2011 Mac Mini - Is SSD worth it?

As far as I am aware it's simply a matter of people having reported in many cases that they obtained improved sonics with an SSD, with the rationale and explanations being speculative.

In addition to the possibility of reduced vibration to which Mezmo referred, other speculative possibilities would involve differences in electrical noise within the computer, which could ultimately affect jitter and/or radiated rfi.

In referring to electrical noise I am not only referring to noise that may be generated by the drive itself, and by fluctuations in its current draw from the power supply, but also to changes in noise that may be generated by digital components such as the cpu chip, its associated "chipset," memory, etc. The timing of the activities of those other digital components will presumably change somewhat as a result of the much faster response times of an SSD compared to a mechanical drive.

Those kinds of effects will have little if any predictability, but the point is that it is conceivable that there could be a difference.

Regards,
-- Al

04-06-12: Nonoise
I tried to find a link to a thread, here, on Audiogon, where someone who's expertise is in SSDs and the like went on to state that SSDs are not any more reliable or quieter since a HD can be insulated to where noise is not a factor.

As far as acoustical noise is concerned, as opposed to electrical noise which was what was addressed in the earlier posts by me and some of the others, I don't think that any meaningful generalizations can be drawn. An HDD model that is inherently quieter than average, and that has low rotational speed, and is mounted via rubber washers or other vibration absorbent means on a rigid non-resonant case structure that has minimal openings to the outside, will be pretty much totally silent. A high speed high performance HDD that is not so mounted will be noisy. An SDD will provide much higher speed than any desktop or laptop HDD while generating no acoustical noise.

Concerning reliability, the jury is probably still out on SDD's, but IMO if an HDD or an SDD contains important material it should be assumed that it can fail at any time. My practice is to back up data files daily, and to create an image of the entire operating system drive every few weeks. That avoids the necessity of having to install and set up all of the software from scratch if the drive has to be replaced.

Best regards,
-- Al