The good news: with a decent speed hard drive and 4GB memory (the maximum on early 2009 Mac minis), this little box is great! UI response is crisp, and the system boots as quick as could be asked.

The bad news: as various online reviews mentioned, this is one of the harder upgrades to perform. Actually installing the RAM and hard drive is straightforward as on other systems, but getting there is a beast! I also consider the base mini barely usable except for the basic tasks. The system’s paltry 1GB is taxed after loading two or three applications. Definitely upgrade the RAM to 4GB (a $64 upgrade direct from Crucial, see the links below).

There’s many sites documenting Mac mini disassembly so I won’t go into great detail here.

Cracking the case required modifying a putty knife, to give it a beveled edge to wedge between the aluminum case and the plastic fingers holding it to the bottom. Remove the three antennas from their stands. Next was finding four black screws hidden in black recesses at each corner. After disconnecting a ribbon cable, the black plastic top holding the DVD drive and hard drive can be separated from the motherboard.

With the drives out of the way, replacing the RAM was easy, it’s in the left-front corner on the motherboard. One poster on the Apple discussion site had difficulty installing the upper DIMM, but I found sliding it between the upper and lower retaining clips the easiest method.

Getting to the hard drive was straightforward but required removing the DVD. The screws on the drive’s right side are a little tricky to put back due to the recesses, unless you have a magnetic-tip screwdriver or are careful manipulating the screws.

Here are some things I noticed on other sites mentioned in passing:

• Before taking the black plastic top piece, be sure to remove the connector on the attached circuit board. It controls the speaker (I left it unplugged on my first reassembly) for sure, and possibly other stuff (does anyone know?).
• When replacing the hard drive, transfer the two cushions from the old drive. They act as shock absorbers to cushion drive from the motherboard components.
• The Mac mini will sound terrible when removing and installing the aluminum outer case. As others have said, it sounds worse than it really is.

One of my cats was thrilled for me to do this. Ok, she was more “meh” and took a nap instead.

Resources:

• Macworld Mac mini upgrade recommendations: http://www.macworld.com/article/140575/macmini2009upgrade.html
• iFixit  Mac mini teardown: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-mini-A1283/659/1
• Unboxing and teardown @ macminicolo: http://www.macminicolo.net/macmini2009.html
• iFixit 1TB Mac mini (2x 500GB drives): http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Mac-mini-A1283-Terabyte-Drive/660/1
• Memory upgrades at Crucial: http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Mac%20mini%20(Intel%20Core%202%20Duo%202.0GHz%20DDR3)%20MB463LL/A&pl=Apple&cat=RAM
• Memory upgrades at Crucial, main Mac page: http://www.crucial.com/mac/index.aspx

The RAM modules do not need to be removed from the laptop to disassemble it. However, I’m a masochist and removed them anyway; it’s one less thing to damage if the screwdriver slips.

Instead of restoring from Time Machine, I performed a “Restore” using Disk Utility. I restored the internal drive to the new drive (using a SATA docking station), then swapped the drives.

After the swap, the system started slower than normal. The boot screen briefly showed a folder with a question mark before the Apple logo and startup bong. A quick search revealed I had to set the startup drive in System Preferences: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440. Once done the system boots quickly. I assume that restoring from the install disc and Time Machine correctly set the startup drive preference.

Using the Disk Uility restore method, the destination drive showed more free space than the source by a few GB. I believe this is because the Spotlight cache is not restored to the destination drive. Immediately on logging in, Spotlight started indexing the new drive. After indexing, the free space was in the ballpark of the original drive.

Here is a picture of all the screws removed (click on it to see full size). My preferred disassembly order (top to bottom) is:

• RAM cover screws (4)
• RAM cover removed
• Screws under RAM cover (2)
• RAM modules removed
• Left: Side and back screws (13), Right: hinge screws (4)
• Hard drive hold down and screws (2)
• Left: bare hard drive screws (2), Center: new hard drive, Right: hard drive screws with bushings (2)

The ifixit site has a step-by-step guide for disassembling the MBP: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Core-Duo-Hard-Drive-Replacement/319/1

Belkin N1 Vision wireless router

Author’s note: Edited 9 June 2009, added ps example output for finding the NTP process.

I was streaming the Stanford iTunes-U iPhone application development lectures (whew!) to the big TV downstairs yesterday afternoon. Suddenly the video froze, and the Linksys router stopped doing the flashy light thing. (I use DD-WRT on the Linksys as a client bridge to the upstairs Belkin router.) After some researching, many people with this router, Belkin N1 Vision (version 2000), experience two-hour disconnects. It turns out the NTP (Network Time Protocol, a time synchronization service) causes it to reboot or at least disconnect.

Here is a workaround, until Belkin releases a firmware update. (The N1 Vision 1000-series is fixed, why not this one?)

1. Connect to the router at http://router-ip-address/wukongjiuwo.html. The default router address is 192.168.2.1.
2. In the text box beneath Console, type ps and click the Enter button.
3. Look for a line with NTP in it followed by your time zone. The number on the far left side is the process identifier. Here is an example:

   PID  Uid     VmSize Stat Command
   243 root        328 S   /usr/sbin/ntp -z GMT-8:0:1 -h 192.43.244.18 -b 132.16
   

4. Back in the text box, type kill number, where number is the process identifier from step 3, and click the Enter button.
5. Type ps again to make sure it went away.

If you experience any strangeness, simply unplug the router for a few seconds then plug it back it to force a reboot.

This fix is temporary, because it must be reapplied every time the router is rebooted.

Other than this issue I’ve been happy with it. Gigabit Ethernet and great wireless coverage.