Mac Mini 2,1 SSD swap

Is 64GB enough to run Lion, iWork, iLife, MS Office, and other basic apps (provided all media including iTunes and iPhoto library on external HDD)?

Kingston V100 64GB SSD any good? Will it be compatible with the 2,1 Mac Mini?

64GB is going to be pushing it. Even though I think you'll be able to run those things just fine, keep in mind that OS X likes about 20% of the system drive available at all times. If it doesn't have it, things tend to slow down. I'd recommend looking at 120GB at a minimum if you're not going to use a second, larger (mechanical) drive for storage.

And yes, Kingston makes decent SSDs - any SATA model should be fine. I would recommend looking on NewEgg.com and be sure to read the user reviews.

Would a 500GB 7200RPM with lots of free space be faster than a 64GB SSD with less than 20% free space remaining as far as running the OS and launching apps goes?

No way.

For me 64GB is ample but then am not into music or photos so I would say yes. Running Lion, Office 2011 etc currently uses some 18GB with 41GB odd to spare.

As Harry alluded to, an SSD is almost always going to be faster than a regular HDD. Even if it makes the machine stutter or non-responsive at times, it will usually outperform an HDD in sheer throughput when you're doing heavy disk I/O.

But 64GB is still very lean and SSD prices are dropping significantly. In a year, 120GB drives will likely be at the current prices of 64GB drives. So, if you don't absolutely need it right now, it might make sense to wait a bit.

I would recommend 120gb right now. I know that's more money/gb, but it is still not that expensive and it will be plenty for the basics.

Unfortunately stuck in a country where a V100 Kingston 64GB SSD still costs $160!!! Thats about all I can afford. That and an upgrade from 2GB to 4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM.

Also I still don't know if I got a definitive answer to the original question. Which is faster (for general ops such as app launching, boot time, multitasking)?

64GB SSD with less than 20% free space
OR
500GB 7200RPM HDD with greater than 20% free space

fuzzy23 said:

Also I still don't know if I got a definitive answer to the original question. Which is faster (for general ops such as app launching, boot time, multitasking)?

64GB SSD with less than 20% free space
OR
500GB 7200RPM HDD with greater than 20% free space

Click to expand...

See my last post (#5)