How to upgrade Mac Mini hard drive to Solid State- Late 2014 Model

[@danielw2229]

Best upgrade guide for this task. Completed this in about 35 minutes, with most of it being me rewinding to make sure I was following correctly. Thanks for making this!!

[@heavypizzas6004]

Great guide, thank you. And what a relatively easy job that was. After years of being scared of getting one of these Mac Minis because of the logic board removal process, I finally picked one up today for cheap, and replaced the HDD with an SDD in no more than 40mins, and my removal tool? A plain old steel clothes hanger, cut to about 6-7 inches and bent into the rough shape of the commercial removal tools. It’s the perfect diameter steel.

[@dhaen]

Great guide, one of the few occasions I had no "left over" screws. Thank you!

[@t77777770]

Nicely done. Appreciate the time and effort that went into doing this. After seeing it going to make sure I get an SSD that is big enough that I never have to do this a second time.

[@stevelacy4801]

You are the man. I did this for the 2012 Mac Mini but the 2014 was totally different. Your instructions were perfect! Perfect! Thank you so much

[@jordanhazen7761]

I was surprised to see the 2014 model needs a different size Torx bit to remove its bottom plate. It seems slightly harder to get into generally, maybe due to lack of upgradable RAM. New M1's unfortunately continue this trend :(

[@dennisharper7102]

Thanks for making the video. Following along with you step by step, I got my Mac upgraded and it is blazing fast now!

[@jdrtech1]

Followed your instructions, i installed a samsung 860 evo 500gb ssd and like people say..."like night and day" with the performance! thank you!

[@hardcle]

I used this to replace the original 5400 rpm spinning drive with a new 1TB SSD. Took me a while, but I got it done. Thanks!

[@zaphodsbluecar9518]

You made the process look a lot easier than other videos I've seen...

[@huirongjin]

After I bought the security Torx screw driver, changing to SSD is just an easy job by following your tutorial! Thank you! BTW, I used a piece of AWG14 copper wire (stripped both ends) instead of the special logic-board removal tool.

[@mis3minutos]

Huge difference in performance in my Mac Mini. So happy with the result. Thanks!

[@fateonfireplayz5298]

i just ordered myself one and needed a guide really great video man

[@FogartyLegalServices]

They should give you an award for this video. Great job.

[@phillipabbott594]

Definitely one of the best and easier to understand videos on how this is done. Thank you!

[@jamiewatchorn7639]

Steve jobs always said he wanted the Apple products to look as beautiful on the inside as the outside. I used to be an IT technician years ago before retraining and this is by far the easiest mini pc to work on I’ve seen. Just moved to Mac mini after spending years building up my Apple collection. Now have the IPad Pro 2021 11 inch, IPhone 13 mini, Apple Watch SE, 1st Gen AirPods, and now my first Mac. There’s just something I’ve always loved about the Mac mini. Never been a fan of the IMac just because they displays are apples own so if they go then you’re into new Mac territory, plus I don’t like working on all in ones. Didn’t want a MacBook as I have the IPad so I got the Mac Mini. Runs great on a HDD but could be so much better on SSD

[@MegVanAbi]

Thank you for this. I’ve done this already on 2 other Mac mini’s but it’s been a while. It was nice to have some to follow along as I did it to a third machine. Sadly I broke my IR connector but I don’t use that feature anyway. All is running well.

[@tomdoepker]

Excellent walk through. Really appreciate it

[@litebkt]

I’ll definitely have this video on hand when I upgrade mine!

[@raylepper4809]

Very useful. Took under 30 minutes. My mini is ripping now! Thanks.

[@waveringmindz]

I was unable to do this thing, so got the internal SSD + case option, and it works. So, now I have a hybrid setup - 480 GB crucial SSD to boot MacOS, and 1TB SSD to store the data.

[@DavidJohansson]

Thanks a lot! Successfully switched drive but struggled to clone my old disk because my SSD was smaller. I tried to shrink the old partition with gparted live usb and then clone with clonezilla live usb but the disk failed to boot. Then I figured out you could actually boot the mac mini into "internet recovery mode" (windowskey+R on windows keyboard) and download MacOS directly, then I used my timemachine backup to recover old disk 100%. Clever Apple!

[@StanCook]

Thank you. I just added an SSD to my 2014 and your video made it really easy.

[@univenpecalipre]

Hi, is there a video that shows both hard drive inside? Thanks

[@cyberscooby69]

Really appreciate this walkthrough - the performance change is night and day - thank you dude

[@car24dupont]

Great video, so helpful like other have found. I ran into some hiccups reformatting the drive though. But disassembly and reassembly went well and get this.. NO spare parts left over!! Thanks!

[@brandon20904]

Great to hear!

[@obehere]

Thanks heaps. With your help I just successfully changed the dead HDD in my Mac.

[@VIC-ERLON]

Easy to follow, great job. My mac mini is flying!! thank you

[@mohammedanwar8397]

Thank you. Hard disc replaced with SSD following your steps.

[@WA-hornet007]

I m still waiting on my toolkit to arrive, once arrived, i will follow your instructions.

[@imbedunn]

Best how to video I have ever seen. Perfect! Made the task so simple to do after watching. Loved all the tips!

[@philippebaudoin5803]

Hello Brandon, just done it based on your video, so many thank's to you ! good job !

[@martinbarend5814]

Thanks Brandon. Clear instructions, works perfectly now.

[@fiveg8143]

Thanks! really helped. My original had the 5400K drive and was PAINFULLY slow. Much better with an SSD !! Good job.

[@mrZakiisb]

thank you very much i just cleaned the mac mini and changed the hdd to ssd. thank you your tutorial is best

[@dmd5201]

I've been told by a large NYC store that I need a 7mm to 9.5mm adapter to fill in the extra space around new SSDs because the Mac mini Late 2014 is 9.5mm. I don't see any adapter being used in your example, leading me to believe it's not needed. True?

[@litebkt]

Did you install an ssd with SATA interface? My 2014 mini says it doesn’t have any SATA devices.

[@parahumanoid]

Please comment on the following: 1. using 2.5" in no way interferes with installing a PCIe NVMe SSD on the flip side. 2. with due soldering skill I can upgrade RAM beyond 16GB. 2-a. if "yes", what is the chipset limitation on the RAM capacity? 2-b. also, what are the technical requirements for RAM chip? I hope it is not artificially signature-bound to the apple brand or some other narrow HCL. Thank you.

[@drewas85]

Great tutorial. By mistake when I tried to disconnect the IR connecter (very tinny) I removed it from the mother board. Does anyone think that will damage the computer? Apart from that, computer is really fast now. Worth the investment.

[@AndrewKangas]

Great video. Thanks! Spot on.

[@argovolkan]

WAS A WONDERFUL VIDEO. YOU ARE VERY GOOD MAN. THANK YOU FOR THIS PUZZLE SOLUTION:) ÇOK TEŞEKKÜRLER

[@malikdhadhalinux]

I have replaced mine by watching you. A few months ago!! I have a 2014 Mac Mini, i5 1.4Ghz and 4Gb Ram, the hard drive has been updated to an SSD, to be more precise Sandisk SSD Plus 240GB. To have a faster external storage I have just ordered the Samsung 850 Evo. Would you recommend tearing down the mac mini again and put the Samsung one inside or keep the Sandisk one as it is?

[@hoofmen]

Do you have to install again the operating system? how do you do that? thanks for the video

[@heyhbk]

Make a time machine backup and then restore that backup onto the new drive.

[@zoso2809]

What kind of ssd will work for my late 2014 mac mini? Any compatibility issues that i need to consider?

[@juliojdp]

Worked like a charm!! Thanks!

[@omermamas]

2:05 i remove that and now my computer is just a trash. Thank you for this video

[@ordinarypablo]

Gear video, do you know which ssd are compatible with this Mac mini?

[@tonylopez5014]

Thank you! Really appreciate your video really helpful.

[@legoog9726]

A T6 can’t be used on the screws of the back plate of a 2014 Mac mini, just a warning.

[@OscarInOrlando]

How do you add the mac OS to the new SSD? Do you have a video for that?

[@nolightthing3803]

Thank you so much! You are very thorough and made it pretty easy. =]

[@dav2332]

thank you for the informative video!

[@briancrow4153]

Are you able to send a link to where I can get the tools you used?

[@patrickkittrell3339]

Thanks a lot! This was a big help.

[@vihaan9055]

so after going this will macOS reinstall by itself

[@Geno_780]

Appreciate the help

[@jdrtech1]

hi , i want to install a ssd in my mac mini, do i have to clone the new drive or there is another way to get the new drive started up and install a fresh copy of mojave? please help if you can guys, thanks!

[@jayrutherford8924]

Hello. Thanks for the video. I was able to do this and it works great. However the system is using 128 gigabytes of space on the ssd. It’s only a 250 gig drive. What did I do wrong? Thanks again!

[@bwade913]

Thanks, this was very helpful. Link to SSD clone procedure is broken.

[@everthbonilla9139]

Great video, awesome very appreciated thank you !!

[@nicolascueto]

well done this is it! .... I'm just missing both links for the toolkit and the guide on cloning, they seem to be down

[@brandon20904]

updated the links!

[@nicolascueto]

@@brandon20904 awesomeeee!!!!!!

[@gmdrandom6287]

@@brandon20904 what is a good ssd that is cheap?

[@alekogosh332]

Thank you!!

[@cascinosilvio]

WOW mate!! ya are the best! thanks!

[@robiik7]

Great job!

[@nickkekos6169]

Great video! My question is: once you put the empty solid state disk, what you have to do to transfer the old's HD contents to the new disk? Ιs it done automatically or you have to do something about it? I would appreciate your assistance into this. Thanks. Nick K.

[@michor10]

Once you've swapped the HD you can connect your old drive via an external interface to the unit and boot from it by pressing the option key (or ALT for us PC guys) during startup. Then download and install SuperDuper! (free trial) and clone the old contents over to your new drive (select the option to copy all files). That may take a long time so you may leave it overnight. Once the clone is done you have to open your system preferences and set the new HD as your main startup drive and you're done. Good luck!

[@nickkekos6169]

Thanks a lot Mick, for your assistance!!!

[@michor10]

@@nickkekos6169 Good luck, Nick!

[@gmdrandom6287]

What is a good cheap ssd?

[@dowerwolf5542]

Thank you!

[@Estuardo305]

great job.. i saw you chose the samsung evo instead of pro, any particular reason? price, dimensions?

[@brandon20904]

Only because it was cheaper and I didn't need the extra speed. The dimensions are the same. You can get the pro but IMO I don't know if it's worth it.

[@Estuardo305]

Thanks..just did my speed test on my Mac mini 2014 4gb ram and it's 97.9 mb/s write and 97.5 mb/s read..so I think I'm going for the pro..

[@zakazaka5160]

I used two toothpicks instead of the special logic-board removal tool)))

[@Motuproprio1]

Muito bom trabalho! Obrigado.

[@parahumanoid]

Being how capacious modrn NVMe devices can be, is there any point at all to fall back on SATA? I am not aware of significant savings, if any, to be made by using SATA when m.2 is an available option (obviously, macos versions with proper NVMe EFI boot support are assumed for this question).

[@daigen16]

great video just to confirm your mini came with the HDD stock and you simply swapped it to a standard 2.5" SSD?

[@quantumhelium]

Yes

[@christopherwood2290]

I run a print ship and have owned literally hundreds of Macs from 1986 till Today. Awesome machines like IIfx, Quadra 950, 9600, G3 and G4 PowerMacs. Over the years they have morphed into steaming piles of garbage. Ram soldered onto a motherboard and no ram slots? A four Gigabyte version to boot....... Calling that trashcan and iMacs "pro level" machines.....

[@RobSinner]

Cloth always :( dont scratch that beauty.

[@yeeters3197]

I think that you put the screws in wrong when finishing it up

[@witchycedar]

Instructions unclear. Ended up making a transformer.

[@profmarcelomoreno8284]

Fazer um vídeo com a mão na frente não me parece sensato. Desculpe.

[@guitarstring5981]

Hi, there is any option to update the RAM memory?

[@JohnVella1968]

No, the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.

[@scottmanTube]

I think there are less steps to defuse a thermo nuclear bomb.

[@christopherjames9843]

These Mac mini's were never quick. SSD or not. At least the 4 Gigabyte versions. They were constantly thrashing the hard drive for swap space because they were ram starved. Pure garbage

[@philbateman1989]

It seems like pretty shoddy design to have to disassemble the whole machine with custom tools just to change the hard drive :S I guess that's the price you pay to have a compact machine.

[@alanngkwanyein]

Mac Mini 2014 to me is a 1 step forward 2 steps back from apple, wasting time.