Apple Announces New Space Gray Mac mini With 4-Core or 6-Core Intel Processor and Up to 64GB RAM, Starting at $799

Spectrum said:
I agree...the thing is, I'm not sure most users will benefit (that much) from the move from SATA3 to NVMe. Whereas the move from HDD to SATA SSD is huge!

In my mind, the best cost-effective solution would be a Fusion drive consisting of 128GB of NVMe + regular SATA SSD storage. More costly than HDD, yes, but performance would be excellent for all except the extreme tasks (large file writes, 4K video etc) where pure NVMe is needed.
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Let's agree to disagree...I say that because there is a segment of users on this forum that advocate exactly what you are proposing. Now, I am not saying you are wrong in your thinking. I have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro with a Crucial MX300 1TB and it works great (when I use it). I can definitely feel the lag though, reminds me of my old 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. That certain pause that macOS takes that NVMe flash just does not seem to have.

Here is where I disagree...I think we both can agree that Apple would charge EXACTLY as much as they charge right now for your Fusion (NVME/SSD) solution as they do for their insanely fast NVMe drives, and honestly, if they took your route, I would pitch a duck fit. DUCK FIT! So would a lot of other users...I would even say that some of us would prefer you stop bringing it up lest Apple hear you and implement it! Beetlejuice!!!

I absolutely do not want a compromise solution like that. I have one Fusion Drive in my life (3TB iMac), that will not get a second chance at life when it dies. I will replace it with a genuine Apple SSUBX or Polaris SSD and put a 2.5" SSD in place of the 3.5" for storage, Logic Libraries, etc. I still use spinning drives for cold storage and Time Machine, but I am done with them, and I really do not want my OS running on SATA SSDs or an SSD Fusion ever again. No offense meant...just a personal quirk.

I think it boils down to you looking and finding a workable, cost-effective solution (I see homemade Fusion drives like this on the interwebs every so often, but no real performance data) that would reduce the cost of Apple's computers and BTO options. But, I do not think Apple has ANY interest in your solution, because they have ZERO interest in cost-effectiveness in the year 2018. I do not like it anymore than anyone else, but I have at least come to a certain detente over it when it comes to Apple. Some may say I have surrendered, but the war was lost back in 2012 and I have chosen not to fight on this particular front.

Peace!
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DVD9 said:
Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E500BW) $147.99

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=N72V1WPMAZQSPT6CNYX7
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Then I would humbly suggest you get to building a Hackintosh, because Apple is not changing their prices for you, me, the Pope or anyone else.
 
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StellarVixen said:
For us who want to play games in Windows, Blackmagic is not an option.
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Sonnet Technology eGFZ Breakaway Box 650 and a Sapphire Tech Nitro+ Radeon Vega 64 come up to $849-$899 depending on where you shop and what deals you can hit on New Egg. $400 for the eGFZ and 450 for the Radeon Vega 64. I would highly recommend the Sonnet Tech 650 and hopefully you can use the higher end NVIDIA and AMD cards coming out now and in the next few years.

The BlackMagic is great for those who want minimal intrusion (vertical) and a few extra ports, and if you are leasing it's really great. It really is drop dead simple, but it is a closed box, like the OP said and so if a user is NOT technically inclined or is scared of circuit boards, it's a magical place. The Vega 56 version at $1200 is just way too spendy....maybe not so much for the Vega 64, but for the 56, ugh.
 
Peperino said:
Welcome to the new line of Apple disposable computers!

If your drive fails you can throw your computer in the trash.

Way to go Apple that claims to be environmentally responsible...
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Probably incorrect. Simply use a bootable external USB 3.0, USB-C, or Thunderbolt SSD in order to attempt a data rescue and/or disk repair of the internal SSD. More than likely to regain use of the internal drive. Or worst-case scenario: continue to use the bootable external drive.
Whether the T2 controlled internal drive can still be accessed when the machine is booted from an external (T2 controller bypassed) drive? Needs further research on that question.
 
MrGuder said:
You mean the headphone jack could also double as an audio in jack?
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No, on current Minis you can use a SPDIF cable to output optical audio. I use this on my Mini to pass the audio optically to my gaming PC's sound card and then output it to my speakers. That way I have one giant super machine on my desk (sharing a keyboard/mouse via Synergy) with dual monitors. it's amazing being able to use Mac and Windows at the same time on dual boxes.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
I'm not suggesting that Apple revert to old tech. But smaller and faster shouldn’t cost more. That’s absurd. In any event I’ve had this type of discussion before here. I’m just one of those who believes the world overall is overpriced for the average person (like 99% of us) to live in. Anyways this is not the place for that discussion.
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You have provided no reason other than you have a sense it's too expensive. There is a lot of new technology to be capitalized in the manufacture of SSD. Do you think it's cheaper to make things smaller and faster?
 
palebluedot said:
No, on current Minis you can use a SPDIF cable to output optical audio. I use this on my Mini to pass the audio optically to my gaming PC's sound card and then output it to my speakers. That way I have one giant super machine on my desk (sharing a keyboard/mouse via Synergy) with dual monitors. it's amazing being able to use Mac and Windows at the same time on dual boxes.
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Sorry to let you down. But, I don’t think the engineers at Apple were thinking of this layout when designing their Mac mini.
 
LillDrutten said:
It is not about the data, your data should be found on a backup, it is about wasting a other wise perfectly working computer.
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I'm not talking about the data on the drives. I'm talking about industry data on drive failures. You are trying to claim that spinning hard drives are less prone to failure than SSD's and you are simply wrong.

Yes, if you want to simply hammer a drive with writes 24x7 you can wear out an SSD. But nobody is going to use a Mac Mini for some ridiculous write intensive task that's going to wear out an SSD prematurely.

And when it comes to random premature drive failure, an Intel or Samsung SSD is far more reliable than spinning drives.
 
Zdigital2015 said:
I would highly recommend the Sonnet Tech 650 and hopefully you can use the higher end NVIDIA and AMD cards coming out now and in the next few years.
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I'm hoping for a Sonnet xMac Mini Server with Thunderbolt 3 to enable use of higher-end GPUs and possibly a PCIe audio interface.

I'm still hung up on the price of this product. This abandons the spirit of affordable small entry computer. Not exactly a welcome mat to the fruit stand anymore.
 
Can't wait for speed tests against last mini, MacBook 2018, iMac, and 2013 Mac Pro.
Thank you Apple for keeping legacy ports (HDMI, USB, HP) and giving us upgradeable RAM:D
 
saxofunk said:
I'm hoping for a Sonnet xMac Mini Server with Thunderbolt 3 to enable use of higher-end GPUs and possibly a PCIe audio interface.

I'm still hung up on the price of this product. This abandons the spirit of affordable small entry computer. Not exactly a welcome mat to the fruit stand anymore.
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I think it's unfortunate, but the whole thing has flipped. I think the phone is the welcome mat now.
 
Sabelonada said:
You have provided no reason other than you have a sense it's too expensive. There is a lot of new technology to be capitalized in the manufacture of SSD. Do you think it's cheaper to make things smaller and faster?
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If I go through with a Mac mini I’ll just use a cheaper alternative like an external SSD. May not be as fast as the Internal one but it will work just as well. I can just buy the base model and upgrade the ram and use an external SSD which will be much cheaper.
 
Finally I can say “finally”!

I’ll be buying i7/8GB/1TB with 10 GB Ethernet, as soon as I can have it shipped to an Apple Store for pickup. I think that will future proof me to the nine years I got out of my variously upgraded 2009 iMac. Probably will upgrade the RAM myself at some point, and add an external SSD for file storage.

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. Thanks Apple!
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
If I go through with a Mac mini I’ll just use a cheaper alternative like an external SSD. May not be as fast as the Internal one but it will work just as well. I can just buy the base model and upgrade the ram and use an external SSD which will be much cheaper.
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RAID 0 external can even be faster than internal.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
If I go through with a Mac mini I’ll just use a cheaper alternative like an external SSD. May not be as fast as the Internal one but it will work just as well. I can just buy the base model and upgrade the ram and use an external SSD which will be much cheaper.
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That's a good idea. Plus, the external storage is not tied to the Mac mini, so you could use it with other computers too.
 
Time to retire my supe'd up 2012 Mac Mini. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, I can shop for cheap SSD and RAM and avoid the Apple tax.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
An SSD is much smaller and has no moving parts. It shouldn’t cost a ton more than traditional HDD. Solid state/flash storage has been around for many years now.
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You have it completely backwards...

NAND Flash is a newer technology (only 40 years) and is still being perfected to bring down the prices. QLD just became viable for production this year. We are essentially in the golden age of the SSD right now and prices are incredible compared to where they were 10 years ago. They will continue to come down, but may never match the cost of the HDD.

Spinning platter hard drives have been around for 60+ years and have gotten cheaper in each succeeding generation of technology. We have reached a floor in pricing and to some extent, capacity.

Bottom line: SSDs will almost always be more expensive on a per Gigabyte basis.
 
Zdigital2015 said:
You have it completely backwards...

NAND Flash is a newer technology (only 40 years) and is still being perfected to bring down the prices. QLD just became viable for production this year. We are essentially in the golden age of the SSD right now and prices are incredible compared to where they were 10 years ago. They will continue to come down, but may never match the cost of the HDD.

Spinning platter hard drives have been around for 60+ years and have gotten cheaper in each succeeding generation of technology. We have reached a floor in pricing and to some extent, capacity.

Bottom line: SSDs will almost always be more expensive on a per Gigabyte basis.
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Doesn’t make it right but thanks for that.
 
This is why i bought the new Mac Mini-
I'm not able to back up my iphone X to my 2011 iMac because I updated to IOS 12. o_O I was planning to replace my iMac anyway but since they didn't update it, I went with the Mac mini:
  • 3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)
  • 8GB 2666MHz DDR4
  • 256GB SSD storage
I will upgrade the Ram myself later, and I'm already using an external display. I think it's a pretty decent deal since any iMac I would have purchased would have likely been $2200 or more (plus 3rd party ram upgrades)
I will also remove the 1TB SSD hd I have in the iMac and use it as external storage for the mac mini. Seems like a pretty substantial update to the mac mini to me. Should last 4 years or more.

I'm still pissed though that they removed the ability to back up my iPhone on older versions of iTunes 12.8.:mad:
 
Anyone know (or know where to find) the minimum os? Some apps are still buggy in Mohave so I can't buy yet if I can't downgrade to at least 10.13.
 
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