Mac Mini

wrighty338

wrighty338

wrighty338

Associate
Joined
3 Sep 2013
Posts
61
Hi all

Does anyone use a mac mini on a daily basis and how do they tend to perform? My 7yr old pc needs replacing and iv worked with OSX for a while now and just fancy moving away from windows on a daily.

Im currently speccing a high end gaming rig for build in a couple of months time, il be running on a single BENQ XL2720Z with a spare HDMI in, which would be perfect as i can have the mac mini on there, in 27' and il have saved a pretty penny compared to an 27' IMAC

Id be interested to know if anyone bought a base spec and upgraded the HDD's or RAM to higher spec and how you got on?
 
Last edited:
I bought a brand new base model Mac Mini last year to replace the wife's ageing PC. Generally it's pretty good, but I would definitely spec one with an SSD inside as it takes ages to load any applications compared with my iMac or Macbook Air.

Retrofitting an SSD inside the current Minis doesn't look particularly straight forward either, unfortunately. The RAM is very simple to change though, as the cover just unscrews and exposes the RAM slots (I purchased some from Crucial).

I've just checked the Apple store and it's not possible to spec the base model with an SSD or Fusion drive, which is annoying. You'd have to choose the i7 model and spec either the 1TB fusion drive or 256GB SSD for an additional £160, bringing the total to an eye-watering £839. Remember you'd save a fair bit of this if you're eligible for a student discount.
 
Yeah the RAM sounds pretty straight forward and a nice saving from what they want to upgrade it at apple. The SSD upgrades from apple are extortionate however - if you want 2 drives in the server version, SSD upgrade for 2x256 is 480 bucks! you can get the 2 drives from a well known place for 150.

Is it possible to squeeze 2 SSD's into a quad core version i wonder?
 
Well I'm running a 3TB fusion drive in my iMac and think it's amazing. As you can't replicate this with a home-brew situation, I'd consider that.

I really wouldn't want to invalidate warranty on a brand new Mini if you want to change the internal HD however. The dimensions are exactly the same for all the models, but I don't know if that extends to the internal configurations.

*edit*
Actually, ifixit.com has excellent guides and they also sell a dual-drive kit for the unibody Mini. It states that all unibody models can accept dual-drives so that would be an option.
 
How much of the 3tb fusion drive is flash robbie? is it a standard % of the disk across the fusion drives? that could well be an option yes. i dont need THAT much storagetbh but its an option

edit, just read its 128gb on a 1TB, is it 128 across 2tb and 3tb also?
 
Last edited:
Yep, 128GB of SSD on the 3TB fusion. It's exceptionally fast and I've never noticed any slow down with it.

Just for reference I run VMWare with one or two OS's, have 32GB of ram and mainly use my system for photo editing and use Lightroom, Photoshop etc. Nothing too taxing, but it runs beautifully.
 
I bought the base Mac Mini in Christmas 2012 and have since upgraded it to an SSD. I use it as my main machine unless I'm gaming in which case I'll switch over to my gaming rig.

Wish I had an iMac 27" though! Maybe one day...
 
If you are interested there are currently some base mac mini in the apple refurb section for £419 and to add the ssd you can get the owc data doubler hard drive kit from amazon for £24.
 
wrighty338 said:
Hi all

Does anyone use a mac mini on a daily basis and how do they tend to perform? My 7yr old pc needs replacing and iv worked with OSX for a while now and just fancy moving away from windows on a daily.

Im currently speccing a high end gaming rig for build in a couple of months time, il be running on a single BENQ XL2720Z with a spare HDMI in, which would be perfect as i can have the mac mini on there, in 27' and il have saved a pretty penny compared to an 27' IMAC

Id be interested to know if anyone bought a base spec and upgraded the HDD's or RAM to higher spec and how you got on?
Click to expand...

I bought a basic spec machine and switched to a Samsung 750 gig SSD and 16 gig of Ram. I found it quite easy following this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnBtXrofOLc
 
The Mac mini has not been updated for 18 months. It should be due a Haswell upgrade any day according to Macrumors' Buyers' Guide. If I were you, I would try and hold out a bit longer unless you are really stuck for a computer.
 
ic1male said:
The Mac mini has not been updated for 18 months. It should be due a Haswell upgrade any day according to Macrumors' Buyers' Guide. If I were you, I would try and hold out a bit longer unless you are really stuck for a computer.
Click to expand...

Indeed, however I've been telling a couple of friends who were in the market the same thing since the beginning of the year :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom