Mini Upgrade

[pigoo3]

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but would definitely agree about replacing your hard drive, and would not install anything less than a 7200-rpm HDD
Or as has been suggested, installing a decent-sized 7200 RPM HDD PLUS maybe an additional SSD. Then use the latter as a boot drive.

Your installed 16GB RAM should be more than enough for the type of work you seem to do, and redoing thermal paste as suggestion should be completely unnecessary on a 7 year old Mac, and certainly not recommended for somebody to do who does not do it regularly.

I would strongly recommend first thing that you have and use a new external hard drive and use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to clone your existing drive to make a bootable backup.

Once that is done and tested, you could also try just erasing your existing Boot Drive and use the new CCC clone to clone your backup to your freshly erased boot Drive. That alone would probably speed things up drastically.

PPS: The above are not any jerk type comments, but things I know that work from 30+ years working with and supporting Macs.

PPPS: when was the last time you did some Mac maintenance like booting up using Safe Boot Mode and restarting, which alone will throw out a lot of crap and organize other stuff, and may even help speeding things up.

Great suggestions Patrick...always good to have a logical plan...especially before replacing & upgrading to a new drive.

Thanks,

- Nick

 

[cherry_bomb]

Sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but would definitely agree about replacing your hard drive, and would not install anything less than a 7200-rpm HDD
Or as has been suggested, installing a decent-sized 7200 RPM HDD PLUS maybe an additional SSD. Then use the latter as a boot drive.

Your installed 16GB RAM should be more than enough for the type of work you seem to do, and redoing thermal paste as suggestion should be completely unnecessary on a 7 year old Mac, and certainly not recommended for somebody to do who does not do it regularly.

PS: You can find all the specs for your particular Mac and some of the suggested upgrades and suggested sources here:
Mac mini "Core i7" 2.3 (Late 2012) Specs (Late 2012, MD388LL/A, Macmini6,2, A1347, 2570): EveryMac.com

Many of the suggested sources are also recommended by various members on this site.

I would strongly recommend first thing that you have and use a new external hard drive and use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to clone your existing drive to make a bootable backup.

Once that is done and tested, you could also try just erasing your existing Boot Drive and use the new CCC clone to clone your backup to your freshly erased boot Drive. That alone would probably speed things up drastically.

PPS: The above are not any jerk type comments, but things I know that work from 30+ years working with and supporting Macs.

PPPS: when was the last time you did some Mac maintenance like booting up using Safe Boot Mode and restarting, which alone will throw out a lot of crap and organize other stuff, and may even help speeding things up.


Good luck.


- Patrick
======

Thank you for clearing that up! I appreciate it.

I had thought about buying an external drive over the weekend so will look into doing so now.

I do plan to buy an SSD drive, just having a hard time deciding on one. As mentioned in my post in the prior page, what is the difference between a Samsung SSD and one offered by Mac Sales? There is a huge price difference. If I am paying for the quality, I don't mind because I consider the mini to be a good investment. If the processor is still considered relatively fast and the only thing slowing it down is the slow HDD, I am all for upgrading to an SSD. I would appreciate any insight you have to offer on this. I'd like to make the purchase and get going on the upgrade!

The only Mac maintenance I have done is running Onyx Sunday or Monday as suggested by members in this thread. If there is other maintenance that needs to be done, I am happy to do it, just need to know what I should do.

My time capsule running slow was just as an offshoot of this conversation, since I had been receiving so much help in this thread I thought I would ask for assistance with that as well. It has yet to complete a back up of the mini. My last back up was almost two years ago so I know it's long past due.

If I don't need to mess with the thermal paste I am perfectly happy with that!

- - - Updated - - -

This is called having a nice dialog between the OP and forum members trying to help.

I think for the most part the "darts" that have been throw are:

- Replace the old HD with a new HD.
- Replace the old HD with an SSD.
- Install 1 or 2 storage devices.
- Run Onyx.
- Create more free space.
- Replace thermal compound.

I believe running Onyx has been tried...not sure if creating more free space was tried. The rest of the conversation is deciding what to do (what to replace)...and once that's been done...order the parts & do the install(s)...and do any thermal paste replacing while in there (only open things up once).

A pretty good conversation I think

- Nick

It's been a great conversation and I appreciate you answering my somewhat lame and possibly redundant questions! ;D

What are your thoughts on the thermal compound?

 

[rachalmers]

My mini was running hot. So, while I had it pulled down to clean it, and I had the tools, I purchased a small tube of paste on amazon, and did that at the same time. The old paste had turned to chalk dust and had been very badly applied anyway. So I cleaned it all up, applied a thin smear of paste - which is all it needs, and put it all back together. No more overheating problems.
So if you are going to take your Mini apart to replace the drive(S) then you may as well do the heatsink while you are at it. £2 tube of paste isn’t much extra.



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[rachalmers]

PS. I’m not familiar with the price comparisons you mention. I like Crucial drives, because they have a good reputation, good support, and a fair price. The 1TB SSD I bought from them was perfect for my needs.


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[cherry_bomb]

My mini was running hot. So, while I had it pulled down to clean it, and I had the tools, I purchased a small tube of paste on amazon, and did that at the same time. The old paste had turned to chalk dust and had been very badly applied anyway. So I cleaned it all up, applied a thin smear of paste - which is all it needs, and put it all back together. No more overheating problems.
So if you are going to take your Mini apart to replace the drive(S) then you may as well do the heatsink while you are at it. £2 tube of paste isn’t much extra.



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Mine is definitely running hot.

 

[ferrarr]

The only Mac maintenance I have done is running Onyx Sunday or Monday as suggested by members in this thread. If there is other maintenance that needs to be done, I am happy to do it, just need to know what I should do.

Here is what I do for my Mac routine maintenance;

Safe mode boot, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
NVRAM reset, Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
SMC reset, How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
Disk Utility > First Aid from Recovery, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support

And I also keep the macOS bootable USB drive handy, just in case.

As for 3rd party apps, I use

AdBlock & Ghostery with all the browsers.
AppCleaner, to clean apps I delete.
DriveDx, to diagnose and report drive errors.
EtreCheck, to diagnose issues (if any) with my mini.
MacsFanControl, to monitor fans/heat.
Maintenance/Onyx, which I'm not using anymore.
MalwareBytes, self explanatory, but I'm also not using it any more.

 

[cherry_bomb]

PS. I’m not familiar with the price comparisons you mention. I like Crucial drives, because they have a good reputation, good support, and a fair price. The 1TB SSD I bought from them was perfect for my needs.


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The prices are really good!

 

[cherry_bomb]

Here is what I do for my Mac routine maintenance;

Safe mode boot, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
NVRAM reset, Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
SMC reset, How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
Disk Utility > First Aid from Recovery, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support

And I also keep the macOS bootable USB drive handy, just in case.

As for 3rd party apps, I use

AdBlock & Ghostery with all the browsers.
AppCleaner, to clean apps I delete.
DriveDx, to diagnose and report drive errors.
EtreCheck, to diagnose issues (if any) with my mini.
MacsFanControl, to monitor fans/heat.
Maintenance/Onyx, which I'm not using anymore.
MalwareBytes, self explanatory, but I'm also not using it any more.

Thanks for giving me a run down! I will look into those. I just realized as I was typing this I haven't heard my fan come on in awhile! Maybe Onyx helped with that issue?

 

[cherry_bomb]

Here is what I do for my Mac routine maintenance;

Safe mode boot, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
NVRAM reset, Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
SMC reset, How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
Disk Utility > First Aid from Recovery, About macOS Recovery - Apple Support

And I also keep the macOS bootable USB drive handy, just in case.

As for 3rd party apps, I use

AdBlock & Ghostery with all the browsers.
AppCleaner, to clean apps I delete.
DriveDx, to diagnose and report drive errors.
EtreCheck, to diagnose issues (if any) with my mini.
MacsFanControl, to monitor fans/heat.
Maintenance/Onyx, which I'm not using anymore.
MalwareBytes, self explanatory, but I'm also not using it any more.

Is this the app cleaner you use? Cleaner-App on the Mac App Store

 

[ferrarr]

No, I use this one, AppCleaner

 

[cherry_bomb]

No, I use this one, AppCleaner

I downloaded both and things are getting better! Its still slow but Im not getting the constant beach ball now. LOL

 

[rachalmers]

Thanks for giving me a run down! I will look into those. I just realized as I was typing this I haven't heard my fan come on in awhile! Maybe Onyx helped with that issue?

Yes, be careful adding lots of third party apps. Most are unnecessary, and a lot are 32bit. Which soon won’t work.
You don’t need fan control. The Mac one is all you need, it’s built in.
The less you have running in the background the better.
Open up the System Preferences and see what you have starting up at boot time. Open Security and see what you are giving access to.
Disable all non Apple programs, and get rid of most of it.
Apple is very good at looking after itself.

As for maintenance. Take the bottom off and blow out the dust every six months.


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[rachalmers]

Managing your startup items
How to remove startup programs in macOS Sierra and earlier OS X?

and check whats causing CPU hogging using Activity monitor. Sort on the CPU % column.



I've NEVER reset the SMC, NVRAM or any of that. Can't remember the last time I booted into Safe Mode. I dont think I ever have.
I did get rid of all 32 bit software on the system.
... and I'm running some pretty heavy duty stuff here. The current background temperature is 70' and steady.

 

[Rod]

Hey ferrarr, have you ever checked with say Find Any File to see if App Cleaner has removed all associated files?
The reason I ask is because I recently uninstalled MalwareBytes using the supplied uninstalled and was horrified to find more than 20 residual files remaining.


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[ferrarr]

Hey ferrarr, have you ever checked with say Find Any File to see if App Cleaner has removed all associated files?
The reason I ask is because I recently uninstalled MalwareBytes using the supplied uninstalled and was horrified to find more than 20 residual files remaining.


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I don't use Find Any File, but when I use AppCleaner, I do notice some items that are referenced to be removed, are unchecked, so I make sure I check those items.

 

[pm-r]

You don’t need fan control. The Mac one is all you need, it’s built in.

I dare say a good many Mac users would disagree and for multiple reasons and I include myself as a long time user and with similar apps with all our Macs for years.

No electronics like excessive heat, at least don't normally last excessively long times under such conditions.

I definitely would suggest using Macs Fan Control. And no, I have no affiliation with the developer.


- Patrick
======

 

[MacInWin]

I would say a good many Mac users would disagree with Patrick, too. I don't use any third party fan controls, never have on a Mac and none of them has overheated or failed due to heat-related issues. Maybe back in the days of Apple][ things like that were needed, but today's machines manage very well without additional crapola installed. Frankly, for my money, the less running in the background the better.

 

[cherry_bomb]

Well, we all have our different preferences and experiences! I appreciate the insight offered by everyone- Nick, Patrick, ferrarr and rachalmers included. ;D

Mini definitely seems to be moving better after running the app cleaners suggested by ferrarr last night. I was finally able to get my time capsule to behave somewhat and was able to move a bunch of stuff off my hard drive onto the TC which has made a big difference. Strangely am still seeming to have issues with getting the TC to run it's backup.

I ordered a Seagate 2 TB external drive last night which will be here tomorrow, then I will proceed with the step to clone to the external drive and clear out the internal.

Also wanted to make sure I understand- the mini can only support up to a total of 2 TB for either an SSD or HDD, correct?

 

[rachalmers]

Well, we all have our different preferences and experiences! I appreciate the insight offered by everyone- Nick, Patrick, ferrarr and rachalmers included. ;D

Mini definitely seems to be moving better after running the app cleaners suggested by ferrarr last night. I was finally able to get my time capsule to behave somewhat and was able to move a bunch of stuff off my hard drive onto the TC which has made a big difference. Strangely am still seeming to have issues with getting the TC to run it's backup.

I ordered a Seagate 2 TB external drive last night which will be here tomorrow, then I will proceed with the step to clone to the external drive and clear out the internal.

Also wanted to make sure I understand- the mini can only support up to a total of 2 TB for either an SSD or HDD, correct?

No, go as big as you like. There are no limits on SSD or hdd sizes. Only the depth of your pocket...



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[pm-r]

Also wanted to make sure I understand- the mini can only support up to a total of 2 TB for either an SSD or HDD, correct?

No, go as big as you like. There are no limits on SSD or hdd sizes. Only the depth of your pocket...

Maybe cherry_bomb was thinking of the size limits imposed with some older Windows formatting that still lingers, or can still occur.

Just a thought...


- Patrick
======