Upgrading Original Fusion to only an SSD

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Mac mini Late 2012

Released on October 23, 2012. Core i5 or Core i7 Processor. Apple Fusion Drive.

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Steve @steve98598

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Upgrading Original Fusion to only an SSD

I have looked at (and used) the Mac mini hard drive replacement so I apologize if this question is answered elsewhere. Please feel free to point me to the right spot.

This question will reveal my fusion confusion. I have the late 2012 Mac min that I wanted to extend the life on so I upgraded the memory to 16 GB and thought I would replace the original 1 TB fusion drive with a 1 TB all SSD drive. I purchased the hard drive upgrade kit from iFixit. I used Acronis True Image 2020 to clone the old drive to the new SSD drive.

The system has not been very stable so I took a look with Disk Utility. I am seeing a 1 TB drive grayed out. I see two volumes for the SSD. Originally, I THOUGHT, the Fusion drive was a hybrid all in one drive that included flash memory for caching. But as I have read more info on Fusion you can obviously create a fusion drive with two discrete drives.

The drive I removed (following the iFixit guide) appears to be a 128 GB SSD. I just looked closer last evening. This leads me to what may be a stupid question. Is there also a physical traditional platter/spindle based hard drive in the Mac mini? The bay where what I think is only a 128 GB SSD was empty after I removed that drive.

I am considering putting the original drive back in this evening and restart the process but in my cloning process via Acronis, there were not a lot of options so I am a bit lost as to why I have the unstable system and what appears to be a phantom drive in the Disk Utility. Any suggestions or guidance are greatly appreciated.

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Dan @danj

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OK, lets clear the confusions:

The Fusion Drive is made up of two physical drives in the 2012 Mac mini is two SATA drives one small SSD and one HDD!

In the newer 2014 it’s made up of a PCIe blade SSD and a SATA HDD.

But before you can alter the drive set you first need to break the fusion drive by running How to split up a Fusion Drive for the older Sierra and Split Your Fusion Drive Apart gets into the newer macOS’s.

And lastly, here’s a detailed writeup on Core Storage: Understanding Core storage, logical volumes, and Fusion drives

Now here’s the steps you’ll need to do:

Create a Bootable USB thumb drive I would recommend sticking with Sierra as it works better with the older SATA drives (using HPFS+ file system) or if you really need a newer OS I would stay with Mojave for now as Catalina still has some deep issues hopefully the update will address (migrating to the newer APFS file system).

How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive

Apple messed up the installer files If you've got an old macOS install image, it will probably stop working today so you’ll need to get a fresh one from here: How to upgrade to macOS Sierra jump to Step 4 for the link in either.

If you haven’t make a backup of your user accounts, apps & data to an external drive

Using the created thumb drive boot up the system pressing the Option key to get to the Startup manager to select the thumb drive.

Now reformat the drives using Disk Utility and install the OS using the OS installer app onto the SSD drive. Don’t use cloning software it just makes a mess! I haven’t used cloning software on boot drives for over 12 years! As it has made more of a mess than doing its as Apple intended! Now with the newer APFS its worse and it often doesn’t create the hidden recover partition either. Find a trash bin and toss it out.

Now restore your user accounts and apps to the SSD drive. You really don’t want to load it up with stuff! Leave at least 1/3 of it free. At the end of the OS install process you’ll be asked if you have data to restore you can do it then or after applying your OS updates you can open up Migration Assistant app in the Apps/Utilities folder.

Now setup the second drive using Disk Utility and now restore your user data over to the HDD drive.

I would recommend using TimeMachine to backup your stuff and then use Migration Assistant to restore your stuff back

Here’s more details:

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Thanks for all the details. I think I saw some of these links. I am perplexed because I don't see the physical spindle platter HDD. As I mentioned, the drive I removed left the drive bay empty and it was labeled as a 128 GB drive. So the SSD side of the fusion equation, I see. Just wondering where I missed seeing the elephant in the room so that if I go with just the 1 TB SSD, I can remove the 1 TB platter.

Steve tarafından 15 Oca 2020

The two drives are stacked in a carrier one on top of the other Installing Mac Mini Late 2012 Dual Hard Drive Kit

Dan tarafından 15 Oca 2020

I will tear it open again tonight once I get home to see what I missed. This is the first time I have opened it up so I must have just missed it. Will update the post after that.

Steve tarafından 15 Oca 2020

Ok. I officially admit to be a bonehead. Apparently, since I thought I was removing a hybrid single drive, I never noticed the black cover on the 1 TB HDD below the SSD. I put the original 128 GB ssd back in for now.

Follow up question, in your opinion, now that I have the 1 TB SSD, would there be a performance increase to justify going through the breaking of the fusion drive, putting in the 1 TB SSD in place of the 128 GB SSD, and then reinstall and create a fusion drive using the 1 TB SSD and 1 TB platter?

Steve tarafından 15 Oca 2020

Which is faster a Ford or a Porsche? Very big difference!

Back up, break the fusion drive set remove the 128 SSD put your new SSD in reformat both drives, then install the OS onto the SSD. But of course you really only wanted a old Model T right ? ;-}

Dan tarafından 15 Oca 2020

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Thanks for all the details. I think I saw some of these links. I am perplexed because I don't see the physical spindle platter HDD. As I mentioned, the drive I removed left the drive bay empty and it was labeled as a 128 GB drive. So the SSD side of the fusion equation, I see. Just wondering where I missed seeing the elephant in the room so that if I go with just the 1 TB SSD, I can remove the 1 TB platter. — Steve
The two drives are stacked in a carrier one on top of the other Installing Mac Mini Late 2012 Dual Hard Drive Kit — Dan
I will tear it open again tonight once I get home to see what I missed. This is the first time I have opened it up so I must have just missed it. Will update the post after that. — Steve
Ok. I officially admit to be a bonehead. Apparently, since I thought I was removing a hybrid single drive, I never noticed the black cover on the 1 TB HDD below the SSD. I put the original 128 GB ssd back in for now.

Follow up question, in your opinion, now that I have the 1 TB SSD, would there be a performance increase to justify going through the breaking of the fusion drive, putting in the 1 TB SSD in place of the 128 GB SSD, and then reinstall and create a fusion drive using the 1 TB SSD and 1 TB platter? — Steve
Which is faster a Ford or a Porsche? Very big difference!

Back up, break the fusion drive set remove the 128 SSD put your new SSD in reformat both drives, then install the OS onto the SSD. But of course you really only wanted a old Model T right ? ;-} — Dan

Mac mini Late 2012

Upgrading Original Fusion to only an SSD

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