Big Sur on Mac mini 2014 (8Gb RAM, 2.6Ghz processor)

Ansath

Cancelled
Has anyone tried Big Sur on a 2014 Mac mini? How's the experience? I'm running it on my MacBook Pro (2017) and loving it, but just not sure whether to dive in on the Mini. :)
 
What OS are you currently running on the 2014 Mac mini? Because of APFS, if you computer has a spinner hard drive, it will probably feel sluggish. APFS is geared toward using SSD storage.
 
Again, though, what type of internal storage do you have? If it's a traditional HDD, it's going to be sluggish. An SSD is much, much better.
 
macOS a Big Sur and Catalina are about the same performance wise. If you can handle a spinning disk on Catalina, you should be able to endure it on Big Sur. I know I personally couldn’t though.
 
macOS a Big Sur and Catalina are about the same performance wise. If you can handle a spinning disk on Catalina, you should be able to endure it on Big Sur. I know I personally couldn’t though.


Thanks, this was kinda the response I was after, real world experience with it, rather than people just telling me spinning disks are slower, as I know that :)

I got my Mac mini 2nd had the other week on the cheap, as I needed something that can be on longer without hitting the battery, now I'm working from home more. I will eventually trade up the Mac mini 2014 for a newer one, with an SSD, but that's not until bonus payday in February lol :)
 
Thanks, this was kinda the response I was after, real world experience with it, rather than people just telling me spinning disks are slower, as I know that :)

I got my Mac mini 2nd had the other week on the cheap, as I needed something that can be on longer without hitting the battery, now I'm working from home more. I will eventually trade up the Mac mini 2014 for a newer one, with an SSD, but that's not until bonus payday in February lol :)

You can actually upgrade the HDD to an SSD relatively easily if you ever wanted to as well.
 
Has anyone tried Big Sur on a 2014 Mac mini? How's the experience? I'm running it on my MacBook Pro (2017) and loving it, but just not sure whether to dive in on the Mini. :)
Ive been running the beta since day 1 on my mini. The only difference is mines running an SSD in place of the spinner. its been running fine all summer long. it was never a powerhouse but its fine for web browsing and day to day tasks. I would get an SSD no matter what you do as that will speed it up immensely from what you are used to.
 
Ive been running the beta since day 1 on my mini. The only difference is mines running an SSD in place of the spinner. its been running fine all summer long. it was never a powerhouse but its fine for web browsing and day to day tasks. I would get an SSD no matter what you do as that will speed it up immensely from what you are used to.
Thanks for the report. I suspect I'll see a similar performance on my late 2018 Mac Mini. And yes, an SSD is just about a must these days. It's also advisable to use SSDs for external devices, especially if one use either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make bootable backups/clones.

One difference for me, though, is that I will not move to Big Sur until (most likely) V11.3 or V11.4 arrives, as that will be the time when Tech Tool Pro will have a compatible version available. I do plan on testing V11.1 of Big Sur, however, on one of my external SSDs.
 
Has anyone tried Big Sur on a 2014 Mac mini? How's the experience? I'm running it on my MacBook Pro (2017) and loving it, but just not sure whether to dive in on the Mini. :)
Yes , runs BigSur and Safari 14 without any issues ( A additional Apple pcie SSD was added ) and the original drive remains as back up ! Well worth the update
 
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