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Just bought this Mac Mini for a DAW

jave808

jave808

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 13, 2023
41
0
Newcastle NSW Australia
Hi
Just bought this Mac Mini last night - https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/155500531096
for AUD$95 plus postage.
Need to check if it indeed does have 16GB RAM ( good) or 2GB as in the description (not so good).
Bought a 1TB Toshiba SSHD to go with a 256GB SSD on which I will install Mac OSX High Sierra. Ok there?
Also, will need HDMI cable to connect to my monitor.
and a Figure 8 power cable. I'm assuming transformer is built into the Mac Mini?
 
Yep, make sure you're installing a 2.5 inch hard drive, and High Sierra is (the last) supported macOS on this model. Also yep the Mac mini has a built-in power supply.
 
Would strongly recommend SSD rather than a HDD as speed difference will be night and day. I doubt that gen Mini would go to 16GB - Apple site suggesting 8 is max however some people have gone beyond Apples maximums in various machines - most notable was the 24" iMac that in some cases took a 2 and 4 GB DIMM to gibe 6 even though max was 4GB. If indeed the 4GB is max then the SSD will help massively with swap and will make the machine usable. At work we have an old iMac that wee need for a printer - this has an SSD and runs surprisingly well. HTH
 
weckart said:
It will support 16GB of RAM. OWC confirmed as such a while back.
Click to expand...
Yes, I confirmed with the seller that it indeed has 16GB.

This will be my 3rd Mac. Currently I have a Ryzen 9 5900X PC running Linux Mint.
I first experimented with Apple Macs back on 2006/07 with an old Power PC Mac G4, running an early version of OSX. Then bought a small Mac laptop. Didn't do much with them but was a good experience. :D
 
I have the same model (SSD and 16GB). It is still a very capable Office machine that can easily drive a 2560x1440p display (and supports a 2nd one via HDMI up to 1920x1600).
Don‘t get confused by the screenshot of macOS Mojave 10.14.6 in the eBay listing - as @DarkPremiumCho mentioned, High Sierra 10.13.6 is the last officially supported version.
The seller probably used a patcher like dosdude1‘s Mojave patcher.
I reverted back to the official High Sierra as the patched HD3000 GPU driver gave me lots of artifacts.
Apparently the OpenCoreLegacyPatcher created some additional patches/workarounds for said issue.
I strongly recommend a 3rd party browser like Firefox that still receives security updates.
Btw, there are upgrade kits that let you install a 2nd 2,5" HDD/SSD into the Mac mini.
 
Last edited:
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arw said:
I have the same model (SSD and 16GB). It is still a very capable Office machine that can easily drive a 2560x1440p display (and supports a 2nd one via HDMI up to 1920x1600).
Don‘t get confused by the screenshot of macOS Mojave 10.14.6 in the eBay listing - as @DarkPremiumCho mentioned, High Sierra 10.13.6 is the last officially supported version.
The seller probably used a patcher like dosdude1‘s Mojave patcher.
I reverted back to the official High Sierra as the patched HD3000 GPU driver gave me lots of artifacts.
Apparently the OpenCoreLegacyPatcher created some additional patches/workarounds for said issue.
I strongly recommend a 3rd party browser like Firefox that still receives security updates.
Btw, there are upgrade kits that let you install a 2nd 2,5" HDD/SSD into the Mac mini.
Click to expand...
Consider looking at OpenCore to install later OS - My MacPro 5,1 runs BigSur beautifully, and until I sold it my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 15 ran Monterey with surprising performance and usability (even with "only" 8GB RAM)
 
MacDownunder said:
Consider looking at OpenCore to install later OS - My MacPro 5,1 runs BigSur beautifully, and until I sold it my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 15 ran Monterey with surprising performance and usability (even with "only" 8GB RAM)
Click to expand...
What is OpenCore?? I'll be happy eith High Sierra, but if I can run BigSur, I'll try that.
 
Incredible bang-per-buck for $95 Australian.

I think you should ignore OCLP since you're not really in the swing of things as a MacOS power-user at the moment. Not worth the hassle of having to work out whether any subsequent software issues you experience are due to the patcher or not.
 
frou said:
Incredible bang-per-buck for $95 Australian.

I think you should ignore OCLP since you're not really in the swing of things as a MacOS power-user at the moment. Not worth the hassle of having to work out whether any subsequent software issues you experience are due to the patcher or not.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm just going to go with High Sierra for now. From what I read on that site it seems it's more for Hackintosh PCs? I could be wrong though.

Also, can I just use a standard USB keyboard and mouse with my Mac? Or do I need Apple gear?
 
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