Is my 2014 Mini's SSD slow?

[Giuanniello]

Got an used Mini a few months ago, happy with it since I picked a 16GB i7 3Ghz and, on my surprise, it came with a 1TB drive, it is not blazing fast, actually sometimes it looks quite slow compared to my other Macs like the Air or the old MBPro, upon checking in System Info it says "Solid state unit" which doesn't really say much to me and I am too lazy to tear it apart to check but I would if necessary since this has become the main computer I use to handle my photography archive as well as other stuff which I can't demand to the Air or old and almost gone MBPro.

How do I check which kind of unit is that?

Grazie
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Uhm, stupid of me not thinking about it, so far it seems like it's an SSD but doesn't fell that snappy as expected, what are your thoughts?

 

[chscag]

It's definitely an Apple 1TB SSD. As far as it being slow, there may be reasons for its slowness: How full is the SSD? How many apps are starting up when booting? Do some detective work....

 

[Giuanniello]

The disk has over 400 free GB and there is nothing in the startup besides a menu meters and backup application, it just sometimes feels like a spinning drive... the 16GB RAM should help it be quick, I understand this being a dual core machine and not a quad one like my old MBPro late 2011 which would still be a beast if not for sudden reboots (I guess matter of either CPUs getting too hot or GPU which is a well known Achille's tendon on those machines) but sometimes this feels quite slow, wondering if there is some kind of test I can perform to find out where is the bottleneck .

Here attached CPU benchmarks, in multicore it is slower than an i5 cpu based one, quite weird...

 

[Fishrrman]

Download the free Blackmagic Speed Test, run it, and post your read/write speed results here.

 

[Giuanniello]

There you go

Grazie

 

[Boyd01]

Your disk speed is pretty much what I would expect for a 2014 Mini, perhaps the read speed is a bit low. Here is what I get with an original Apple 128gb SSD on my 2014 2.8ghz i5/8gb Mini (I split this SSD from the 1TB Fusion drive). These numbers are also about the same for the original Apple 512gb SSD in my 2013 MacBook Air.

 

[Giuanniello]

Ok, I see, strange by the way how bad it compares to an i5 Mini CPU wise

 

[Boyd01]

Sorry, I'm confused. What are you comparing?

 

[Giuanniello]

Both in single and dual core the benchmarks are lower than a MacMini from the same year but with an I5 CPU, dunno if it is a fault of the benchmark or if I don-t know how to perform it...

 

[Boyd01]

Are you saying that your 2014 i7 Mini is slower than a 2014 i5 Mini? According to everymac, your 3.0ghz i7 2014 Mini dual-core geekbench rating should be 7055

Mac mini "Core i7" 3.0 (Late 2014) Specs (Late 2014, BTO/CTO, Macmini7,1, A1347, 2840): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Mac mini "Core i7" 3.0 (Late 2014). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

My 2.8ghz i5 2014 Mini should be 6792.

Mac mini "Core i5" 2.8 (Late 2014) Specs (Late 2014, MGEQ2LL/A, Macmini7,1, A1347, 2840): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Mac mini "Core i5" 2.8 (Late 2014). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

That is only about a 4% improvement for the i7 Mini, not a very good value considering the original price difference (and I got mine for $500 new when B&H Photo had their "blowout" sale).

But my 2.6ghz quad-core i7 2012 Mini blows both of these away with a geekbench rating of 11386.

Mac mini "Core i7" 2.6 (Late 2012/Server) Specs (Late 2012, BTO/CTO, Macmini6,2, A1347, 2570): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Mac mini "Core i7" 2.6 (Late 2012/Server). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

4 or 5 years ago when I was looking for a new Mini, I was considering the same 2014 Mini that you have. But my primary use at the time was video, so I ended up buying the used 2012 quad instead, which was also cheaper. Have never regretted that choice, it makes a big difference on long renders.

 

[Fishrrman]

The speeds in post 6 above are fine.

Something else is "slowing you down".

 

[Giuanniello]

Uhm, matter of finding that "something else"

There is nothing running in background, could start it up in safe mode and try and run the benchmark again but dunno if it would work in safe mode, will try anyways.

I know the 2012 has a quad core CPU but too limited of a graphics card which is why I went for the 2014 and I got a good bargain with a 1TB and 16GB RAM, I mostly handle my photo archive there, pictures on external RAID drives and only the database and previews on the local disk, still it bothers to see the spinning ball too often...

 

[CheesePuff]

What specifically seems slow about it? Did you do a clean install of macOS? Anything using up CPU or RAM that you can see in Activity Viewer?

 

[Giuanniello]

Nope, nothing loading on startup and yes, I did a clean install, slow especially with some disk operations as said above and, overall, the benchmark gives higher scores to an i5 from same year than mine which is an i7 with 16GB :-|

 

[CheesePuff]

It's very strange that the Geekbench scores are lower then the i5 which makes me suspect something is amiss..

 

[Giuanniello]

Something like?