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Apple Announces Redesigned Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Chips, Two Front USB-C Ports, and More
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So if say the 4TB TB5 OWC Envoy Ultra gets release soon before end of year and its claimed data rate of around 6,000 MB/s is achieved I would say - YES for sure if the Envoy is directly connected to the M4 Pro mini's TB5 port. If the Envoy Ultra is connected to a TB Hub and the Hub is connected to the mini's TB5 port testing would be needed to provide an answer.So, regarding the Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac Mini M4 Pro: If Satechi / OWC releases an expansion hub that can be connected via TB5 / NVMe-SSD, is it viable to boot directly to a larger, fast external SSD - instead of Apple's onboard SSD? Would I notice a difference in speed? Gaming? Rebuke from the community?
I've ordered the M4 Pro mini and have pre-ordered the 4TB TB5 OWC Envoy Ultra so will be testing booting from the Envoy when I get the Envoy delivered.
What will help any external boot device is for the mini to have a reasonable physical memory configured so that the kernel buffer cache can hold lots of frequently used snippets of the macOS and active App data to speed things up to compete with macOS being resident on the internal SSD. In my case I have ordered my mini with 64 GB UM not just to help with booting from external device but because I need lots of memory for my workflow associated with my CFD App.
Funny. I just noticed, that it's cheaper (by $1) to buy two base M4 minis than to upgrade the base model to 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD 😂.
Shhh, careful, the white knights might accuse you of heresy or something... lol
I noted that from day one.
Thats pure greed. Such a combination should actually be cheaper than 2 systems.
Thats how much Apple care about their customers.
I wrote in jest a couple of days ago, that soon upgrades will be more expensive than buying a whole Mac. What I did not realize is that it's already true. My mind is blown 🤯. Haha.
And base Macs are quite often discounted heavily, while the upgrades usually much less. This is ridiculous.
good idea but I think booting from internal drive should still be faster. I believe Apple's internal SSD is PCIE 5?So, regarding the Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac Mini M4 Pro: If Satechi / OWC releases an expansion hub that can be connected via TB5 / NVMe-SSD, is it viable to boot directly to a larger, fast external SSD - instead of Apple's onboard SSD? Would I notice a difference in speed? Gaming? Rebuke from the community?
also take a look at the Thunderbolt 5 video which explains the bandwidth allocation, if you plan to use both SSD and external monitors from a thunderbolt hub to the new M4 Pro mac mini, you will share the 80G bandwidth (or 120G for display and 40G for SSD)
Thank you for posting this. It has a very interesting bit at roughly around the 3:20 mark or so, where the presenter states maybe the most underrated part of this revision is that older Thunderbolt 3 and 4 cables can still be used all at the new 80 gbit/second speeds because Thunderbolt 5's update doubles the sampling rate of the data at either end of the Thunderbolt connection, which also doubles the speed.
It's my understanding from prior reading that a lot goes into a good Thunderbolt cable, they're not all created equal, and the good ones can be quite pricy. If the TB 3 and 4 cables work fine permitting TB5 speeds, that's good news for people who already have one or more.
With that in mind, I went to OWC's Cables page. For their Thunderbolt 5 cables (yeah, they specify TB5):
1.) Cable length 0.3 meter: $19.99.
2.) Cable length 0.8 meter: $27.99.
3.) Cable length 1.0 meter: $39.99.
Their Thunderbolt 4 cables are a little different:
1.) Cable length 0.7 meter: $18.99.
2.) Cable length 1.0 meter: $27.99.
3.) Cable length 2.0 meter: $57.99.
So TB4 cables from OW seem to trend a little cheaper than their TB5 cables. Not a big price difference, but there. So going forward, the desirability (and added value) of official TB5-rated cables may be in question.
from caldigit's comment on video:
A little addendum on using Thunderbolt 4 cables with Thunderbolt 5 connections: Thunderbolt 4 cables working at Thunderbolt 5 speeds depends on support from the host computer. Thunderbolt 4 and 5 cables are almost identical; in fact, they are physically constructed to the same standards. The major difference is in how the cable digitally identifies itself. This identification largely determines power delivery capabilities (Thunderbolt 5 mandates 240W Power Delivery support, so the cable firmware has to announce this), but part of this identification is the also the cable reporting its own speed. As we mentioned in the video, the updates to Thunderbolt speed are not in the cable, but instead the density of data being transmitted and received by the computer and device, via the sampling rate being doubled. This is all handled outside of the cable itself, which just transmits the data its given.
based on this caldigit video, thunderbolt 5 host and device can be connected with thunderbolt 4 cable, if the system decides to support 80G, then they can reach thunderbolt 5 cable's performance. If not, 40G is still can be reached.
I'm coming from a Mac Pro with a bunch of USB-A peripherals.. can anybody please recommend good quality adaptors in the UK for USB-A for the USB-C ports ?
According to several forum members, USB-A peripherals are a thing of the past... (I have several) My preference is for adapters with a short cable (such as Apple's) as it makes it easier to mate and unmate the USB-A connector.
take a look at caldigit element hub which is a thunderbolt 4 hub packing with 4x USB-A and 4x Thunderbolt ports.
Jeez .. you're totally right, I was just looking at this
What a screw job Apple is doing to its customers on the component upgrades
It costs $200 to add 256gb but to add another 512gb it's also $200, which makes perfect sense since 128gb ssd modules probably cost them the same if not more than 256gb. It's pure greed that they don't just give us 512gb from the get go.Funny. I just noticed, that it's cheaper (by $1) to buy two base M4 minis than to upgrade the base model to 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.
.
They could've shown some mercy and charged $100 for 256gb, which would've made more sense from the consumer's pov, but insert Tim Cook laughing
Nothing. I just mentioned my old uni. Apparently they sometimes do spot checks via email, but never happened to me.
Oh boy. Maybe it's time to abandon my wired mouse and keyboard. That makes this gamer uncomfortable. Are there good Mac wireless GAMING keyboards someone can recommend? I'm not yet feeling the love for Apple's Magic Mouse either.
Review: M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis are probably Apple’s best Mac minis ever
First Mac mini redesign in almost 15 years highlights how good the insides are.
arstechnica.com
Yes, the cost is probably a few dollars in either case.
The entry level model is a ‘loss leader’ (perhaps only 20% profit?) to lure you in. But is always sufficiently stymied that professionals / people with money can’t simply buy that one rather than an upgraded model.
The current mini represents a rare bargain, in that Apple were forced to raise the minimum RAM due to AI requirements, and being a desktop machine, external storage isn’t really an issue. 1000MB/s USB-C drives are cheap, or step up to TB for around 3000MB/s, which needs a ~£100 enclosure + NVMe SSD (a cheap / ‘slow’ one would be sufficient).
Yeah.
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Does the disk have a captive cable? Couldn't you just buy a suitable USB-C cable for it? They're pretty cheap.
As Mode11 mentioned, get a replacement cable. If it is an attached cable, you can get adaptor cables or dongles to plug a USB-A cable into a USB-C socket.
Anker makes some good dongles.
Anker USB C Adapter
And adaptor cables
Anker USB-C to USB 3.1 Adapter
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How’s the performance of a 1000MB/s external drive for everyday tasks?
For example, I have a 120 GB iCloud Photo Library and a 100 GB Apple Music Library.
Can I throw those on an external SSD and have the Mac mini treat them as if they’re native? Will they be slower?
I expect it would be absolutely fine for both. 1000MB/s is still about 2x the speed of a SATA SSD, and faster than the internal storage of e.g. a 2013 Mac Pro. In any case, the main benefit of an SSD is latency rather than bandwidth. The responsiveness comes from how quickly they start providing a file when requested (particularly vs. a HDD, and when working with lots of small files). The headline "1000MB/s" type figures are actually less significant, as these tend to relate to serving multiple large files at once.
That was going to be my follow-up. Does an external have increased latency vs an internal?
Also, what happens in the future when I get a new Mac? Will I be able to just plug the SSD in have my Music/Photos, or will I need to format and redownload everything from the cloud?
Possibly, but doubt it would be noticeable in this scenario.
You'll just be able to plug it in. You'd start Apple Photos whilst holding down Option, then point it to the library on your external drive. You can set the Apple Music library location in the settings (mine's on a NAS).