blog.blackrobes.net » storage http://blog.blackrobes.net more personal stuff Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:08:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 The ten hardest screws (Mac mini upgrades) http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/the-ten-hardest-screws-mac-mini-upgrades/ http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/the-ten-hardest-screws-mac-mini-upgrades/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:17:14 +0000 loyd http://blog.blackrobes.net/?p=106 I bought the base Mac mini last week: the $599 unit running at 2.0 GHz, 1 GB memory, and 120 GB of hard drive. For the same $200 that Apple wants for the $799 upgrade (2GB, 320GB @ 5400), I purchased 4GB of RAM from Crucial and a Western Digital 320GB 7200RPM drive. Incidentally, this is the same upgrade recommended by MacWorld (see links at the end of the article). In the time since the upgrade, the Seagate Momentus 500GB 2.5″ SATA became widely available.

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:

Upgrade parts Tools of the trade Inside the case Drives separated Apple RAM closeup Don't forget to connect this back Hard drive temperature sensor Cushions for the hard drive Temperature sensor installed 4GB installed Cat napping ]]> http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/the-ten-hardest-screws-mac-mini-upgrades/feed/ 0 Some hard drives sneak peak http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/some-hard-drives-sneak-peak/ http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/some-hard-drives-sneak-peak/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:42:05 +0000 loyd http://blog.blackrobes.net/?p=93 I’m working on a fun post on the various hard drive’s I’ve owned through the years. Here is a sneak peak.

Bottom-up: 10MB Miniscribe branded IBM 5.25 full height, 33MB Seagate 5.25 half height, 540MB Western Digital 3.5, 80GB Western Digital 2.5. IBM on the outside, Miniscribe on the inside! ]]> http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/06/some-hard-drives-sneak-peak/feed/ 0 eSATA adventures, 2009 edition http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/05/esata-adventures-2009-edition/ http://blog.blackrobes.net/2009/05/esata-adventures-2009-edition/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:59:26 +0000 loyd http://blog.blackrobes.net/?p=58 in 2008, I bought a Western Digital MyBook Studio 1TB with triple interfaces – USB 2.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA. Along with this I bought a Dynex eSATA ExpressCard for my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, eSATA was not nice to me: specifically, the combination of the triple hard drive interface (rumored it is an Oxford chipset), and the eSATA card’s underlying firmware, Silicon Image SI3132. At the time I experienced issues with Time Machine, and the drive would not come out of sleep mode when connect via eSATA. I conceded and used the drive with FireWire 800.

Flash forward to last Wenesday. I found the poor Dynex eSata card under a pile of papers on my desk, and wondered if anything changed in the past year. I researched some links I used previously (namely, the Leopard and Silicon Image 3132 discussion, see below) and found some new ones. I took several steps in tandem (the shotgun approach) but now the drive appears to work correctly with eSATA. I’ve had no issues with Time Machine, or the drive freezing or disconnecting. The issue is resolved!

What did I do?

  1. I installed the latest Silicon Image 3132 drivers for OS X Leopard: SATARAID5, version 1.5.16.0. By itself, it did not fix the problem. It appears Silicon Image focused on providing the SATARAID drivers, as most people in the discussions have had the best luck with it, and there is no harm in using the drivers with non-RAID cards. (Although, most two-port eSATA cards support software RAID). Link to Silicon Image drivers for OS X Leopard: http://siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=32&cat=3&os=3
  2. I turned off OS X’s hard drive sleep mode. There are two places to turn it off. The first is in System Preferences, Energy Saver, Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible. (You may need to click the Show Details button to see this option.) The second is a developer tool, found in /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/CHUD/Hardware Tools/SpindownHD. It allows for global enabling and disabling of hard drive sleep modes. The web page where I found this hint suggested that OS X only sends those commands to drives connected via FireWire or USB. Link to MacNoob page: http://www.macnoob.net/blog/2008/05/the-sleepy-western-digital-mybook-saga/
  3. Finally, I upgraded the firmware on the Western Digital MyBook Studio. The web page had a lot of perquisites, including uninstalling the Western Digital Drive Manager (which I use to manage the RAID on the MyBook Pro drive), temporarily disabling Time Machine, and connecting the drive via USB. (The firmware update only works via USB.) Once the prereq’s were done, the update itself went smoothly. Link to Western Digital firmware update: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=60&lang=en
  4. There is no step four! I powered down the drive and connected it via eSATA, and everything has worked like kittens. I’m on day three and have run the gamut of sleep mode, inactivity, Time Machine, on-demand access, and everything has just worked!

Now that my eSATA issues are sorted out, I’m thinking about moving to a Mac Mini… but that’s another story for later.

Resources:

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