Replacing an HDD in a Mac Mini

As we are fellow users, we cannot speak for replacement labor or pricing from Apple, or Apple Certified Service Centers. The late-2014 Mac mini uses internal NVMe (PCIe 3.1 X4) storage which costs around $199 for a 480GB unit including toolkit, and up from there. For about the same price, you could opt for an external SSD and drive enclosure connected via USB3 to the mini. These solid-state replacement drives require macOS High Sierra (10.13) or later.

Here is an installation video showing the NVMe drive replacement process with the proper tools, and replacement NVMe unit.

tremblay32 wrote:

Are you saying that I can connect an HDD or an SSD via the USB 3.0 port in order to make that drive the bootable drive while connected to that port?

You can do that with an external drive enclosure and a USB3 cable.

The NVMe drive must be installed internal to the Mac mini, and if the original drive remains in the mini, you might be able to use Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate your old drive to the new NVMe device. Haven't done this so talk with OWC about your options. Another option is to boot into Recovery and perform a Time Machine Restore to the new NVMe device.