Teardown Reveals New Mac Mini Has Space For Second Hard Drive… Or An SSD

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iFixit-Mac-mini-teardown-2011

Apple’s new Mac mini has been available for two days now, and so it’s time for the company’s smallest desktop to get the iFixit teardown treatment. Though little has changed inside its svelte aluminum shell, Apple’s decision to remove the optical drive means there’s plenty of room for to double your storage… or even speed up your Mac mini dramatically.

A 2.3GHz Core i5 Mac mini became iFixit’s latest victim. Many of its internal goodness remains the same as the last-generation Mac mini, though there is room for new technology like its high-speed Thunderbolt I/O and Bluetooth 4.0. As you’d expect from Apple machines, that i5 processor is soldered to the logic board and therefore not upgradable.

The disappearance of an optical drive in the latest mini, together with availability of a second SATA hard drive-to-logic board cable, means it’s entirely possible for users to double their storage with an additional hard disk or solid state drive, according to iFixit. Go the latter root and you’re looking at a nice performance bump.

Of course, this may have already been obvious, what with the ability to custom build a Mac mini with dual hard drives from Apple, however, this option is only available to those purchasing the more expensive 2.5GHz i5 model. Users may not be aware how simple it can be to install a second drive to a low-end Mac mini themselves, or additional RAM for that matter.

iFixit rates the latest Mac mini 8 out of 10 for repairability, suggesting it’s not too difficult for the more discerning user to repair or upgrade their own machine, avoiding that famous ‘Apple tax’.

Will you be installing a second drive in your mini?

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