New Mac Minis, both traditional and dual hard drive, taken apart

Seth Weintraub
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October 21, 2009
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MacMini Colo has a Mini take-apart posted. The "traditional" Mac Mini probably looks familiar and the new server model has another hard drive where the DVD drive used to be, but otherwise these things are pretty much unchanged. 

One interesting tidbit on this: Since Apple's latest firmware updates, both the new and last generation DisplayPort Mac Minis can use 8GB of RAM (they are advertised as topping out at 4GB).  However, the 4GB memory cards that are required are expensive. 

Comments (8)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 6:48pm

I wonder if the dual 2.5" drives could be replaced with a single 3.5" drive unit. That way you could easily stick a single 2 TB drive into the Mini.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:24pm

Or 12.5mm 2.5" laptop drives. WD makes a 1TB version too big for most normal laptops.

9to5Mac Bitter Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 7:05pm

I wish they would make the mini slightly bigger so it could be more functional and use desktop components. It could still be mini and be bigger. I mean how small of a footprint does it have anyway when you have that clunker power adapter. Make something like the Cube size and make it a really clean nice interface where you just open a door and can pop memory and hard disks in and out. Really nice and clean like the new MacBook Pros.

Bryan M (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:13pm

I actually really like this idea. Because you are going to attach a large monitor to it anyway, what's it matter how big it is as long as it is sleek? And it's Apple, so why wouldn't it be? Having said that, this is a solid upgrade to a mini that hasn't been redesigned in more than five years.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 7:51pm

I'm seeing a lot of empty space between the two hard drives. They could put a 3.5 1TB and make it faster and have more memory.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:03pm

it'd be too much wasteful money to redesign the chasis and motherboard to fit a 3.5" drive instead of 2 2.5" drives. The way they did it was just to literally take the superdrive out and put the 2.5" in its place. Apple's about efficiency, but I think it's smarter (for them, not so great for us) to save costs on a different manufacturing process and redesign than just to throw another drive and not cut the slit up front.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:24pm

Is Apple setting up to have the mini act as a home media server...? just a thought.

9to5Mac Admin (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:49pm

don't worry, soon there will be a 1T 2.5" drive to make us all happy. (as long as your willing to pay for it of course). What about solid state drives? how small are they and in what sizes? would that make a viable option for anyone wanting something other than the two 2.5" drives?