Please checkout the following upgrade video from OWC and iFixit.

The machine is still good although the DVD drive does not worked anymore.

However, before we start playing around with the Linux installation, we need to take stock of the hardware capability.

Part Number For 2009 Mini Server Os Disc Mac Has Core

This Mac has Core 2 Duo CPU (P8700) running at 2.53GHz.

It support PC3-8500 DDR3 RAM running at 1066MHz.

Wifi specification is 802.11abgn.

This is pretty high end at the time.

However, this WiFi uses Broadcom chipset (BCM4321), which is not very well supported in Linux since it is an older chip.

The down side for this machine is that it support only 5x USB 2.0 and the Bluetooth is using protocol 2.1EDR.

If you use Bluetooth device heavily, then you might consider buying a Bluetooth 4 USB adapter.

Please bear in mind that this system only support up to USB 2.0.

The most important upgrade will be SSD if you are still using traditional HDD.

If you are on a budget or if you do not wish to spend too much money on the old machine.

We would recommend you to upgrade traditional HDD to SSD first.

You can have the choice of 128GB, 256GB or higher capacity SSD.

The upgrade will make a big difference in the user experience.

For instruction to upgrade, please check out website from iFixit or OWC.

These website also sell RAM and SSD together with upgrade kit.

According to the specification, this Mac Mini uses PC3-8500 DDR3 with 1066 MHz.

However, we might still able to obtained it via Mac upgrade company such as iFixit or OWC.

Alternatively, we can obtained from 2nd hand market via eBay or craigslist.

Officially, Apple support 4GB of RAM for this Mac Mini, however, Mac OS X is able to support up to 8GB.

However, if you have 16GB of DDR3 with 1066MHz lying around, you might want to try it and let us know if Linux could recognize 16GB RAM.

We have previously upgraded the RAM and SSD for this Mac Mini.

As far as we can remember, we do not need any special kit to upgrade RAM or SSD.

Part Number For 2009 Mac Mini Server Os Install Disc