Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is 256gb enough for the 2018/20 mac mini?
- Thread starter pers0n
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Macs are very good about booting from external drives. Unlike Windows, booting from pretty much any source is a supported feature. - Thunderbolt has faster theoretical speeds but it depends on the individual SSD if it can achieve that. I have a USB 3 external SSD that runs at pretty much the exact same speed as my 2014 15" MacBook Pro; Though the SSDs in newer Macs are faster than that. But I'd say it's still plenty fast for the majority of needs over the USB 3 connection.
But as for storage needs; It's not the CC and Office programs that will eat up your storage. It's the files you work on. So only you can tell how much you'll need. To illustrate this point;
I sometimes edit video with Final Cut Pro X. Final Cut only takes up a bit over 3.5GB.
One of the documentaries I made with it; With render files optimised media, original footage all in, was over 200GB. And some people have larger libraries than that too.
Though that is by far the biggest library I've ever worked with.
My MacBook Pro is 256GB internally. For my usage that is sometimes a bit crammed, but I make do with external and NAS.
I sometimes have to move things around before downloading a new beta release of Xcode or something, but it's all variable based on needs. I want something bigger next time to not have to offload as often, but I am probably quite heavily in the power user camp
My entire web server runs off of 16GB. That's all the programs, the operating system and the web pages.
Needs vary. The programs are rarely what take up the most space
But as for storage needs; It's not the CC and Office programs that will eat up your storage. It's the files you work on. So only you can tell how much you'll need. To illustrate this point;
I sometimes edit video with Final Cut Pro X. Final Cut only takes up a bit over 3.5GB.
One of the documentaries I made with it; With render files optimised media, original footage all in, was over 200GB. And some people have larger libraries than that too.
Though that is by far the biggest library I've ever worked with.
My MacBook Pro is 256GB internally. For my usage that is sometimes a bit crammed, but I make do with external and NAS.
I sometimes have to move things around before downloading a new beta release of Xcode or something, but it's all variable based on needs. I want something bigger next time to not have to offload as often, but I am probably quite heavily in the power user camp
My entire web server runs off of 16GB. That's all the programs, the operating system and the web pages.
Needs vary. The programs are rarely what take up the most space
Booting from a spinning disk will be as slow as the HDD is regardless of whether it's USB or Thunderbolt or whatever. In that case the connection isn't the limiting factor anymore. Hell, FireWire 400 could take 3, maybe even 4 HDDs in striped RAID and not really bottleneck it.
Booting from an HDD will generally be slow with modern day macOS no matter what. You can still use it for bulk storage for things that don't need speed so much. My NAS is spinning disks and it works fine for storing and watching movies (though you couldn't edit from it or watch uncompressed or super high bitrate or anything)
I would recommend an SSD for running a system off of. I personally use a SanDisk Extreme Portable 510 with 480GB. Quite happy with it and SanDisk have absolutely incredible customer service. This is actually my second unit. The first one mysteriously died after warranty had run out. - It was weird cause it seemed like it was the controller that died, not the NAND. But even though it was after warranty had run out, SanDisk replaced it for free with a new unit
External SSD Or NVME drives work really great. I have a 256GB and purchased a cheap external 512GB SSD and speeds are very good and I’m very happy with it. If you want better perfomance NVME USB 3.1 will more than double that speed. If you want more than that, Thunderbolt 3 drives will double that speed.
External storage is super cheap these days, you can grab 12TB external drivers for under $200 on sale. I don't see the value in upgrading the Mac mini's storage at Apple's inflated prices, especially since its not going mobile like a MacBook Pro/Air
Depends on what you want to do with it. For general purpose use, I believe 256GB is just fine so long as you don't have a ton of 4K video or super high resolution pictures. If that's the case then I think you'd better invest in more iCloud storage or get a separate drive.
I've found 256 a bit cramped. A 1TB internal spinner is too slow for anything but Music, books and a little personalized recovery drive. I used to use an ext 500GB ext SSD, but even that got cramped with some of the stuff I move around. Switched to a 1 TB ext SDD, and an 8 TB spinner for back up. (Other backups are on my collection of old 1 TB spinners. The setup works pretty well. It's speedy unless I have to move the backups to an old Firewire or USB machine.
Your 256 internal SSD might work best as an emergency boot system, unless your Music an book collection are small enough. Videos of course, need a big drive of their own. A spinner is usually fast enough, but can get annoying if you've got $$$ to spare.
Your 256 internal SSD might work best as an emergency boot system, unless your Music an book collection are small enough. Videos of course, need a big drive of their own. A spinner is usually fast enough, but can get annoying if you've got $$$ to spare.
In today's date and time don't buy spinning drives. They aren't very reliable in long term unless you keep them stable and fixed forever like inside a desktop.
Paying Apple for extra storage is also not worth it.
You can buy an thunderbolt 3 (ssd) flash storage - samsung x5 - if you want to run softwares from it. Though the internal 256 gb would be enough for those.
To just store and access your media, Samsung t5 is brilliant which is usb 3.1 gen 2 (10gbps). Literally credit card sized and very sturdy.
Paying Apple for extra storage is also not worth it.
You can buy an thunderbolt 3 (ssd) flash storage - samsung x5 - if you want to run softwares from it. Though the internal 256 gb would be enough for those.
To just store and access your media, Samsung t5 is brilliant which is usb 3.1 gen 2 (10gbps). Literally credit card sized and very sturdy.
I mean it’s ok but no where near internal SSD. You are better off booting internal then either keeping your files on external or just move your home directory to the external.
256gb will do well enough for an internal boot drive.
HOWEVER... you may want to keep your "large libraries" of stuff (such as movies, music, and pics) on an external drive.
This will ensure that you have a good-sized block of "free space" on the SSD (which the OS needs to operate).
As a side note, there are very few EXTERNAL SSD's that are going to match the speed of the 2018 Mini internal SSD. The Samsung X5 can, but it's pricey and I imagine it will run on the very warm side (hot?) as a boot drive.
HOWEVER... you may want to keep your "large libraries" of stuff (such as movies, music, and pics) on an external drive.
This will ensure that you have a good-sized block of "free space" on the SSD (which the OS needs to operate).
As a side note, there are very few EXTERNAL SSD's that are going to match the speed of the 2018 Mini internal SSD. The Samsung X5 can, but it's pricey and I imagine it will run on the very warm side (hot?) as a boot drive.
The decision about the internal storage in the 2018 mini is not limited to mere size. The bigger internal drives also give a significant speed increase: For example, the 1TB drive measures in with ~2.600 Mb/s read/write in the Blackmagic Disk speed tool. I believe I’ve read something about half that speed with the 256GB drive.
The inexpensive external drives are often also limited to half that speed or even less.
Now, whether one would notice the speed difference, is a completely different question. If you plan to buy an external drive anyway and the cost would get close, I’d probably still opt for the internal solution instead.
Also, while 256GB may be sufficient today, it may not be anymore in the not-too-distant future. Apple is known for putting the absolute minimum in terms of storage into the entry models. And they only recently upped the entry size from 128 to 256GB. Go figure ...
The inexpensive external drives are often also limited to half that speed or even less.
Now, whether one would notice the speed difference, is a completely different question. If you plan to buy an external drive anyway and the cost would get close, I’d probably still opt for the internal solution instead.
Also, while 256GB may be sufficient today, it may not be anymore in the not-too-distant future. Apple is known for putting the absolute minimum in terms of storage into the entry models. And they only recently upped the entry size from 128 to 256GB. Go figure ...
In theory a larger drive could well prove longer living as well, since it means few rewrites. Given that the mini has a soldered hard drive this is something that should be considered.