Best OS for Mac Mini late 2014 ?

[Donhugo]

Hi all,
I have bought a Mac Mini with 8gb ram and 240gb SSD.
This one is currently running on Mac OS Big Sur, but I think it's running pretty slow on a 60hz 2560x1440 screen.
Maybe installing an older OS could go faster?
I'm thinking of High Sierra or Mojave.
Thanks for your advice

PS: Maybe lowering the resolution to 1920x1080 would be better?

 

[iAFC]

Yeah I don't think downgrading would bring you any performance benefits. Big Sur is already very efficient.

 

[James Gryphon]

If it's the 1.4ghz model, other posters in the past have said that it's just slow, period.

It's hard to find detailed information about this, but search results seem to indicate that there are complaints about Big Sur's performance. If there's something to that, then it's reasonable to guess that 'downgrading' could make things better. Older versions would also be advantageous if you need 32-bit support.

As far as the resolution goes, I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make, but it's easy enough to try it out. If it helps, fine; if not, no big loss.

 

[Isamilis]

I dont have mac mini, but I have MBP 2014. Currently it still running smooth using Mojave for last 2 years. Faster than High Sierra. My experience with Big Sur is sluggish and very slow just to open the apps (it took about 8-12 seconds).

 

[Donhugo]

If it's the 1.4ghz model, other posters in the past have said that it's just slow, period.

It's hard to find detailed information about this, but search results seem to indicate that there are complaints about Big Sur's performance. If there's something to that, then it's reasonable to guess that 'downgrading' could make things better. Older versions would also be advantageous if you need 32-bit support.

As far as the resolution goes, I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make, but it's easy enough to try it out. If it helps, fine; if not, no big loss.

Sorry, is the I5 2,6ghz dual core.
Iknow that's no longer a war machine, but still fine for standard applications.

I dont have mac mini, but I have MBP 2014. Currently it still running smooth using Mojave for last 2 years. Faster than High Sierra. My experience with Big Sur is sluggish and very slow just to open the apps (it took about 8-12 seconds).

It is also my opinion about Big Sur on this machine, loads are very slow

 

[Donhugo]

As I read in this forum, I'm thinking to upgrade by installing a nvme ssd with a special adapter.
It will not be a big change, but is possible to notice some improvements in software loadings

 

[MacCheetah3]

As I read in this forum, I'm thinking to upgrade by installing a nvme ssd with a special adapter.
It will not be a big change, but is possible to notice some improvements in software loadings

is the currently installed SSD connected via SATA or PCIe? It does make a difference, although, SATA-III can provide up to 500MB/s. So, not slow. You can run Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to see what the current I/O performance is.

Maybe lowering the resolution to 1920x1080 would be better?

I would suggest this or QHD at 30 Hz first as QHD at 60 Hz might be pushing up against the limits of the Iris 5100 GPU.

Mac mini (Late 2014) - Technical Specifications

Video Support​

• Support for up to two displays at 2560 by 1600 pixels, both at millions of colors
• Thunderbolt digital video output
  • Native Mini DisplayPort output
  • DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (sold separately)
  • VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (sold separately)
  • Dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately)
• HDMI video output
  • Support for 1080p resolution at up to 60Hz
  • Support for 3840-by-2160 resolution at 30Hz
  • Support for 4096-by-2160 resolution at 24Hz
• DVI output using HDMI to DVI Adapter (sold separately)

I recall a lot of comments that even though the 2014 Mac mini technically supported UHD it was in reality unusable.

If you do decide to downgrade, I would recommend Mojave. It's still fairly recent but has half of the requirements, e.g., Big Sur and Catalina require at least 4 GB of RAM, Mojave needs a minimum of 2 GB. (As a reminder, the IGPU can use up to 1.5 GB of that 8 GB system memory.)

 

[Boyd01]

Running Mojave on my 2014 2.8ghz i5/8gb Mini. It's a server with my own media for two Apple TV's and other devices, so I need iTunes and can't upgrade farther. Everything works well. It originally had a 1tb fusion drive but I split it (with a simple terminal command) and use the original 128gb internal SSD as a boot drive - it's almost empty. All my media is on a 4tb USB SSD.

I have Catalina on my 2012 quad-core Mini and it also runs fine, but that machine is just a file and time machine server so the use is not very demanding.

 

[Donhugo]

I would suggest this or QHD at 30 Hz first as QHD at 60 Hz might be pushing up against the limits of the Iris 5100 GPU.

My monitor only supports 75hz or 60hz in QHD mode. It does not offer me any other alternatives in the Mac control panel. It's a HP Omen 32".

 

[Fishrrman]

I'd wipe it and put Mojave onto it.

 

[dogslobber]

I dont have mac mini, but I have MBP 2014. Currently it still running smooth using Mojave for last 2 years. Faster than High Sierra. My experience with Big Sur is sluggish and very slow just to open the apps (it took about 8-12 seconds).

Yeah Mojave is a super-nice OS that I've been using recently in a VM again. It also supports Dashboard, something Big Sur fails to do.

 

[MacCheetah3]

My monitor only supports 75hz or 60hz in QHD mode. It does not offer me any other alternatives in the Mac control panel. It's a HP Omen 32".

Well, in that case, go with the original idea and try FHD to see if that makes a significant difference.

 

[Donhugo]

Well, I have finally installed a 500gb pcie nvme ssd disk with its adapter. This disc goes to 715mbs instead of 400mbs on a ssd
I have downgraded to Mojave and it really shows a difference. Now the system and applications starts faster and the Mac mini is working much better.
I keept the QHD resolution because FHD is too grainy on my 32" monitor.

 

[JosephAW]

Mojave has been running really slow on my MBP Mid-2012 with HDD with the new APFS format. Not ready to put in a new SSD yet so I needed a work around. Things like iTunes backups take hours with APFS even after rebooting my phone and computer.

So, I copied everything from the hard drive to another external HDD with HFS+ format and it is running so much faster.

Since there will be very few updates left for Mojave I'll continue to run it with HFS+ and if theres an update I'll copy back to the APFS update and sync back to HFS+. I did notice I'm able to update apps from the App Store so it's just system updates I can't apply that I'm told.
If I'm missing anything about this procedure please let me know.

 

[opeter]

Sorry, is the I5 2,6ghz dual core.
Iknow that's no longer a war machine, but still fine for standard applications.

I have the same 2.6 GHz Core i5-4278U 2.6 and the speed is... well, not that good.

I tried some operations (gaussian blur on a larger image etc.) in GIMP on this and on my fathers Lenovo notebook, that has a Core i5-6300U and the Lenovo is snappier.

Mind you: both CPUs are only dual cores (with Hyperthread support), so I know, that I wont see any wonders.

Both have 8 GB RAM and SATA SSD.
The Mac mini has 10.14 Mojave installed, the Lenovo notebook has Windows 10 as primary OS.

I am using the Mac mini as a "scanning workstation" for together with an older A/3 USB scanner.