Any other use for mid 2011 Mac Mini?

[GalileoSeven]

Well, it finally got to this point. Have done a fairly decent job turning the missus into an Apple convert, first with my old 2011 Mac Mini and then with a new M2 MBA like mine.

She's familiar enough with the MBA, that the differences between that and the mini are hard to ignore and given the feature gap between the OS versions, I've decided to retire this thing (set up a separate user account for her on my iMac and am in the process of importing her music/movies).

I'm wondering now if there's any viable use for this? I gave a thought to maybe trying OpenCore on this, but it would need to get up to at least macOS 12 to be useful (primarily because she uses airplay to move photos/files a lot) - given its age, I have my doubts.

It's only got a 500GB HD too. I gave some thought to swapping that out, but again, if I can't get to at least macOS 12 somehow, that'd be a waste of time/money (as our music/movie collection is approaching a TB in size and we couldn't use this as a media server necessarily)

 

[rpmurray]

I have a 2011 27 inch iMac (i7) running Monterey having used OCLP to install it. I don't do anything demanding on it, just browse the web (especially YouTube), do Mail, some Microsoft Office (mostly Excel), play music, etc. It does that all pretty well.

I would suggest trying it since you don't really have anything to lose. If you like it then you might just put a small SSD into it, enough for the OS and applications, and then attach external storage.

 

[macsound1]

At home, it's great for me for a couple thing
Internet Cache (saves Mac and iOS updates locally so people in your home don't need to download every time from the internet)
File Server for saving group photos, videos, and to have a single time machine point that can be backed up to backblaze

 

[B S Magnet]

I'm wondering now if there's any viable use for this? I gave a thought to maybe trying OpenCore on this, but it would need to get up to at least macOS 12 to be useful (primarily because she uses airplay to move photos/files a lot) - given its age, I have my doubts.

There’s still plenty you can do with it.

This was the first Mac mini with Thunderbolt and although supported “officially” to High Sierra by Apple, the extremely useful OpenCore Legacy Project (OCLP for short) has made later versions of macOS, including Monterey, available to “unsupported” models like the mid-2011 Mac mini.

The Mac mini can be a great place to host local media files (like a personal media server on the home network). It can be used as a backup set-top box for watching TV. With a pretty easy-to-do upgrade of the original, brutal-slow HDD to an SSD, especially an SSD with a DRAM cache built in (like a WD Blue or WD Red SSD, but also smilar SSDs are offered with DRAM caches by Kingston, Crucial, and so on), booting the system and/or launching an app will be much, much quicker. (In fact, that model can support up to two hard drives internally.)

An SSD, plus bumping the RAM to 16GB (again, pretty inexpensively), will bring a lot of new life and speed to it. In addition, it can continue to be a good place to handle Time Machine backups.

You can also pair those two upgrades, along with the OCLP-assisted Monterey, by connecting a modern display via Thunderbolt (or with an HDMI-to-Thunderbolt adapter). It will continue to have 802.11n wifi and gigabit ethernet for the home network.

In short, there’s still a lot of untapped life left in your Mac mini.

It's only got a 500GB HD too. I gave some thought to swapping that out, but again, if I can't get to at least macOS 12 somehow, that'd be a waste of time/money (as our music/movie collection is approaching a TB in size and we couldn't use this as a media server necessarily)

For running macOS 12 Monterey, via OCLP, you will absolutely need an SSD, as Apple’s adoption of a newer file system scheme called APFS (superseding the HFS+ you’re probably familiar with), from High Sierra onward, is designed centrally around the use of solid state storage. In fact, after, I believe, Catalina (10.15), booting from an older, spinning HDD became impractical as the OS itself is being designed these days for use with an APFS file system (one which absolutely needs an SSD).

These days, though, picking up a 1TB SATA SSD (with DRAM cache) for less than USD$100 is getting pretty commonplace.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, it finally got to this point. Have done a fairly decent job turning the missus into an Apple convert, first with my old 2011 Mac Mini and then with a new M2 MBA like mine.

She's familiar enough with the MBA, that the differences between that and the mini are hard to ignore and given the feature gap between the OS versions, I've decided to retire this thing (set up a separate user account for her on my iMac and am in the process of importing her music/movies).

I'm wondering now if there's any viable use for this? I gave a thought to maybe trying OpenCore on this, but it would need to get up to at least macOS 12 to be useful (primarily because she uses airplay to move photos/files a lot) - given its age, I have my doubts.

It's only got a 500GB HD too. I gave some thought to swapping that out, but again, if I can't get to at least macOS 12 somehow, that'd be a waste of time/money (as our music/movie collection is approaching a TB in size and we couldn't use this as a media server necessarily)

I have two 2009 Minis. Both run Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator, but the early 2009 Mini is my 'media' controller. It plays my music, but sends the audio to my Late 2009 Mini which has speakers attached. That way I don't need a music app open on that Mini while working in my design apps.

Both have 8GB ram. The early 2009 Mini has a 320GB HD and the late 2009 Mini has a 500GB SSD. To you that may not be much and in truth, compared to my 2009 MacPro this is miniscule. But I have lots of network storage and everything is accessible over the network to every Mac and PC I have. Stuff like music, movies/video graphics, photos, etc, etc are not stored on my Macs or PCs. They are stored on my NAS or on other network attached storage (such as my PowerMac G4/500 which has a 6TB SATA hard drive).

I also have three 2006 Mac Minis. All are used for older versions of Photoshop and for scanning and other minor tasks. But one of these 2006 Mini's also serves as the download location for ALL my Macs. So, all my downloads no matter on what computer go to one Mac Mini. It's easy just to sort through one location rather than the download folders of multiple Macs.

So, you have a 2011 Mini. I wonder what you can do with it that I cannot with two 2009 Minis and three 2006 Minis…

 

[B S Magnet]

I also have three 2006 Mac Minis. All are used for older versions of Photoshop and for scanning and other minor tasks. But one of these 2006 Mini's also serves as the download location for ALL my Macs. So, all my downloads no matter on what computer go to one Mac Mini. It's easy just to sort through one location rather than the download folders of multiple Macs.

Side bar: Do you have a startup script on your other systems to attach to network volumes handled by that 2006 Mac mini, or is it just muscle memory habit to Cmd-K and connect from saved local addresses whenever you boot up and reach desktop on any of your other systems?

 

[eyoungren]

Side bar: Do you have a startup script on your other systems to attach to network volumes handled by that 2006 Mac mini, or is it just muscle memory habit to Cmd-K and connect from saved local addresses whenever you boot up and reach desktop on any of your other systems?

Neither.

What I do have is drive shares loaded in to the login items for my user account in System Preferences. If you select all your connected shares and then drag/drop them into the login items section, then when you boot/login the Mac will automatically try to connect. If you have the account names/passwords saved in your keychain then the shares just reappear. Otherwise you get the credentials box.

The problem with this, and one of the reasons that I did not use to do it, is when a share is down. The Mac will keep trying to connect to a non-existant share for a specific amount of time before it will move on to the next login item. Basically it beats its head against the wall until it hurts and then goes after the next login item.

At my old job, under Tiger I had a problem with a corrupt share once. The Mac beachballed and would not advance until it could finally let go of that dead share. Had to figure that out the hard way. And it bit me again yesterday when I shut the Mac down to add the seventh monitor. Because I have the Mac Mini shares in my Startup items on my MacPro, and those Macs I shut down for the summer.

The MP spent some time banging on the wall until it could finally let it go and proceed with the rest of the login items.

This is another reason I don't reboot often.



Note, above is my MacPro. Each of my Macs is different, depending on which shares I want loaded at boot on that Mac.

 

[B S Magnet]

Neither.

What I do have is drive shares loaded in to the login items for my user account in System Preferences. If you select all your connected shares and then drag/drop them into the login items section, then when you boot/login the Mac will automatically try to connect. If you have the account names/passwords saved in your keychain then the shares just reappear. Otherwise you get the credentials box.

“I’ll take ‘Things you never knew you could do in OS X/macOS’ for $600, Alex…”

 

[glenthompson]

I have a 2012 Mini setup as a media, backup, and archive server. 24tb of disk hanging off it and a small SSD as a boot drive. It has USB-3 so disk speeds are ok. 2011 Mini may be a bit slow.

 

[B S Magnet]

I have a 2012 Mini setup as a media, backup, and archive server. 24tb of disk hanging off it and a small SSD as a boot drive. It has USB-3 so disk speeds are ok. 2011 Mini may be a bit slow.

A bit slow… for what, precisely?

 

[BeatCrazy]

At home, it's great for me for a couple thing
Internet Cache (saves Mac and iOS updates locally so people in your home don't need to download every time from the internet)
File Server for saving group photos, videos, and to have a single time machine point that can be backed up to backblaze

Can you tell me more about macOS and iOS caching? I too literally have a 2011 Mac mini sitting in a box. And I have a dozen macOS and a dozen iOS devices that are somewhat annoying to update once/month. I have fast internet, but there's probably a chance to cut the download speeds in half, if locally cached.

 

[B S Magnet]

Can you tell me more about macOS and iOS caching? I too literally have a 2011 Mac mini sitting in a box. And I have a dozen macOS and a dozen iOS devices that are somewhat annoying to update once/month. I have fast internet, but there's probably a chance to cut the download speeds in half, if locally cached.

The ultra-short version: you will need to activate Content Caching in your “Sharing” prefPane on the system you plan to have serve updates.

I personally don’t rely on the service, but I also don’t have as many devices as you do. From what I can suss, it’s a simplified version of a feature to appear in OS X Server originally which let that server download software updates and allow client Macs on the local subnet to connect to the OS X Server box to grab the updates locally. Content Caching appears to have not only simplified that function, but also to include updates for iAppliances like iPad and iPhone.

 

[BeatCrazy]

The ultra-short version: you will need to activate Content Caching in your “Sharing” prefPane on the system you plan to have serve updates.

View attachment 2222831

View attachment 2222832

I personally don’t rely on the service, but I also don’t have as many devices as you do. From what I can suss, it’s a simplified version of a feature to appear in OS X Server originally which let that server download software updates and allow client Macs on the local subnet to connect to the OS X Server box to grab the updates locally. Content Caching appears to have not only simplified that function, but also to include updates for iAppliances like iPad and iPhone.

This seems like something I could do on an existing machine, without much penalty? In other words, I don't need a separate machine, just for Content Caching. Right?

It really works for iOS updates?

 

[B S Magnet]

This seems like something I could do on an existing machine, without much penalty? In other words, I don't need a separate machine, just for Content Caching. Right?

Practically speaking, yah. I don’t, offhand, know whether Apple set up Content Caching to run when the system is idle, but my guess is yes — at the very least, with a set time to a) have a list established locally with all known iDevices on the local network, and b) check for updates for all those devices and download them. If it’s not a set time, then it probably grabs updates when the system is idling.

And what about iOS?

iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS are what I meant when I wrote “iAppliances”. That is: Apple devices which are not intended by Apple to be modular at all in any sense, by design (and by cyptographic force).

In the above screen grabs (from my system using High Sierra), there is also a checkbox for “sharing internet connection and cached content with iOS devices connected via USB” (such as when recharging). More recent versions of macOS, such as Monterey or Ventura, may have additional features to account for wireless connections between a Content Caching device (i.e., a local sever, such as a Mac mini) and those devices, especially as a lot of users these days pref to use wireless charging for convenience sake. (I say “may” because I personally am not using those iterations of macOS.)

 

[glenthompson]

A bit slow… for what, precisely?

External drives will be limited. USB-2 is a bit slow for file transfers. Later models with USB-3 are much faster.

 

[B S Magnet]

External drives will be limited. USB-2 is a bit slow for file transfers. Later models with USB-3 are much faster.

This model includes a 10Gbps Thunderbolt port. Moreover, the mid-2011 also has support for FW800 external drives.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Our 2011 base Mac mini has been a Plex server for 12 years now, backup central, backup emergency computer, and playtoy for when I need to try out something server related software that I'm never going to use.

 

[ojfd]

Mac Mini 2011 is brilliant machine! I have several. Easy to upgrade. 6GB/s SATA, can run 1600MHz RAM, Thunderbolt.. I'm a big fan. Whenever I have a Photoshop job, this is what I use in combination with (calibrated) Dell Ultrasharp 2412. And those jobs bring food to the table. And I run SL on it

 

[AphoticD]

As others have shared, The 2011 mini is a great little Mac.

I use the i5 2.3Ghz model with 8GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD as my main daily driver running macOS High Sierra. This is connected to my network of Macs over gigabit ethernet and operates as a Synergy server to allow keyboard/mouse/clipboard sharing with my other desktop Macs meaning I can control my iMacs, Mac Pro and other minis from this one machine.

I have no reference point with Apple Silicon to deem this one slow, so in terms of speed, the 2011 mini suits my needs - it seems zippy enough to me. And graphics support drives a HiDPI WQHD display smoothly as expected (something my earlier minis struggled with).

I bought this unit specifically last year to fill this purpose as the performance and price fit the bill perfectly- I paid a total of AU$133 (approx $88 USD) delivered with the RAM and SSD upgrade.

 

[macsound1]

Practically speaking, yah. I don’t, offhand, know whether Apple set up Content Caching to run when the system is idle, but my guess is yes — at the very least, with a set time to a) have a list established locally with all known iDevices on the local network, and b) check for updates for all those devices and download them. If it’s not a set time, then it probably grabs updates when the system is idling.



iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS are what I meant when I wrote “iAppliances”. That is: Apple devices which are not intended by Apple to be modular at all in any sense, by design (and by cyptographic force).

In the above screen grabs (from my system using High Sierra), there is also a checkbox for “sharing internet connection and cached content with iOS devices connected via USB” (such as when recharging). More recent versions of macOS, such as Monterey or Ventura, may have additional features to account for wireless connections between a Content Caching device (i.e., a local sever, such as a Mac mini) and those devices, especially as a lot of users these days pref to use wireless charging for convenience sake. (I say “may” because I personally am not using those iterations of macOS.)

True, you don't need a dedicated machine, but you do need storage and for it to be online most of the time.
My 2012 mac mini has 2 internal drives, SSD for boot and apps, spinning HD for cache.
If you cache updates and iCloud content, that could be 100s of GB. Also since macOS Server died, you can't see what it's actually keeping, so it might hold onto older updates if it sees older devices on the network.

It's truly a great feature though. iOS updates always seem too slow if you're not doing them before bed. Downloading them locally saves atleast 5-10 minutes every time.

 

[Algus]

I use a 2012 as a home server. It runs my Plex, local file sharing, and has all my network attached storage. It's also still plugged into a thunderbolt display which sits next to my main desktop and more or less acts as my second screen.

Surprisingly effective still. Someone can be watching a movie off the Plex in the other room and I can still have the computer do things without slowdown. Although I did put an SSD and max out the RAM in my unit which I am sure helps. But for only having an old dual-core i5 CPU, it is remarkably efficient at multi-tasking.

File serving doesn't take very much hardware, so it can be a great use for these old computers.

 

[pullman]

Apologies for resurfacing this thread. I'm contemplating installing OCLP and Monterey on a mid-2011 Mini, but I'm wondering about the macOS 11+ issues listed on this Dortania page.

It's the 2,3GHz i5 version with 8GB RAM, an SSD and an HDD. Since it's not a dual GPU system I don't believe the stability issue listed is relevant. But what about the ones listed under General Issues – does anyone know if they will affect how Monterey runs on such a Mini?

Thanks very much in advance
Philip