SSD Upgrade for Mac mini

PenguinMaster · May 4, 2023

Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade the storage in my 2012 Mac mini. I am going to be using it in a strange project that I am working on and I need them to be relatively reliable. I only need 500GB drives. I was thinking about getting the Western Digital SA500 but they are relatively expensive for only 500GB drives. I was also looking at the Crucial MX500 but people have been reporting a high failure rate of the drives prematurely. These machines will be spending a relatively long amount of time on each day, but will shut down each night.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks

BondiBlue · May 4, 2023

I like the Samsung 870 EVO and the Crucial MX500. I've got a 250GB 870 EVO in my 2012 Mac mini Plex server (it's the boot drive with a separate 2TB drive for my Plex library). I've also got several Crucial MX500s installed in a variety of machines, and several have been running 24/7 for a very long time. The only issue I've ever had with the MX500 was a quirk when installing Windows to one of them when it was installed in a Dell Precision, but that ended up being the fault of the computer itself, not the drive.

Zando_ · May 4, 2023

3 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

I like the Samsung 870 EVO and the Crucial MX500.

+1 to both. 850, 860, 870 Evos and Crucial MX500s (and 300s before that) in a bunch of work and my own personal machines, no issues. I have had one personal 250GB 860 Evo fail but that seems to have been a fluke, not a consistent issue with that line (all mass produced hardware is prone to fluke failures).