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Use this guide to install iFixit's Dual Hard Drive Kit in your Mid 2011 Mac mini.
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Place your thumbs in the depressions cut into the bottom cover.
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Rotate the bottom cover counter-clockwise until the white dot painted on the bottom cover is aligned with the ring inscribed on the outer case.
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Tilt the mini enough to allow the bottom cover to fall away from the outer case.
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Remove the bottom cover and set it aside.
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Remove the two 11.3 mm T6 Torx screws securing the fan to the logic board near the antenna plate.
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Lift the ear of the fan nearest the RAM up off the standoff secured to the outer case.
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Lift the fan out of the mini for enough clearance to access its connector.
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Grab all the wires at once and gently pull straight up to disconnect the fan from the logic board.
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Remove the fan.
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Remove the single 3.5 mm T6 Torx screw securing the cowling to the heat sink.
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Lift the cowling from the end nearest the antenna plate.
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Rotate the cowling away from the outer case and remove it from the mini.
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Remove the following screws securing the antenna plate to the mini:
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Two 6.6 mm T8 Torx screws
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Two 5.0 mm T8 Torx or 2.0 mm Hex screws (either screwdriver will work)
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When putting back together:
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Slightly lift the antenna plate from the end closest to the RAM.
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Carefully pull the antenna plate away from the circular rim of the outer case.
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Use the tip of a spudger to carefully pry the antenna connector up from its socket on the AirPort/Bluetooth board.
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Remove the antenna plate from the mini.
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Use the flat end of a spudger to pry the hard drive connector up from its socket on the logic board.
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Use the tip of a spudger to lift the IR sensor connector up and out of its socket on the logic board.
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Remove the following three screws:
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One 5.0 mm T8 Torx or 2.0 mm Hex screw (either screwdriver will work)
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One 16.2 mm T6 Torx screw
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One 26 mm T6 Torx standoff
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crwdns2935267:0crwdne2935267:0Mac mini Logic Board Removal Tool$4.99
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Insert the Mac mini Logic Board Removal Tool into the two holes highlighted in red. Be sure it makes contact with the top side of outer case below the logic board before proceeding.
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Carefully pull the tool toward the I/O board. The logic board and I/O board assembly should slightly slide out of the outer case.
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Remove the Mac mini Logic Board Removal tool.
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Pull the I/O board/logic board assembly out of the outer case enough to access the power connector.
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Use your fingers to disconnect the DC-In cable from the logic board.
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Pull the power cable connector toward the front side of the mini.
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Carefully slide the logic board assembly out of the mini, minding any cables that may get caught.
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Pull the hard drive away from the front edge of the mini and remove it from the outer case.
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Remove the 7.9 mm T6 Torx screw securing the power supply and hard drive tray to the outer case.
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Pull the silver metal AC-In socket retainer away from the side of the outer case and remove it from the mini.
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Rotate the AC-In connector 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
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Slide the power supply out of the mini, minding any cables that may get caught.
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Remove the 7.9 mm T6 Torx screw securing the hard drive tray to the outer case.
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Remove the hard drive tray from the outer case.
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In the next few steps you will be installing the grommets in the holes located along the brackets boxed in red.
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While working from the inner side of the bracket, push the grommet through the hole in the side of the bracket.
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Be sure the grommet is seated nicely in the bracket as seen in the third picture.
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Repeat the process for the remaining three grommets on either sides of the brackets.
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The bracket with all four grommets installed should look like the bracket shown in this picture.
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Bend the ribbon cable along the dotted lines to help the connectors remain seated in their sockets.
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Bend the ribbon cable 90 degrees at the SSD connector so that it is parallel to the connector.
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Use the edge of the SSD connector to put a 90 degree downward bend in the cable along the first large dotted line.
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Bend the ribbon cable back up 90 degrees along the second large dotted line.
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Hold the ribbon cable on either side of the first small dotted line and bend it up 90 degrees.
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Bend the ribbon cable down 90 degrees along the second small dotted line.
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Attach the cable included in the kit to your second hard drive. In our case, we are using an SSD.
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Use a T6 Torx screwdriver to install two of the set screws on the side of the hard drive closest to the end of the hard drive cable that attaches to the logic board.
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Tighten the screws until they contact the end of the threaded holes in the side of the hard drive. They are shown correctly installed in the third picture.
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In the next two steps, you will install the hard drive into its bracket.
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Push the set screws into the grommets in the bracket and install the hard drive up into its bracket as seen in the second picture.
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Use a T6 Torx screwdriver to install the remaining two set screws through the grommets and into the side of the hard drive.
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Install the second hard drive assembly into the outer case.
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Be sure that the mounting holes line up with the threaded holes in the outer case as seen in the second picture.
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When the logic board is installed, simply connect the second hard drive cable to the free socket on the logic board.
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When you start up your machine, you'll see both drives are recognized by the mini.
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Xbench scores show that if you install hard drives in either the top or the bottom position, their speeds will remain the same.
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After reassembly, boot the mini into Lion Recovery and use disk utility to erase your SSD. Then install Lion on your SSD. After rebooting, go into system preferences>startup disk and choose your SSD as the startup disk.
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
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When adding second drive, be sure that the power supply cables are secured out of the way to allow drive to be seated correctly. If cables are in the way, screw holes do not quite line up with antenna plate.
This should be part of the main guide, I read this after completing my fix and I wish I had read this before. Spent about 20 mins figuring this one out. thanks. Great guide though.
When re-inserting the power supply make certain the left side screw is seated in the secondary drive tray and
fulled secured to the metal casing frame then turn the entire housing upside down and slide the power supply into
place (careful of cables etc.)
There are two metal anchor points on the power supply, one on the very tip
that is inserted into the Mac Mini housing and the other is on the right side of the power supply that sits
into a plastic slot up against the side of the metal housing. Tried everything to get the points home so the right
secondary hard drive tray screw holes would line up with the power supply anchor holes. This worked the first try.
This didn't go so well. I did manage to assemble everything according to the manual, but it was one !%!$ of a fight, and now the machine boots, but the SSD I installed is nowhere to be found.
One thing I noticed is that the cable supplied to connect the second drive to the mainboard, is slightly too long. I had to bend it quite a bit so that it would line up with the connector on the mainboard, otherwise the cable would extend about 5 mm into the mainboard and not line up. I'm afraid now that I might have broken some of the wired on the adapter while bending it. However, without bending it there was no way to attach the connector.
What to do?
Same here, I have slightly damaged the ribbon cable and now the SSD is invisible to the OS :-/
