Replacing HD

[MrJim]

I'm going to max the RAM in this (2006 intel core duo) mac mini (ok so I can only double it to 2GB) and thought with the price of SSD I would replace the HD. I figure that I would then install the OS and with Time Machine and Carbonite restore. Is this the right approach?

 

[C-Man]

Sounds right. Just clone your old drive to the new one.
Ideally, though, you'd want to start fresh with a new OS installation on the new drive, and copy your software and stuff over later.

 

[MrJim]

Sounds right. Just clone your old drive to the new one.
Ideally, though, you'd want to start fresh with a new OS installation on the new drive, and copy your software and stuff over later.

Those are two different things, cloning and the latter, right?

 

[paul1149]

You're on a Mac? I don't know how those work. I just worked on an older HP mini that was running XP on an SSD, and found the partition wasn't aligned. I believe Win7 and 8 align automatically, but XP doesn't, even with a fresh install. That needed correction, because a whole lot of extra drive seeking time is introduced if the partition isn't properly aligned on an SSD. If your OS is newer you probably have no problem.

 

[Spiritlight]

Yeah thats right, back up with time machine ans replace your internals. I have never done that ina mac and unless the drive is pre formatted you might need to bot and format before using restore to bring it all back with time machine. A clean install isa god idea if you dont have much stuff on. If you restore your existing install make sure you clean junk out first. Use something like Onyx and delete your library caches and downloads etc first.

Hope that helps.

 

[MrJim]

I clarified the exact mac mini on the OP~~my current HD is only 60GB so it's not that big and most all the video/photos have been transferred to one of my PCs with their big HDs~~the SSD I'm looking at is 120GB...I've been living with a 60GB for 6 years and don't forsee needing anymore room on this system; I dump pics & vids on the PCs.

I'm thinking going to a clean install and simply restoring the docs and such I need~clone wouldn't be such a bad idea I guess since I just installed this OS last month on Thanksgiving but might as well start clean?

Formatting, that is something I will have to look further in to..

 

[MrJim]

I have off tomorrow and am going to crack open the mini to install RAM only to see if improvement is satisfactory-Crucial memory arrived yesterday

 

[MrJim]

I have off tomorrow and am going to crack open the mini to install RAM only to see if improvement is satisfactory-Crucial memory arrived yesterday

Project done PRAM zapped and all upgraded; wish I'd done it years ago.

 

[MrJim]

9 hours later I can say this old mac is running better than ever, all it needed was that other gig of RAM--special thanks to the internet-at-large for providing video and text for this procedure

 

[WalksWithChrist]

9 hours later I can say this old mac is running better than ever, all it needed was that other gig of RAM--special thanks to the internet-at-large for providing video and text for this procedure

 

[MrJim]

Indeed~it's amazing~I can even let Carbonite run in the background and it doesn't jam up the system; I can keep several tabs open and it hums right along...sorta like what a normal person's computer should do anyway

Tell ya though I can see how many people are going to migrate away from desktops/pcs and into tablets for casual use~when I think of what I "need" a computer for even this old thing is more power than I would need for email, internet, and some word processing.

 

[WalksWithChrist]

Indeed~it's amazing~I can even let Carbonite run in the background and it doesn't jam up the system; I can keep several tabs open and it hums right along...sorta like what a normal person's computer should do anyway

Tell ya though I can see how many people are going to migrate away from desktops/pcs and into tablets for casual use~when I think of what I "need" a computer for even this old thing is more power than I would need for email, internet, and some word processing.

Indeed. My house is all laptops now and an iPad. And I'm still working on converting the old Man Cave, which housed two computer desks not too long ago, into my daughter's first bedroom ever.

Funny story about how I upgraded the RAM in my wife's laptop some months back. I cracked it open, newer Compaq model, to see the exact part number on the RAM. Then I order the RAM online. My wife tells me later that day the laptop is running extremely slow. It took me a while to figure out I hadn't snapped both sticks back in all the way! So in my effort to make it faster, I crippled it for several hours.


It went from 2 gigs to 8...eventually.