I'd recommend that you use the HDD which is currently inside of your Mac mini as an external drive, actually. All can go well, but the SSD as internal boot drive is your safest bet by far. It's the most bullet-proof option, and circumvents problems commonly associated with booting from an external drive. I encourage you to use the SSD as the internal drive. Here are some examples of SSDs that should work: The Mac mini supports every SSD that meets the following criteria: 16 GB RAM will circumvent memory bottlenecks. Here are some examples of RAM modules which should work:Ĩ GB is still workable, but I definitely recommend a 16 GB RAM upgrade, at least if you intend to use the machine for the next few years. The Mac mini 2012 needs RAM that matches the following specification: It has two RAM slots, meaning two RAM modules in total will fit in. The Mac mini 2012 supports up to 16 GB RAM (2 x 8 GB RAM modules).
You can easily do both RAM and SSD upgrades for well below $200.
More physical RAM removes this bottleneck. It is true that the SSD will be the bigger speed bump of the two, but if the machine has too few RAM, it will start caching to the SSD in its quest for more memory, and this will slow down the Mac mini. Currently this has only 4GB RAM, was thinking about upgrading this as well but thought the SSD may give it more of a kick.įirst off, I think you should do both SSD and RAM upgrade.
