Hands-On With the New M2 Pro Mac Mini

[foo2]

Great score but that base Mini isn't gonna handle my app development, VM use, and photo/video editing needs quite as well.

As long as you know your needs, and have proper expectations, $499 is phenomenal for a very decent Mac and a better deal than my base M1 Mini for sure. Enjoy!

Double the cores and more RAM helps for sure.

I think it should be noted that many, many common, everyday tasks still don't, or only barely, use over 1 core. The jump in core performance from M1 -> M2 is useful.

For VMs and other things I've got cheap Intel iron + ESX. What VM tasks do you do using MacOS for the virtualization host?

 

[NeonNights]

Double the cores and more RAM helps for sure.

I think it should be noted that many, many common, everyday tasks still don't, or only barely, use over 1 core. The jump in core performance from M1 -> M2 is useful.

For VMs and other things I've got cheap Intel iron + ESX. What VM tasks do you do using MacOS for the virtualization host?

VirtualBox is my go-to but with ARM host I'm trying qemu/utm emulation. It can do Windows7 but I actually need Windows10 x86-64 and I'm still trying to get that to work so I can retire a couple of old PCs.

I saw a post about running native x86 apps through a Linux VM on the Mac. Sounds intriguing. It may require some extra hoops to jump through but may ultimately be simpler to get up and working. I plan to give that a go this weekend.

I can't shake the desire for 1TB internal storage even though there are fast (and cheaper) external options. I may still order that 32GB M2 Pro and compare both in-house before deciding which Mac to keep. They are both fine machines and I'm looking for more power to supplement my 16GB M1 MBA.

 

[foo2]

VirtualBox is my go-to but with ARM host I'm trying qemu/utm emulation. It can do Windows7 but I actually need Windows10 x86-64 and I'm still trying to get that to work so I can retire a couple of old PCs.

I saw a post about running native x86 apps through a LinuonVM on the Mac. It seemed like some extra hoops to jump through but may ultimately be simpler to get up and working. I plan to give that a go this weekend.

I can't shake the desire for 1TB internal storage even though there are fast (and cheaper) external options. I may still order that 32GB M2 Pro and compare both in-house before deciding which Mac to keep. They are both fine machines and I'm looking for more power to supplement my 16GB M1 MBA.

Is there a reason to run the ARM (of the host, at least; I see you want to emulate rather than virtualize) version rather than simply running ESXi (free) and cheap Intel box(es)? What’s the benefit of using the Mac for that?

I keep them around because they run 24x7 jobs doing stuff, and serving. And such mundane things I wouldn’t need my Mac to be tied up for.

 

[NeonNights]

Is there a reason to run the ARM (of the host, at least; I see you want to emulate rather than virtualize) version rather than simply running ESXi (free) and cheap Intel box(es)? What’s the benefit of using the Mac for that?

I keep them around because they run 24x7 jobs doing stuff, and serving. And such mundane things I wouldn’t need my Mac to be tied up for.

The PCs are leftover relics from our business. I don't need them on very often. I would repurpose them for surveillance cameras but they're also inefficient and I already have a couple of Synology NASes for that. I would rather give the PCs to some nephews and nieces to tinker with and declutter my space.

As for ESXi, I haven't tried that yet. The software I want to run is only for x86 and I want to see what the performance will be like in emulation. I know it's gonna be a big hit but still need to see how bad it is and whether it's acceptable or not for my needs. Part of it is curiosity and experimentation. If it proves easier to keep a PC around then so be it.

 

[PhilBoogie]

That is really bizarre you're only getting a score of 230.

Just got my base Mac Studio a couple of days ago. I don't remember which version of MacOS was loaded from factory but it originally scored in the 270s on Speedometer 2.0. After updating to Ventura 13.2 I'm seeing 377.

View attachment 2152616

359
3382MB/s write
8/256 MacMini M1 $699 / € 799 (€ incl. VAT)

 

[NeonNights]

359
3382MB/s write
8/256 MacMini M1 $699 / € 799 (€ incl. VAT)

My base M1 Mini gets 355. These are peppy machines at a great price. The older base M1s definitely have the storage speed advantage over the new (but cheaper) base M2 Mini.

 

[rtjstevens]

Apologies for going off-piste here...but I have a question (or two)

I have a late 2015 iMac with a 2 tb fusion drive. So far I only use about 780gb with some iCloud storage. It has a bootcamp partition.

If I buy a M2 macmini pro with the 500gb drive would 'migration assistant' and/or bootcamp be intelligent enough to shift the extra 280gb onto iCloud (doubtful I think) OR if I had an external SSD connected to the macmini would it shift the excess 280gb onto the SSD?(More likely perhaps?)

I realise the bootcamp partition wouldn't copy on either scenario.

Many thanks.

 

[Dsswitchmarc]

Anyone know if the new mac mini m2 pro can be downgraded fro Ventura to Montery? I have apps not yes compatible with Ventura.

 

[NeonNights]

@foo2, finally got Windows 10 x86-64 emulation working on my M1 MacBook Air with UTM. Performance is not as bad as I feared. I gave it 8GB RAM but feels like I'm working with 2GB and a mechanical harddrive. I will install the business app I need to see if it's practical to ditch the physical Windows PC or not.

I now have a good baseline on RAM needs. Memory pressure is acceptable, but that's basically with just UTM running and a handful of Safari tabs. Add in photo/video editing, app development, and maybe dabbling with some Docker containers, I should probably outfit an M2 Pro Mini with 32GB RAM...at least that's my rationale/excuse to splurge on a beefier config than my MBA.

 

[foo2]

@foo2, finally got Windows 10 x86-64 emulation working on my M1 MacBook Air with UTM. Performance is not as bad as I feared. I gave it 8GB RAM but feels like I'm working with 2GB and a mechanical disk drive. I will install the business app I need to see if it's practical to ditch the physical Windows PC or not.

I now have a good baseline on RAM needs. Memory pressure is acceptable, but that's basically with just UTM running and a handful of Safari tabs. Add in photo/video editing, app development, and maybe dabbling with some Docker containers, I should probably outfit an M2 Pro Mini with 32GB RAM...at least that's my rationale/excuse to splurge on a beefier config than my MBA.

View attachment 2155237

There’s zero memory pressure, so it’s not as if your RAM starved; it’s just slow. You’re emulating another architecture. I would try Windows for ARM next, and see how you like that; I suspect for the common things MS has as ARM (like the core OS, Edge, and Office) it would be a whole lot faster.

It might be vastly simpler to just get a spare old PC and use that via Remote Desktop or similar. Certainly far faster.

 

[foo2]

Anyone know if the new mac mini m2 pro can be downgraded fro Ventura to Montery? I have apps not yes compatible with Ventura.

Not likely to ever work, and certainly unsupportable.

 

[foo2]

Apologies for going off-piste here...but I have a question (or two)

I have a late 2015 iMac with a 2 tb fusion drive. So far I only use about 780gb with some iCloud storage. It has a bootcamp partition.

If I buy a M2 macmini pro with the 500gb drive would 'migration assistant' and/or bootcamp be intelligent enough to shift the extra 280gb onto iCloud (doubtful I think) OR if I had an external SSD connected to the macmini would it shift the excess 280gb onto the SSD?(More likely perhaps?)

I realise the bootcamp partition wouldn't copy on either scenario.

Many thanks.

You have a limited ability to select things when you run Migration Assistant. You could, for example, only select your Documents folder, amongst others.

Bootcamp won’t help you at all. You need to see what’s actually used by the MacOS volume.

There’s no shifting. You’ll need to move some files around. Fortunately, relocating some things (Photos) is easy.

 

[NeonNights]

There’s zero memory pressure, so it’s not as if your RAM starved; it’s just slow. You’re emulating another architecture. I would try Windows for ARM next, and see how you like that; I suspect for the common things MS has as ARM (like the core OS, Edge, and Office) it would be a whole lot faster.

It might be vastly simpler to just get a spare old PC and use that via Remote Desktop or similar. Certainly far faster.

The app I use isn't ARM compatible but I hear ya, it will be simpler to keep the spare Windows box and switch to it as I do now. This is partly just a proof of concept.

I don't need to access the particular Windows app very often, maybe just a few times a year for my wife. If I emulate it on the Mac(book) then I can remote into it anytime from anywhere (as I do now) and don't feel bad leaving the Air/Mini on all the time. As for the Windows box, it is seldom used so I don't leave it on all the time. If I can get wake-on LAN to work on the Windows PC then I can probably let it sleep and trigger it to wake for remote access. None of this is mission critical, just curious what's possible or not...probably looking for excuses to buy a Mini that I don't really need, lol.

 

[PhilBoogie]

MM M1 8/256
W11 ARM on UTM with 4GB on external SSD over USB-C
In the words of Steve...'Goes through it like butter'.

 

[NeonNights]

@foo2, I stand corrected, the program I need actually does run on Windows 11 ARM64! According to system requirements it isn't supported -- which can have a broad definition. Anyways, I was testing the Win11 ARM VM and remembered your suggestion and figured, what the heck, let's try it. Lo and behold it installed fine. Well, initially I had issues installing .NET 3.5 on the Insider Preview VHDX of Win11 but was successful with the UUP/ISO route.

Performance is impressive, considering it is 4GB RAM and emulating x86, and is on par with my old Intel Skylake rig with 16GB and an SSD. I was going to stick to a separate WOL PC but can now retire that box. Only bummer is the VM consumes about 100GB (20GB Win11 + 60GB of application data). With the VM and typical apps open memory pressure is still in the green (but close to yellow), and no swap, but I haven't done any real work yet. When I started some light activity on the 16GB M1 MBA I had close to 4GB swap but memory pressure still stayed green. Instead of a desktop I'm now planning to replace my MBA with a MBP 14 with 32GB/1TB.

 

[gcortesi]

🤔 What kind of chip do you suppose they use in the 256 GB model?

I also believe they are using two 256GB chips in the 512GB M2 Mac Mini Pro and four 256GB chips in the 1TB M2 Mac Mini Pro.

 

[hajime]

Influencers who received 1TB or larger SSD Mac Mini M2 Pro review models are reporting the normal 6,000+ MB/s SSD disk speed.

Do they have 16GB or 32GB RAM? Which M2 Pro CPU?

 

[Mardiel8128]

Mac mini is a great computer. Disappointing to see lower SSD speeds.

but if you get 512gb or 1tb ssd it will resolve the problem?

 

[Mardiel8128]

I also believe they are using two 256GB chips in the 512GB M2 Mac Mini Pro and four 256GB chips in the 1TB M2 Mac Mini Pro.

it is a bad thing?
I'm new in using mac computers

 

[Tagbert]

it is a bad thing?
I'm new in using mac computers

You’ll get a lot of arguments both ways on that question.

Basically, for the 256GB systems, Apple uses 1 chip and it can write at that speed at one speed. If you spec the 512GB SSD, you get two chips and they work together so that the SSD speed is double the speed of the lower capacity SSD. Going to 1TB uses 4 chips and the speed is again twice as fast (For the M2 Pro chips. The M2 maxes out at the speed of two SSD chips).

Whether that matters to you depends on what kind of work you are doing. If you are doing a lot of reading and writing of large files, it might be noticeable. If you are working with smaller files you might not notice any difference. There are a lot of factors that go into how fast a computer feels and SSD speed is just one factor. In all cases these SSD are so much faster than the old hard drives and even faster than older SSDs that we are not talking about slow in an absolute sense. It’s mainly about relative speed differences. The more you pay for storage the faster it is.

 

[foo2]

You’ll get a lot of arguments both ways on that question.

Basically, for the 256GB systems, Apple uses 1 chip and it can write at that speed at one speed. If you spec the 512GB SSD, you get two chips and they work together so that the SSD speed is double the speed of the lower capacity SSD. Going to 1TB uses 4 chips and the speed is again twice as fast (For the M2 Pro chips. The M2 maxes out at the speed of two SSD chips).

Whether that matters to you depends on what kind of work you are doing. If you are doing a lot of reading and writing of large files, it might be noticeable. If you are working with smaller files you might not notice any difference. There are a lot of factors that go into how fast a computer feels and SSD speed is just one factor. In all cases these SSD are so much faster than the old hard drives and even faster than older SSDs that we are not talking about slow in an absolute sense. It’s mainly about relative speed differences. The more you pay for storage the faster it is.

But all that depends on how you define "speed" is it "maximum speed in a theoretical benchmark you'll see once in every 1,000 uses" or is it "Random IO is most important because that's the vast majority of time spent", in which case it's a touch faster than the previous generation, and all the systems are pretty close to one another speedwise.

Oh, but BlackMagic benchmark only shows one of those. Hmm...

Oh, but the YouTubers touting "It's slower!" derive money from this endless clickbait. Hmm...