Considering a Mac Mini, Have Questions

[J.Y.Park]

Any thought on the Beelink dock? That seems to be the newest one people were excited over.

I’m currently using the Mate Mini-B dock together with my Mac mini M4, and I have to say the transfer speeds are noticeably faster than using the Mac mini alone. Even during heavy file transfers, the temperature stays low — it only feels slightly warm to the touch — and the noise level is minimal. Overall, my experience with it has been really good!

 

[Tempest2084]

I’m currently using the Mate Mini-B dock together with my Mac mini M4, and I have to say the transfer speeds are noticeably faster than using the Mac mini alone. Even during heavy file transfers, the temperature stays low — it only feels slightly warm to the touch — and the noise level is minimal. Overall, my experience with it has been really good!

That's good to hear. I know a lot of people were excited about it but the reports of excess heat generation put me off. I'm sure the Satechi drive is more robust, but until they come up with a faster model the Beelink is still the one I'm considering.

How well does the little connector device work? The fact that it's not a cable worries me as it looks kind of easy to bump out of alignment if you're doing something like trying to hit the power button.

 

[McScooby]

I'd rather not have my limited desk space cluttered with devices if I can help it. But if docks with SSDs i them have issues then I might have to reconsider.

I see Satechi has a new 40Gbps NVMe enclosure but it doesn't have any ports on it. Perhaps they'll make a new all in one dock in the future?

Ditch the PC, Run Windows 11 on Mac w/ free VMware Fusion Pro license

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Ditch the PC, Run Windows 11 on Mac w/ free VMware Fusion Pro license

I've long used and prefer VMware Fusion myself over Parallels and VirtualBox, but UTM has gotten good enough for me to move on. It can even fetch the Arm-based Windows installer. Super easy.

 

[J.Y.Park]

That's good to hear. I know a lot of people were excited about it but the reports of excess heat generation put me off. I'm sure the Satechi drive is more robust, but until they come up with a faster model the Beelink is still the one I'm considering.

How well does the little connector device work? The fact that it's not a cable worries me as it looks kind of easy to bump out of alignment if you're doing something like trying to hit the power button.

My Mac mini usually only gets rebooted about once a week. I keep the Mate Mini placed under the Mac mini, and whenever I restart the system, I need to reconnect it. So I might not be the best person to judge how well it holds alignment during frequent power-button presses. Sorry I can’t give you a more helpful answer!

 

[ignatius345]

I already moved my iTunes folder and a lot of my saved games to another partition.

This is the real strength of a desktop -- it's painless to add more storage. I have about 1.5 TB of media (Photos, Music and TV databases) on an SSD attached to my M4 iMac, and it works great. Just be sure that your backups also include the external drive so you don't lose everything on it if it dies.