Apple Now Selling Refurbished 2023 M2 Mac Mini Models

[enb141]

Yes there is some magic going on. But who cares as long as it works.

I also saw a video from a guy making comparison with a base model (8/256) and a real base model (16/512) and basically the problem with 8/256 is that you are limited to one app at the same time, swap to a different app takes a looooong time.

 

[ignatius345]

Just barely related, but I wish I could buy this (or any) mini and use it with my 2009 27" iMac in target display mode.

There are apparently hardware hacks out there to enable this. I don't think they're cheap or easy. Maybe worth it (imo) if you have a 5K iMac? Still, yeah, it's a huge drag Apple didn't enable this out of the box.

 

[ignatius345]

I also saw a video from a guy making comparison with a base model (8/256) and a real base model (16/512) and basically the problem with 8/256 is that you are limited to one app at the same time, swap to a different app takes a looooong time.

Sounds like BS to me. I run way more stuff than I should be on my M1 Air with 8GB of RAM and it's fine. I'm talking all your standard email, web browser type stuff, plus Adobe apps like Illustrator and InDesign, even simultaneously.

Yeah, ideally I'd have double the RAM and I'm sure it would expedite things, but I'm not seeing any serious delays when switching between apps.

As it turns out I have a M1 iMac which I had the foresight to order with 16 GB of RAM. Is it faster? Yes. But it's not some massive difference.

 

[dwaltwhit]

There are apparently hardware hacks out there to enable this. I don't think they're cheap or easy. Maybe worth it (imo) if you have a 5K iMac? Still, yeah, it's a huge drag Apple didn't enable this out of the box.

Definitely not a 5k imac! Its an ‘09, but the monitor is still great. I am a school teacher so its mostly internet/office/email stuff— nothing needing a high end display. Just getting to the point where there is a growing list of apps that aren’t supported and websites that don’t render quite right.

 

[Juicy Box]

There are apparently hardware hacks out there to enable this. I don't think they're cheap or easy. Maybe worth it (imo) if you have a 5K iMac? Still, yeah, it's a huge drag Apple didn't enable this out of the box.

The 5K iMacs are a different story, but the Late 2009 27” iMac (like the one from the post you quoted) can be used as a display with M1 Macs, as well with any device that has DP out.

 

[rferreira.dba]

I would be surprised. Especially since the video RAM comes out of that 8GB as well.

I read that Apple SOC can actually operate with considerably less memory than PCs… Haven’t confirmed it myself though.
I do have an M1-Pro MacBook Pro with 32GB SOC mem though (a work issued laptop), and it’s a fantastic machine, but yeah, it’s 32GB…

 

[enb141]

Sounds like BS to me. I run way more stuff than I should be on my M1 Air with 8GB of RAM and it's fine. I'm talking all your standard email, web browser type stuff, plus Adobe apps like Illustrator and InDesign, even simultaneously.

Yeah, ideally I'd have double the RAM and I'm sure it would expedite things, but I'm not seeing any serious delays when switching between apps.

As it turns out I have a M1 iMac which I had the foresight to order with 16 GB of RAM. Is it faster? Yes. But it's not some massive difference.

Just because you feel it fast doesn't means it is, and just because you think 8 GB RAM is enough doesn't means it is.

My previous PC had 32 GB, I thought I had more than enough, guess what, my new PC has 64 GB, and the taskbar shows that I'm using between 32/36 GB, my old PC showed that I was only using 24 GB.

So my point is, to you your mac feels fast but for some else a mac / pc with those specs will feel sloooow.

 

[rferreira.dba]

You are not Apple's target audience. Apple targets teenagers listening to low resolution audio and playing utube videos.

Gotta disagree there. I’m a Database Administrator, and my demands are quite high… I own both an iMac Pro (2017) with 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM and a MacBook Pro M-1 Pro SOC 32GB (work issued). I also run Virtual Machines both on the iMac Pro as well as on the MacBook Pro… Apple IMO targets a wide cross-section of users… Power users such as myself included.

 

[Tagbert]

It's not the capacity that's the issue (you would be better off financially buying it with minimal internal storage and adding external drives), it's the speed. Apple cheaped out on the 256 model, which uses a single chip instead of two, which means SSD access is 50% slower than ones with larger drives. I expect that's why a lot of these machines ended up in the refurb pile in the first place.

Is it reasonable to assume that someone who buys a base model 8/256GB model is going to push a Mini enough to notice any performance hit and to care about the difference? For most day to day uses unless you are reading and writing large amounts of data, you would have a hard time seeing the difference. These are still faster that SSDs from just a few years ago. To someone upgrading from an Intel Mini, for instance, the M2 Mini would be amazingly more performant even with the slower SSD throughput.

Those people who sweat the specs and value absolute performance are not going to get a base model anyway.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Now they are smarter, they soldered the ram and solid state so they can rob charge you whatever they want.

Perhaps you should study up on Apple's Unified Memory Architecture so you stop with the wrong-headed thinking. Apple's UMA bakes the RAM on the chip for huge performance gains, not so they can sell RAM.

 

[enb141]

Perhaps you should study up on Apple's Unified Memory Architecture so you stop with the wrong-headed thinking. Apple's UMA bakes the RAM on the chip for huge performance gains, not so they can sell RAM.

Perhaps you should study up on SSD on Apple Macs being soldered using normal chips instead of bringing a NVMe port.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Perhaps you should study up on SSD on Apple Macs being soldered using normal chips instead of bringing a NVMe port.

Whatever does my comment about you failing to grasp RAM/UMA issues have to do with SSDs?

 

[enb141]

Whatever does my comment about you failing to grasp RAM/UMA issues have to do with SSDs?

Yes because their policy of non upgradability is because they want people to pay premium for upgrades, also non upgradability is no good for the planet and/or customers.

 

[makitango]

Perhaps you should study up on Apple's Unified Memory Architecture so you stop with the wrong-headed thinking. Apple's UMA bakes the RAM on the chip for huge performance gains, not so they can sell RAM.

Nothing about soldering something does anything with performance.

 

[ignatius345]

Just because you feel it fast doesn't means it is, and just because you think 8 GB RAM is enough doesn't means it is.

My previous PC had 32 GB, I thought I had more than enough, guess what, my new PC has 64 GB, and the taskbar shows that I'm using between 32/36 GB, my old PC showed that I was only using 24 GB.

Yeah. I think that's the difference right there. I'm too busy working to stop and look at the specs and see how much RAM or swap my Mac is using. I just go by whether it slows me down when I'm trying to get some actual work done. And it generally does not. I'm surprised by that as well, but there it is. Believe me, if my base model Air was constantly choking on normal tasks I'd be shouting it from the rooftops to warn people to buy more RAM. But again, it's not.

Also, what are you even doing on here? You just came to argue with everyone about how bad Macs are and how they need more RAM but it's too expensive and Apple is robbing everyone? Move on. If you're happy with your setup, that's great for you, but trying to convince people their Macs aren't actually working for them because you have more RAM in your PC or whatever -- that's just irrelevant to the conversation.

 

[deevey]

Nothing about soldering something does anything with performance.

He did not say soldered. He said on the chip - shorter data path, lower latency and higher bandwidth.

8GB of unified memory can get more data in and out in a much shorter period of time than the RAM in traditional PC or Mac with the same amount.

Homework: https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-unified-memory/

Yes because their policy of non upgradability is because they want people to pay premium for upgrades, also non upgradability is no good for the planet and/or customers.

Theres also the argument to be made that not allowing upgrades actually lowers waste by forcing customers into thinking ahead. What are you going to do with the old SSD when it's no longer big enough? ... You "might" put it in a case and use it as an external drive. But why not just use an external drive in the first place?

Many "upgrades" spares will end up as E-waste. For example I have 12 sticks of ram sitting in a box beside me that were previous "upgrades" and will be chucked one of these days as they are not worth selling and no longer compatible or worth installing (2/4gb DDR3 SoDIMM modules). Never mind all the GPU's and HDD parts left over from previous upgrades.

 

[makitango]

Yeah. I think that's the difference right there. I'm too busy working to stop and look at the specs and see how much RAM or swap my Mac is using. I just go by whether it slows me down when I'm trying to get some actual work done. And it generally does not. I'm surprised by that as well, but there it is. Believe me, if my base model Air was constantly choking on normal tasks I'd be shouting it from the rooftops to warn people to buy more RAM. But again, it's not.

Also, what are you even doing on here? You just came to argue with everyone about how bad Macs are and how they need more RAM but it's too expensive and Apple is robbing everyone? Move on. If you're happy with your setup, that's great for you, but trying to convince people their Macs aren't actually working for them because you have more RAM in your PC or whatever -- that's just irrelevant to the conversation.

I think his point was that the fact that a swap file has to be created to put things on the table that don’t fit into our hands is a sign that a limit for the RAM has been reached. It needs the help of the slower hard drive to continue functioning.
It will cost performance but of course, depending on which machine and which task, it will be more or less visible. Writing to the disk will generate different temperature developments and draw more energy (and will be slower) than writing to RAM, and thus will be heavier on your battery.

 

[makitango]

He did not say soldered. He said on the chip - shorter data path, lower latency and higher bandwidth.

8GB of unified memory can get more data in and out in a much shorter period of time than the RAM in traditional PC or Mac with the same amount.

Homework: https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-unified-memory/

Theres also the argument to be made that not allowing upgrades actually lowers waste by forcing customers into thinking ahead. What are you going to do with the old SSD when it's no longer big enough? ... You "might" put it in a case and use it as an external drive. But why not just use an external drive in the first place?

Many "upgrades" spares will end up as E-waste. For example I have 12 sticks of ram sitting in a box beside me that were previous "upgrades" and will be chucked one of these days as they are not worth selling and no longer compatible or worth installing (2/4gb DDR3 SoDIMM modules). Never mind all the GPU's and HDD parts left over from previous upgrades.

He was reaponding to someone bringing up soldered memory that are not in any unified framework.

 

[ignatius345]

I think his point was that the fact that a swap file has to be created to put things on the table that don’t fit into our hands is a sign that a limit for the RAM has been reached. It needs the help of the slower hard drive to continue functioning.
It will cost performance but of course, depending on which machine and which task, it will be more or less visible. Writing to the disk will generate different temperature developments and draw more energy (and will be slower) than writing to RAM, and thus will be heavier on your battery.

I'm aware of how swap space works. But the "slower hard drives" we used to use have been replaced with very fast NVMe SSDs and the performance hit is much less severe than it used to be. And anyway, this particular poster was trying to make an argument that a base model Mac with 8GB of RAM is limited to "one app at a time" which is just pure, uncut horse piss and demonstrably false.

 

[makitango]

I'm aware of how swap space works. But the "slower hard drives" we used to use have been replaced with very fast NVMe SSDs and the performance hit is much less severe than it used to be. And anyway, this particular poster was trying to make an argument that a base model Mac with 8GB of RAM is limited to "one app at a time" which is just pure, uncut horse piss and demonstrably false.

You do know that the latest Mac mini‘s SSDs have been caught for having slower-speed Sandisk drives which, at lower capacities, are even exponentially worse because of the lack of multiple controller I/O.
Therefore, in this particular model, it is being felt substantially.

 

[enb141]

Yeah. I think that's the difference right there. I'm too busy working to stop and look at the specs and see how much RAM or swap my Mac is using. I just go by whether it slows me down when I'm trying to get some actual work done. And it generally does not. I'm surprised by that as well, but there it is. Believe me, if my base model Air was constantly choking on normal tasks I'd be shouting it from the rooftops to warn people to buy more RAM. But again, it's not.

Also, what are you even doing on here? You just came to argue with everyone about how bad Macs are and how they need more RAM but it's too expensive and Apple is robbing everyone? Move on. If you're happy with your setup, that's great for you, but trying to convince people their Macs aren't actually working for them because you have more RAM in your PC or whatever -- that's just irrelevant to the conversation.

Wrong, what I'm saying is that nobody is gonna convince me that 8/256 even 16/512 on a Mac is better than my custom 64/(800GB + 1 TB + 8 TB).

What I'm arguing is that jumping from 8/256 to 16/512, the price difference is a joke.

 

[enb141]

He did not say soldered. He said on the chip - shorter data path, lower latency and higher bandwidth.

8GB of unified memory can get more data in and out in a much shorter period of time than the RAM in traditional PC or Mac with the same amount.

Homework: https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-unified-memory/

Theres also the argument to be made that not allowing upgrades actually lowers waste by forcing customers into thinking ahead. What are you going to do with the old SSD when it's no longer big enough? ... You "might" put it in a case and use it as an external drive. But why not just use an external drive in the first place?

Many "upgrades" spares will end up as E-waste. For example I have 12 sticks of ram sitting in a box beside me that were previous "upgrades" and will be chucked one of these days as they are not worth selling and no longer compatible or worth installing (2/4gb DDR3 SoDIMM modules). Never mind all the GPU's and HDD parts left over from previous upgrades.

Yes e waste is a fact, but there are ways to reduce it, on macs for example (iMacs) if the screen fails and you can't find somebody or somewhere to fix it, then the whole computer is an e waste.

 

[enb141]

I'm aware of how swap space works. But the "slower hard drives" we used to use have been replaced with very fast NVMe SSDs and the performance hit is much less severe than it used to be. And anyway, this particular poster was trying to make an argument that a base model Mac with 8GB of RAM is limited to "one app at a time" which is just pure, uncut horse piss and demonstrably false.

Macs doesn't have the fastest SSD on the marker either, and the 256 GB is even sloooower.

 

[ignatius345]

Wrong, what I'm saying is that nobody is gonna convince me that 8/256 even 16/512 on a Mac is better than my custom 64/(800GB + 1 TB + 8 TB).

Nobody said it was. But your statment "the problem with 8/256 is that you are limited to one app at the same time, swap to a different app takes a looooong time" is just entirely false. Once again, I know this because I'm using one.

What I'm arguing is that jumping from 8/256 to 16/512, the price difference is a joke.

Did you only just now realize this? I've been buying Macs for 20 years now, and Apple has always overcharged for RAM and storage. The base configs are there for a reason, and if you need the upgrades you're gonna pay for them. If you really can't stomach that, the reality of it at this point in time is, you probably don't want a Mac.

 

[enb141]

Nobody said it was. But your statment "the problem with 8/256 is that you are limited to one app at the same time, swap to a different app takes a looooong time" is demonstrably wrong.