Receiver, apple_vendor_id, 0x8242, 0x1d182000 / 5
USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub, 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0x1d181000 / 4
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, apple_vendor_id, 0x828a, 0x1d181300 / 8

Can the new Mac Mini boot Snow Leopard from an external hard drive?

I currently boot my 2009 Mac Mini from a FW800 external drive with 10.6.8. If I just plug my external drive into a new 2011 Mac Mini, will it boot into Snow Leopard if I set it as the startup disk or will I get a kernel panic?

I bought a 2011 Mac Mini, which came with Lion installed. I thought maybe I could repartition it and have a Snow Leopard partition. So I repartitioned it (500gb split into two 250gb partitions). I named the new partition "SnowLeopard" just to make it easy for me to tell the difference.
I attached the external DVD and put in a Snow Leopard installer disc, holding down the C key so it would boot and install from that, but it just spun for awhile. Doesn't appear to work.
Then I read somewhere else that someone had managed to clone a copy of Snow Leopard onto an external drive and boot from that. In their situation they were talking about a MacBook, but the principle seemed sane.
So I rebooted, holding down the T key to put the Mac Mini into Target hard disk mode, and attached it via Firewire to another MacMini (circa 2008 or so, not sure of year, but it was upgraded last year to Snow Leopard and has been upgraded along and along). Then I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy Snow Leopard (that is, the entire hard disk-- System and all applications and data) to my newer Mac Mini's "snow leopard" partition.
For yucks, when it was done cloning, I restarted the older Mac Mini, and had it boot from the newer Mac Mini's snow leopard partition--- it worked! To make it easy to tell the difference, I changed the desktop background to something completely different. I think I tried booting from Lion but I can't remember if that worked.
Then I rebooted the newer Mac Mini, which booted up in Lion, of course. Going into System Settings, I changed the startup disk to the "snow leopard" partition, and rebooted, and it booted up in Snow Leopard.
I have yet to test the applications on the Snow Leopard partition. Another problem has arisen.
Because with both of the Mac MInis being active on the network, they both had the same computer and user name. So I renamed the newer Mac Mini to something completely different, and changed the password.
Unfortunately, now I cannot change any other setting in the System Settings that requires a password. While the newer Snow Leopard lets me log in with the new user and new password, whenever I try to click the "lock" icon to change something, I'm prompted for a username and password. Apparently this is some different username and password than either the new or old username/password.
I've tried various combinations of both: new user/old password, old user/new password, old user/old password, etc.
So if you do what I've done, be careful about changing the username and password on your cloned computer. I think it may be wiser to create a new user and then delete the old cloned users. I may just have to re-clone the old Mac Mini to the new one again.
If anyone has any ideas about this password conundrum, please pass along!

I want to create for the first time ever an iPhoto library on my Mac Mini from all of my seperate external hard drives over the years. Instead of filling my Mac Mini hard drive space with all of the pics can I import it to a seperate Apple hard drive.

I want to creat for the first time on my Mac Mini an iPhoto library. I have many seperate hard drives with pics I want to import but are concerned I will fill the hard drive with pics alone. Can I install the pics on one larg (1TB) external apple hard drive and use iPhoto functions still with the pics being installed on a seperate drive from the iPhoto OS?

This is our resident iPhoto guru, Terence Devlin's, advice:
You can move your iPhoto Library to an external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library Folder as an entity from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Once that is done you can import directly into the iPhoto library on the external HD.

Installing WIndows 7 onto a Mac Mini that does not have an internal optical drive.

Has anyone had any success in installing WIndows 7 onto a Mac Mini via Boot Camp using either a USB stick or an external SuperrDrive?

Option 1: Get a USB "Super Drive" and use it to install windoze.
Option 2: Use Parallels Desktop to run windoze.
Option 3: Wait for someone who knows more than I do to tell you how to do it using magic.

I am very new to Mac Mini and need help transferring files to thumb drive

I want to transfer the Mac Mini user guide (manual) to my thumb drive but do not find how to do it. Help, please!

The thumb drive is on the desktop. This is the most embarrassing question I have had to ask in public in a long time, but, how do you drag something. When I try by holding down my mouse on the file name I want to move it doesn't drag it just gives me several other options. I left Microsoft for this and I know nothing about Apple computers except for my iPad.

My Mac Mini OS X 10.6.8 cd/dvd drive (optical) has quit working

Is this optical drive repairable in a Mac Mini pre- 2005/2006?

replaceable yes
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/superdrive/
repairable only if the lens needs cleaning

Mac mini does not see files on external hard drive

Just got a new Mac Mini and this is my first Mac. How do I get files from my HD to my new mac mini? I backed up the files from my old laptop but when I plug it into my Mac, I don't have any picture or music files.

I had the same problem but only after I upgraded to Lion. I could see the files on my external drive on other Macs using older software. It seems that Lion wasn't seeing old files on the external drive. So we accessed the files on a Mac using Snow Leopard, copied all the files into one new folder on the same external hard drive and now they're there on Lion. Problem solved! I hope this helps

Mac Mini has crashed - Disk Warrior and External Hard Drive Question.

I have Mac Mini that has crashed. I purchased Disk Warrior and was able to boot from the CD. Disk Warrior allowed me to see my files again but there is no way I can move them back onto my hard drive. I cannot grab them. Before I go into specifics....If I purchase an external hard drive and try to hook it up to my Mac Mini, will I be able move these files to this new external hard drive? Is this a possibility?
Or will my new external hard drive need to go through a set up phase - which might be impossible since hard drive I'm trying to take the files from is technically dead?
Sorry - I'm a novice at these things.

Hello, no apologies needed for being a novice, great you asked!
YES, depends where you buy the Drive, it may need Formatting first to Mac OS Extended...
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html
These generally come Mac Ready, & get Firewire if you have a Firewire port, much faster...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Then in DiskWarrior, hold Option or alt key when selecting Internal to repair, that will do the best job of Scavenging the directory & provide a whole new Drive icon to copy or clone your info over to the external drive.

Mac Mini Fusion Drive or self built SSD / Fusion drive

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