First launch of mac mini. On laptops with a removable battery

I talked about the first reason for my dissatisfaction with the Mac mini - only 4 GB of memory and how to fix it yesterday in an article. Now it's time to consider the second cause of dissatisfaction - a slow hard drive.

The Mac mini has the most common 2.5-inch hard drives with a capacity of 500 GB:

They are intended primarily for laptops, where the perhaps not very high performance of such a drive is not a particular drawback. But the Mac mini, although miniature, is still a desktop system. And, of course, I would like to have a faster disk system in it.

Its main problem is the low disk rotation speed. It's only 5400 rpm. A regular 3.5-inch hard drive typically runs at 7200 rpm. This is 30% higher. On average, it is this 30% that a 5400 RPM hard drive is slower than a 7200 RPM drive. True, there are still a lot of technologies that make it possible to level out this difference, but “on average in a hospital” this figure will be approximately the same.

My old iMac originally came with a 3.5-inch WD3200AAJS 7200 RPM drive with a capacity of 320 GB. Later I replaced it with a 500 GB disk at 7200 rpm, with approximately the same speed indicators.

I don't use any complex disk performance tests. There is a very simple free test called Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Absolute measurement numbers are not important to me, but relative ones under the same conditions are important. This test allows you, albeit approximately, to still estimate the ratio of the performance of different disks.

Unfortunately, I don’t have screenshots of the measurements for the drive in the iMac, but from memory I can say that it was somewhere around 95 MB/sec for reading and writing for 5 MB data blocks, measured by the above-mentioned program.

Do not take this figure as the ultimate truth; other tests may have yielded different results. But I repeat once again, it is not the exact numbers that are important to me, but the relative ones. Consider that these are not MB/sec, but some “parrots”, by the number of which I can roughly estimate the difference in disk performance.

The standard hard drive of my Mac mini shows approximately the following results on the same data blocks:

It is easy to understand that this is an approximate difference of 30% in the influence of disk rotation speed - 7200 versus 5400 rpm.

Well, the most important test for me is the general subjective feeling of the system boot speed, the launch and operation of heavy programs that actively use the disk. So, this purely subjective evaluation method also showed me that the standard Mac mini drive is significantly slower than a regular 3.5-inch drive at 7200 rpm.

This was precisely the second reason why my Mac mini didn’t really suit me.

The first thought that came to my mind was to replace the original disk with a similar one, but with a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. I knew that such 2.5-inch wheels were available for sale, so I began to select a candidate. I opened the catalog of a local store and began to choose.

Among the possible candidates, I found the Seagate Momentus XT drive; among its other parameters, it was indicated that it was a hybrid drive with a 4 GB SSD cache. I knew that such disks existed, but I had never seen or dealt with them. I decided to fill the gap in my knowledge on this topic and began looking for information. Naturally, I found it on the manufacturer’s website, but it was information of a purely advertising nature, and therefore could not suit me. I ended up finding a couple of good reviews of this disc. You can familiarize yourself with one of them (more detailed).

In short, the essence of this technology looks quite simple. This is a regular 7200 rpm hard drive, which in itself is not bad. But in addition to the usual 32 MB cache memory (which is also a good indicator), it also has a second cache memory, which is a small 4 GB SSD drive.

The popularity of SSD drives has been growing steadily in recent years, but their cost compared to conventional hard drives, to put it mildly, leaves much to be desired. The price for a 512 GB SSD is absolutely exorbitant. And naturally, this option, despite all its advantages, does not seem acceptable to me.

And in the Momentus XT drive, a small (and therefore not very expensive) such drive is used as a kind of cache memory. What does this give?

The fact is that, for example, the system we load (no matter what), in terms of the amount of data loaded from the disk, is several times less than 4 GB. And many of the programs we launch don’t load from disk that much either. The standard RAM of the Mac mini is the same 4 GB, and when loading the system and programs, it is usually not completely filled. Except for cases of not very correct behavior of some programs. And even in this case, the memory contains data not only read from the disk.

In other words, the vast majority of data loaded from disk, as a rule, does not exceed these same 4 GB. It is this fact that is used in the technology of this hard drive.

The disk controller analyzes frequently loaded data (in fact, the most frequently accessed sectors) and places it in an SSD drive, whose read and write speeds are several times higher than those of a regular disk. That is, it turns out to be a kind of high-speed cache, which is also non-volatile - in the event of a power failure, the data does not disappear from it. And this fact allows you to constantly store the most frequently used data from a regular disk in it and, accordingly, have faster access to it.

Thus, we have a regular hard drive, but with a very high access speed to frequently used data (sectors).

The tests presented in that review, unfortunately, do not provide a complete picture of the effectiveness of such a solution. Moreover, due to their inability to adapt to such technology, as stated in the conclusions at the end of the review. But again, it’s easy to notice a subjective opinion in the review - a hybrid drive provides clear advantages over a regular drive.

After reading this review, I realized one thing: this is the disc I need. Its cost in our store at the time of purchase was about 3,600 rubles. A little more expensive than regular disks, but still quite acceptable. In the end, I ended up with this disc. Here it is next to the stock drive from my Mac mini:

I will not describe how to replace a disk in a Mac mini, so as not to inflate the already “multi-part” story. I will refer you only to a very good illustrated manual, which I used for such a replacement. There is also video guide. Choose for yourself what is best for you.

Replacing the drive turned out to be not as difficult as it seemed. Ultimately, the new drive ended up in my Mac mini.

Note. There is a 750 GB variant of this drive on the market with 8 GB SSD cache. It costs more and was not available in our local stores. That’s why I received a 500 GB disk with a 4 GB SSD.

"Moving" to a new disk

But before you replace the drive, you need to prepare for this. You must first move the working system to its “new home”. And then install a new disk with the system moved (or rather, copied) to it in place of the old one. You can do this in two simple ways.

First way

OS X has a great backup tool called Time Machine. If you are using Time Machine, then run a manual backup so that the backup copy is current at this time.

If you haven't used Time Machine, now is the time to start doing so. For which you will need an external USB drive of a suitable size, for example, the same 320 or 500 GB. Connect it to your Mac mini. Open Disk Utility, create one partition on it with GUID markup and file system – Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You will then be asked to use it as your Time Machine backup drive, which you will need to agree to. Ultimately, your entire system will be backed up on this drive.

The next step is to create bootable media (any USB Flash Drive with a size of 1 GB or larger), which will actually contain a copy of the Recovery HD partition from our standard disk. For this purpose, OS X has a special utility - Recovery Disk Creation Assistant (Programs - Utilities):

After the backup copy and bootable USB Flash Drive are made, all that remains is to replace the hard drive with a new one, following one of the above instructions. Then, holding down the Alt key immediately after turning it on, go to the boot source selection menu, in which select the created bootable USB Flash Drive and boot from it. Then select Restore from Time Machine backup:

After some time, the new disk will contain a copy of your system from the standard disk.

Second way

It consists of USB connecting a new drive to the working system and cloning a standard drive onto it. You can connect a new drive using any USB HHD Box (SATA), there are different options, choose any one that is most suitable for you. And you can clone a disk, for example, using the free program Carbon Copy Cloner. In it you need to select your working disk (HD) as the Source disk, and your new disk as the Destination and click the Clone button:

After cloning, replace the standard disk with a new one and boot from it. If, after turning on, booting from the new drive does not start (just a white screen), then you need to go to the menu for selecting boot sources using the Alt key, select your new drive and boot from it. Then you need to go to System Settings - Boot Volume, where you point the mouse at your new disk:

And then - the Restart button. After that, booting from the new disk will occur automatically.

results

I’ll say right away that the results surprised me very pleasantly. Before “moving” to the new disk, I took several measurements of the boot time of my working system. In addition to the system itself, I have several other programs loaded:

The average boot time from a standard disk was 1 minute 40 seconds. After replacing the disk with a new one, the very first boot happened in exactly 1 minute. Since the SSD cache was still empty upon first boot, the 40 second improvement can only be attributed to the higher speed (7200 rpm) of the new drive.

But the second and subsequent downloads took place in 39 seconds. Result: loading time was reduced from 1 minute 40 seconds to 39 seconds. Agree that this is a very decent increase in speed.

The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test measurements, as I expected, showed only about a 30% increase in performance:

Since the test writes blocks with arbitrary data to arbitrary sectors of the disk, they simply do not end up in the SSD cache. That is, such tests cannot evaluate the performance of the SSD part of the hybrid drive.

Therefore, all that remains is to use purely subjective estimates of the speed of such a disk in a real system. I can only express this subjective assessment in words - Everything literally flies! I almost stopped recognizing my Mac mini. It feels like this is a top-end iMac model and not a Mac mini at all.

I'm very pleased that I bent my Mac mini this way. Now it's just a fairy tale!

conclusions

1 . The cost of entering the world of Macs may not be as high as it seems at first glance. I gave advice on this matter in the first part of this article.

2 . The performance shortcomings of the budget Mac mini can also be overcome at a low price.

3 . The future definitely belongs to SSD drives. In the meantime, their cost is too high, you can use a hybrid drive. This, of course, is not a full-fledged SSD drive, but it has serious advantages over conventional hard drives, and its cost is comparable to them.

4 . There is another relatively inexpensive option for “upgrading” the Mac mini - installing a full-fledged SSD drive of not very large capacity - 64 or 128 GB - as a second disk (and the Mac mini has such an option), since their cost is no longer so high. In the same store where I purchased the hybrid drive, you could purchase a 64 GB SSD drive for the same 3,600 rubles, and a 128 GB SSD drive for 5,500 to 6,000 rubles.

The system itself can be installed on such a disk, and user directories can be moved to the same hybrid disk of higher capacity. Perhaps after a while I will do so. I'm still thinking about this question.

As I wrote earlier install Windows on iMAC/ MACBOOK PRO/ AIR, MAC mini is not a big deal. But after installing Windows, this operating system will load every time you turn it on by default. And if you want to boot MAC OS, you need to hold down the ALT key when turning on the iMAC/MACBOOK PRO/AIR, MAC mini to then select booting MAC OS. Agree, this is very inconvenient, especially if you mainly work on MAC OS and only occasionally need to boot into Windows. In order to correct the situation and select MAC OS as the default boot, you need to follow a number of simple steps.

So, our goal on iMAC/MACBOOK PRO/AIR, which has a second Windows operating system installed, is to boot MAC OS by default. To do this, you need to boot your MAC device under MAC OS. To do this, restart your iMAC/ MACBOOK PRO/ AIR, MAC mini and at the very beginning of boot, press and hold the ALT key. As a result, the OS boot selection window should appear. Choose MAC OS.

Select "Boot Volume".

In the boot volume window, select which operating system will boot by default. In this example, this is a MAC (Mavericks OS X 10.9.5). Just click on it, below in the menu you will see the line “You have chosen...” - this confirms your choice.

Fair, not overpriced and not underestimated. There should be prices on the Service website. Necessarily! without asterisks, clear and detailed, where technically possible - as accurate and concise as possible.

If spare parts are available, up to 85% of complex repairs can be completed in 1-2 days. Modular repairs require much less time. The website shows the approximate duration of any repair.

Warranty and responsibility

A guarantee must be given for any repairs. Everything is described on the website and in the documents. The guarantee is self-confidence and respect for you. A 3-6 month warranty is good and sufficient. It is needed to check quality and hidden defects that cannot be detected immediately. You see honest and realistic terms (not 3 years), you can be sure that they will help you.

Half the success in Apple repair is the quality and reliability of spare parts, so a good service works directly with suppliers, there are always several reliable channels and your own warehouse with proven spare parts for current models, so you don’t have to waste extra time.

Free diagnostics

This is very important and has already become a rule of good manners for the service center. Diagnostics is the most difficult and important part of the repair, but you don't have to pay a penny for it, even if you don't repair the device based on its results.

Service repairs and delivery

A good service values your time, so it offers free delivery. And for the same reason, repairs are carried out only in the workshop of a service center: they can be done correctly and according to technology only in a prepared place.

Convenient schedule

If the Service works for you, and not for itself, then it is always open! absolutely. The schedule should be convenient to fit in before and after work. Good service works on weekends and holidays. We are waiting for you and working on your devices every day: 9:00 - 21:00

The reputation of professionals consists of several points

Company age and experience

Reliable and experienced service has been known for a long time.
If a company has been on the market for many years and has managed to establish itself as an expert, people turn to it, write about it, and recommend it. We know what we are talking about, since 98% of incoming devices in the service center are restored.
Other service centers trust us and refer complex cases to us.

How many masters in areas

If there are always several engineers waiting for you for each type of equipment, you can be sure:
1. there will be no queue (or it will be minimal) - your device will be taken care of right away.
2. you give your Macbook for repair to an expert in the field of Mac repairs. He knows all the secrets of these devices

Technical literacy

If you ask a question, a specialist should answer it as accurately as possible.
So that you can imagine what exactly you need.
They will try to solve the problem. In most cases, from the description you can understand what happened and how to fix the problem.

Why are they needed and when to use them.

Generally, the Mac runs smoothly. However, anyone can encounter a problem that prevents OS X from loading.

The system has a whole set of tools for emergency computer startup, system recovery, and specific startup methods for non-standard situations. Let's take a closer look at all the possible boot options for your Mac.

Thanks for the advice re:Store. You can find out even more Mac and iPhone secrets at official lectures and master classes. Registration and visit is absolutely free.

Hurry up! Master classes are starting tomorrow: in Moscow about a music studio, and in St. Petersburg about fashion illustration.

Most modern Macs support more than 10 ways to start the system. To get into any of them, you need to hold down a certain button or key combination immediately after the start sound when turning on the power.

1. Recovery mode

Why is it needed: Recovery mode provides access to Disk Utility, OS X Installer, and the Time Machine backup recovery service. You need to boot in this mode if the system does not start in the usual way, to restore it from a backup or completely reinstall it.

How to get: press the combination Command (⌘) + R after the sound signal indicates that the computer is starting to turn on until the loading indicator appears.

2. Autorun manager

Why is it needed: If the second system on the Mac is Windows, then in this menu you can choose whether to boot into OS X or into Window.

How to get: hold down the button Option (⌥) or point the previously paired Apple Remote at your Mac and hold down the button Menu.

3. Boot from CD/DVD

Why is it needed: Intel-based Macs with an optical drive or an external CD/DVD drive can be booted from disk. If you have an OS X distribution on the disk, you can install the operating system.

How to get: clamp WITH.

4. External drive mode

Why is it needed: Any Mac with a FireWire or Thunderbolt port can be used as an external drive for another Mac to transfer large amounts of data between computers or to expand the drive on a second computer.

How to get: You will first need to go to Settings – Boot volume and activate External drive mode. After this, you should hold down the button while loading T.

If you don’t want to risk the data on your Mac’s drive, choose a capacious and fast flash drive.

5. Safe Mode

Why is it needed: safe mode allows you to eliminate problems that arise during normal loading of OS X. When the system starts, the integrity of the drive will be checked and only the most necessary system components will be launched. If third-party applications caused startup errors, the system will boot without problems.

We use this mode when OS X crashes and freezes when loading. If the Mac boots into it, we begin to disable the automatic loading of applications that launch along with the system.

How to get: clamp Shift (⇧).

6. Network recovery mode

Why is it needed: This mode is similar to the previous one, but allows you to restore the system from a distribution downloaded from the Apple server. To do this, you will need to connect to a network with Internet access. This mode should be used if the normal recovery area of the disk is damaged.

How to get: use a combination Command (⌘) + Option (⌥) + R.

Specialized devices from Apple will help you save data and be able to restore from a backup.

7. Reset PRAM/NVRAM

Why is it needed: A special partition of Mac memory stores certain settings (speaker volume settings, screen resolution, boot volume selection, and information about the latest critical errors). If errors occur that may be related to these settings, you should reset them.

How to get: After the beep, press and hold Command + Option + P + R. Hold down the keys until the computer restarts and you hear the boot tone a second time.

8. Diagnostic mode

Why is it needed: This mode is designed for testing Mac hardware components. It will help identify the cause of the computer malfunction. If there is a suspicion of a malfunction of Mac components, we boot and check.

How to get: press the button D.

9. Network diagnostic mode

Why is it needed: like the previous mode, it is intended for testing hardware components. However, if your Mac has hard drive or SSD problems, Network Mode will download everything needed for testing from the Apple server.

How to get: press the key combination Option (⌥) + D.

10. Boot from NetBoot server

Why is it needed: In this mode, you can install or restore the operating system over the network. To do this, you will need a ready-made disk image, which is stored on a server accessible over the network.

How to get: just press the button N.

11. Single-player mode

Why is it needed: In this mode, only the command line will be available. You should only boot this way if you have experience with UNIX commands. Advanced users will be able to perform computer maintenance and troubleshoot system problems.

How to get: press the combination Command (⌘) + S.

12. Detailed logging mode

Why is it needed: This mode is no different from the standard Mac boot. However, during system startup, instead of the usual indicator, you will see a detailed system startup log. This may be necessary to understand which OS boot process is causing the error or failure. Please note that this mode is aimed at advanced users.

How to get: press the combination Command (⌘) + V.

13. Reset System Management Controller (SMC) parameters

Why is it needed: Such a reset should be used if there are system errors that do not disappear after rebooting the system and turning off/on the computer. Below is a list of similar problems in which Apple experts recommend resetting the controller parameters:

computer fans spinning at high speeds for no reason (when the Mac is idle);
improper operation of the keyboard backlight;
incorrect operation of the power indicator;
The battery charge indicator on the laptop does not work correctly;
the display backlight is not adjustable or is adjusted incorrectly;
Mac doesn't respond when you press the power button;
the laptop reacts incorrectly to opening and closing the lid;
the computer goes into sleep mode on its own;
problems arise when charging the battery;
The MagSafe port indicator does not correctly display the current operating mode;
Applications do not work correctly or freeze upon startup;
Errors occur when working with an external display.

How to get: On different Macs, this reset is accomplished in different ways.

On desktop computers:

On laptops with a non-removable battery:

Shift + Control + Option

On laptops with a removable battery:

Bookmark the article so you don't have to search for it if problems arise.

Any computer, when turned on for the first time, regardless of the preinstalled operating system, needs a little setup and preparation for further interaction with the user. Apple products are no exception. With a built-in installation assistant, setting up a Mac yourself is not difficult, however, not very advanced users and just beginners may need help, so let's go through all the settings point by point.

When you turn on your Mac for the first time, you'll be greeted with a friendly greeting and asked to choose a language. In our case, select Russian and click “Next”.
Next, indicate your country of residence and proceed to the next step.
We also select the Russian keyboard layout and move on.
Here we need to select the Wi-Fi network. From the proposed list of found networks, select our wireless connection and enter the password, if required.
At this stage, the assistant suggests restoring data from a backup copy. This applies only to those who already own a Mac and simply decided to exchange their old machine for a new one, having first saved the data using Time Machine. However, if this is your first Apple device and there are no backups, you can safely select “not now” and skip this step.
Turn on location services. Some applications require location detection, so just in case it is better to check this box, you never know which of these programs you will use in the future.
Apple ID. You will still need it in the future, so it is better to create it right away by clicking on the corresponding button in the lower left corner of the window. Or you can do it later and just skip this step.
Terms and Conditions. The user agreement is familiar to us, but no one really reads it. Let’s not break stereotypes and do the same: click “Accept” and move on.
Setting up iCloud. Within the framework of this article, we will not go into details about iCloud; if you wish, you can read in other materials. But the thing is quite useful, so check the box to configure iCloud.
Messages. This is where you enter the email address where Face Time messages and calls will be sent. In short, Face Time is free audio-video calls between owners of Apple equipment.
iCloud to Find Mac. We check the box so that if your Mac goes missing, you can track it through the icloud.com service or from any other Apple device.
Computer account. There shouldn’t be any difficulties here, come up with a username and password and move on.
Selecting a time zone. You can check the box to automatically set the time based on your location, or set the time manually, if desired.
Diagnostics and use. This window appears only if OS X is pre-installed on your Mac. Everyone else will not see this message. Here you can leave everything as is, or refuse to send diagnostic data to developers.
Finish line. Registering the device and getting started.