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digispeedz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2019
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Hi there, i am running mojave on my mac mini 2012, its booting is very slow and performance also not good, so i wanr to know which best performance os for mac mini, I don't need any fancy stuff just performance
 
which 2012 model do you have?
I'm on a QC i7 and it feels great on Mojave; I only upgraded about two weeks ago. I am on an ssd with 8gb ram.

I would definitely suggest an ssd. depending on which model you have, you may be able to put two drives in.

also, if you have a fusion drive, I would start thinking about getting a replacement drive, anyhow. mine came with a fusion and the OS was doing weird things. support from apple care eventually determine it was the fusion drive going. I imagine original drives from 2012 are starting to be a risk, particularly a fusion drive which relies on two drives.
 
which 2012 model do you have?
I'm on a QC i7 and it feels great on Mojave; I only upgraded about two weeks ago. I am on an ssd with 8gb ram.

I would definitely suggest an ssd. depending on which model you have, you may be able to put two drives in.

also, if you have a fusion drive, I would start thinking about getting a replacement drive, anyhow. mine came with a fusion and the OS was doing weird things. support from apple care eventually determine it was the fusion drive going. I imagine original drives from 2012 are starting to be a risk, particularly a fusion drive which relies on two drives.
i7 hdd, what your ssd storage space?
 
Hi there, i am running mojave on my mac mini 2012, its booting is very slow and performance also not good, so i wanr to know which best performance os for mac mini, I don't need any fancy stuff just performance

Performance wise, it is probably the OS the Mac was launched with. For the 2012, it is Mountain Lion.

But it's not as simple as "the older the OS, the faster it runs" though. Some just sucks. Yosemite is slower than El Capitan, for example.

I'm using Mavericks because it is the sweet spot for me, performance and compatibility wise.

SSD and more RAM will sure help run newer OSes faster. They also make older OSes, like Mavericks, even faster.
 
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i7 hdd, what your ssd storage space?

I've got:
Mac mini Server (Late 2012)
Processor: 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

As far as storage goes, I have two 2TB SSDs inside. One is my primary, the second is for back ups with carbon copy cloner. Probably overkill using an SSD for back ups, so I probably wouldn't recommend that. I expect, eventually, my photo libraries will grow large enough so that second drive is no longer for back up purposes.

I will say that I notice a decent lag after I've left the machine for a while. it's set not to go to sleep, but from the moment I hit the mouse until I get the logon panel its about 10-15 second. Otherwise, it seems to still be a completely acceptable machine for everything. Enough to have kept me from buying a 2018 mini. It's definitely not slow or lags.
 
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ssd is not what i looking for as replacement its its not easy for me, i just searching for best os in performance.

already have 16gb ram, so please suggest same
[doublepost=1561660291][/doublepost]
Performance wise, it is probably the OS the Mac was launched with. For the 2012, it is Mountain Lion.

But it's not as simple as "the older the OS, the faster it runs" though. Some just sucks. Yosemite is slower than El Capitan, for example.

I'm using Mavericks because it is the sweet spot for me, performance and compatibility wise.

SSD and more RAM will sure help run newer OSes faster. They also make older OSes, like Mavericks, even faster.
you are using with your mac mini?
 
OK, I'm using 10.9.5. I'm sure it is faster than anything newer.

I've not used 10.8.5 long enough to be sure but others seem to say it's the fastest for a 2012 mini.
 
OK, I'm using 10.9.5. I'm sure it is faster than anything newer.

I've not used 10.8.5 long enough to be sure but others seem to say it's the fastest for a 2012 mini.

so what you recommend?

OK, I'm using 10.9.5. I'm sure it is faster than anything newer.

I've not used 10.8.5 long enough to be sure but others seem to say it's the fastest for a 2012 mini.
 
If you don't want to touch the internals of the machine, would you consider adding a small external ssd drive to one of your USB ports? There are a couple reasons why that might be a better option:
-You've got to be prepared to go through the steps of downgrading an OS. I do not believe it's not as simple as just installing as new OS like you were 'upgrading'.
-An external 128gb drive (or less) is relatively cheap and might even make your Mac faster than if you successfully downgraded. Plus, it avoids some of the headaches/risks of downgrading.
 
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If you don't want to touch the internals of the machine, would you consider adding a small external ssd drive to one of your USB ports? There are a couple reasons why that might be a better option:
-You've got to be prepared to go through the steps of downgrading an OS. I do not believe it's not as simple as just installing as new OS like you were 'upgrading'.
-An external 128gb drive (or less) is relatively cheap and might even make your Mac faster than if you successfully downgraded. Plus, it avoids some of the headaches/risks of downgrading.


after searching in google i found 2 way, one is use an enclosure and add inter ssd in it another is buy a external ssd eg Samsung t5, so which is good?
 
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I am running Sierra on my 2012 2.6ghz quad Mini and booting it from a 1tb external USB Samsung T3 SSD. It feels very fast, I use it mostly for video and audio editing. My mini has an original Apple internal 256gb and I still have Mountain Lion on that, so I can use about $6000 of legacy software.

I just upgraded a 2014 Mini to Mojave and it seems to run well, however file sharing seems slow and it also takes much longer to connect to screen sharing. Have not taken the time to troubleshoot this yet, but makes me wonder whether I should go back to something older.
 
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OP:

You already have enough RAM.

The platter-based hard drive is "the problem".
You need something FASTER -- an SSD.

You DON'T have to open the Mini (and risk the possibility of breaking something inside) to do this.

Just do this:
1. Buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD (even the 1tb externals are relatively cheap now).
2. Plug it in
3. Erase it with Disk Utility to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format
4. Download CarbonCopyCloner from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
5. Use CCC to clone the contents of the internal drive to the new SSD
6. Go to the startup disk pref pane and set the SSD to become the boot drive
7. Reboot.

Done.

If you do this, you will come back to this thread with a BIG smile on your face, and tell us "I never believed I could get this kind of performance from it!"
 
OP, how much hard drive space have you filled up?

If its not much, you could get a 240gb for only $30 (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ssd+240gb&crid=3JKAO4ZI159LQ&sprefix=ssd,aps,142&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_6_3)

If you need more storage, it looks like a 500gb ssd is roughly $50. I think most people here might recommend at least 500gb, but I guess it depends on how much you're currently using and how much you're looking to spend on this project.

You'd also need the cable for about $10 (https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...ssd+cable+usb&qid=1561737768&s=gateway&sr=8-3)

That's an extremely quick solution, combined with all Fishrrman's nicely laid out steps.
 
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will
OP:

You already have enough RAM.

The platter-based hard drive is "the problem".
You need something FASTER -- an SSD.

You DON'T have to open the Mini (and risk the possibility of breaking something inside) to do this.

Just do this:
1. Buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD (even the 1tb externals are relatively cheap now).
2. Plug it in
3. Erase it with Disk Utility to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format
4. Download CarbonCopyCloner from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
5. Use CCC to clone the contents of the internal drive to the new SSD
6. Go to the startup disk pref pane and set the SSD to become the boot drive
7. Reboot.

Done.

If you do this, you will come back to this thread with a BIG smile on your face, and tell us "I never believed I could get this kind of performance from it!"
do and update you sure, bought t5 Samsung SSD 500gb
[doublepost=1561742677][/doublepost]
OP, how much hard drive space have you filled up?

If its not much, you could get a 240gb for only $30 (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ssd+240gb&crid=3JKAO4ZI159LQ&sprefix=ssd,aps,142&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_6_3)

If you need more storage, it looks like a 500gb ssd is roughly $50. I think most people here might recommend at least 500gb, but I guess it depends on how much you're currently using and how much you're looking to spend on this project.

You'd also need the cable for about $10 (https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...ssd+cable+usb&qid=1561737768&s=gateway&sr=8-3)

That's an extremely quick solution, combined with all Fishrrman's nicely laid out steps.
450gb+ usage , bought 500gb SSD Of Samsung,, cost me inr 8k, will update status here



i want to know.can.use my thunderbolt slot to connect the ssd for speed transfer
 
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will

do and update you sure, bought t5 Samsung SSD 500gb
[doublepost=1561742677][/doublepost]450gb+ usage , bought 500gb SSD Of Samsung,, cost me inr 8k, will update status here



i want to know.can.use my thunderbolt slot to connect the ssd for speed transfer


if you're currently using over 450gb, I would go with something larger than a 500gb SSD. The SSD will need some extra gb to operate, so 500gb is cutting it very close.

do you have a link to the thunderbolt cable you're looking at? I'm not too familiar with that set up - I think the traditional usb might the solution thats most likely to work/be compatible
 
i dont any have any cable, just thinking if possible,

actually i have all my psd files in one folder which is 180gb only so will move alll files to my internal 1tb hdd , will only use ssd for software installation, i also have spare 2 and 4 tb hdd
 
i dont any have any cable, just thinking if possible,

actually i have all my psd files in one folder which is 180gb only so will move alll files to my internal 1tb hdd , will only use ssd for software installation, i also have spare 2 and 4 tb hdd

and just a side question - are you taking a back up or two on a regular basis? would be great to have at least one back up copy before you do anything
 
and just a side question - are you taking a back up or two on a regular basis? would be great to have at least one back up copy before you do anything

already backups my files and some important thing on cloud as well as hdd i want clear installation for better performance
 
Mac mini 2012 Quad-Core i7 2.3 Ghz here with El Capitan + Chrome + Adblock Plus + h264ify for the web. Works great as a compression machine for H.264 (HandBrake) and 7-Zip (LZMA2). El Capitan Finder is wicked fast on Ivy Bridge machines, similar to Snow Leopard on Quad-Core Sandy Bridge machines.
 
I am running Sierra on my 2012 2.6ghz quad Mini and booting it from a 1tb external USB Samsung T3 SSD. It feels very fast, I use it mostly for video and audio editing. My mini has an original Apple internal 256gb and I still have Mountain Lion on that, so I can use about $6000 of legacy software.

I just upgraded a 2014 Mini to Mojave and it seems to run well, however file sharing seems slow and it also takes much longer to connect to screen sharing. Have not taken the time to troubleshoot this yet, but makes me wonder whether I should go back to something older.
I can't remember what mountain lion was like, but pretty much everything runs on Mavericks, including the last version of FCStudio (also FCPX I think which I don't use). After that, various components start to fail, but with Mavericks you get a later version of Safari, etc.
 
Mojave is running just fine for me on a 2012 dual core 2.5GHz i5 Mini. Self-installed 16GB RAM and an SSD makes all the difference.
 
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