You can pick and choose which of the upgrades you want to do, but here's a handy list of all our picks for the bits that went into our Mac Mini upgrade, along with the tools and accessories you need to install them.Computer components like the CPU, motherboard, computer case, RAM and drive are the core of a computer. Whether you buy or already have an old Mac Mini sat around doing nothing, with not a lot of money and a couple of hours of your time, you can turn it into a fantastic little computer to use in the present day. Don't overpay, though, for one that someone else has upgraded, when you can likely do the work yourself for less. Where do you find one, though? That depends where you live, but the usual places like eBay and Craigslist are a great place to start. Still, if you're looking for a really expensive way to get into Mac computing, or want a solid secondary machine, you can do a lot worse than picking up a used 2012 Mac Mini and upgrading it. Ultimate performance will always be better on newer models. Pair it with a good monitorĪ new Mac is an expensive thing there's no denying that. If this is the case, the system won't post, so it's easy to spot. Remove one, reboot, and check About This Mac again to verify.īy doing it a stick at a time, you can easily identify if you have any bad RAM. If not, you'll need to go back in and troubleshoot your installation one stick at a time.
If it shows the amount of RAM you installed, all is well. To verify all is well, boot up the Mac Mini and check out the About This Mac information. Push down gently until they lock into place.Line up the new RAM sticks and push gently into the slots.
Pry apart the metal brackets around the current RAM sticks.
The base should simply pull away, but may need prying with a plastic tool or even a credit card.Place your thumbs in the circular divots and twist the base clockwise.So the best you can do is grab a 16GB kit (opens in new tab) made up of a pair of 8GB sticks. The 2012 Mac Mini uses 1600MHz DDR3 SODIMM modules and can accept up to 16GB across two slots. The most you can install in the 2012 Mac Mini, 16GB of RAM is a great performance upgrade, and this kit from Crucial will slot right in.īesides adding an SSD, the next best thing to do to give your old Mac Mini some additional legs for present-day computing is to add more RAM. Insert the logic board removal tool into the holes pictured.Remove the final screw from the logic board with a Torx T6 screwdriver.You will need to detach any remaining items from the logic board at this point, including the wireless shroud and the IR cable.Follow steps 1-17 from the section above to remove the existing drive and prepare your new SSD boot drive.You can use either a hard drive or an SSD, or as we have here, a Seagate Firecuda hybrid drive, not unlike the Fusion Drive Apple uses in some of its machines. You could reuse the existing hard drive, but since it's over six years old, it makes much better sense to use a fresh one. Not everyone will want to do this, but it is possible to install a second drive in the 2012 Mac Mini to maximize its storage potential.
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Professional pry tool kit (opens in new tab) ($10 at Amazon)īetter than using your fingers, this pry tool kit is worth having in your tool kit for those hard to remove and tiny parts. Pry Tool Kit (Image credit: Amazon) (opens in new tab)
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