[refusedchaos]

Just got a Dell Mini 9 and I have a few questions about upgrades:

1)Anywhere I can buy a black top shell for it?

2)SSD wise, anywhere I can find a good and cheap SSD? is this one ok? Amazon.com: Super Talent 32 GB MLC Half Mini 2 PCIE Solid State…

3)Anything else notable that I should upgrade? (it already has 2gb of RAM in it)

4)Is there any type of TRIM software for these SSDs? or do they just eventually die out?

5)Which is the best tut for installing OSX on this?


thanks!

[reflex]

1. Dunno. eBay? Dell?

2. I think the second gen SuperTalent drives are well regarded. I believe GFDL suffix indicates 2nd gen.

3. I upgraded mine to N wireless. I used a full-height Intel WiFi Link 5100. It seemed to be the best/easiest option. But I don't think Intel cards work in OSX.

4. I don't think TRIM works on the Mini 9 or its SSDs. And I don't think OSX supports TRIM anyway. So, eventually SSD performance may degrade. My OEM SSD might be suffering from this. I plan to do a complete wipe soon, and I hope it'll improve things. But a "too large" SSD should be less sensitive to this effect (using 12GB of a 64GB drive should be better than 12GB of a 16GB drive).

5. Dunno.

I hope you enjoy your Mini.

[rrfranczak3]

the best guide for OSX on the forum from what I have read is Mechdrews guide...its in the OSX forum...check there..

PS. Welcome to the forum....

[refusedchaos]

thank guys!

[grassle]

Originally Posted by reflex

I plan to do a complete wipe soon, and I hope it'll improve things.

Could you do some benchmarking before and after and post them here? That would be really interesting stuff!
g

[refusedchaos]

oh and how do you do a complete wipe on a SSD? i know you cant just format it regularly to get all the blocks back.

[lswartz]

A clean install of Ubuntu can do that for you. I never felt the need to buy OSX, but maybe it will too.

[reflex]

Originally Posted by refusedchaos

oh and how do you do a complete wipe on a SSD? i know you cant just format it regularly to get all the blocks back.

SSDs can suffer from fragmentation. It's low-level fragmentation, so OS filesystem level defrags won't help. But I hope that large, sequential writes will enable the SSD controller to automatically defrag, and a compelete wipe is the biggest sequential write possible.

To wipe the drive before reinstalling, I plan to boot off a Linux LiveCD/USB, then run a command like "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda". This will zero out the entire* first "hard" drive. I hope this helps performance.

On better SSDs than my 4GB STEC, there are other, superior options for wiping to restore performance, like manufacturer tools and utilities which perform ATA secure erase. I don't know what options you have on other Mini 9 SSDs.

* Technically, this command doesn't erase the entirety of a disk. But unless you're being targeted by a three letter agency or really bored hackers buy your used computers, it's pretty secure.