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Justify M4 Pro Mac mini over M4 Purely for Future Proofing?

Many good logical advices in here.

Depending in how long you keep you Mac (without doing an OS wipe and reinstall) and how much data you need in its internal drive, the 256 gb storage is going to be very limiting.

I went through that with my 2018 MBP, where i couldn’t do a particular kind of work because it only had 512gb of storage.

Granted, it was an emergency and that was the only system that i had at hand, but in such scenario, i see “future proofing “ as something to consider.

Right now, the base M4 mini is great, but the storage gives me pause.

Edit lord, not sure how that original post ended up, but fixed because not even I understood what was there. :)
 
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apocalyarts said:
- Apple is gatekeeping the M4 Pro behind their expensive upgrades. You cant buy the base mini and add the Pro chip. You can only get the M4 Pro when you buy the Mac mini variant that also comes with 24GB Ram and 512 SSD. That's 500 euros more for upgrades I don't need.
Click to expand...

I suspect Apple's thinking is if you need the M4 Pro's power you're likely doing things that will benefit from more memory and storage; and thus make that the base spec and charge for it.

neomorpheus said:
I dont even subscribe feel that depending in how long you keep you Mac and hiw much data you need in it, the 256 gb storage is vey limiting.
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I find storage usage fall into two camps when discussing limits:

1. Those who regularly use very large files and have a bunch of them they need to access periodically; or,
2. Those who have saved everything they ever created, especially photos, on their machine. They have files they have't opened in many years but still keep them on the internal storage rather than backing them up, then saving them on an external drive, and deleting them to free up internal storage space.

I fall in the later camp as I have every project I have done, class I have taught, etc. over a long professional career on my SSD and thus have gone from 256-512-1TB. I also probably could delete many GB of programs I never use; the problem is stuff expands to fill the storage available.

PeteBurgh said:
I feel that often 'future-proofing' is basically just a pretext to spend more money than you need to.
Click to expand...

I agree. They only time "future-proofed" was my last purchase; where the deal was just too good to pass up. I suspect it will be a long time before it becomes necessary to upgrade again.
 
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Hm, that's a reasonable assumption. Having the M4 Pro goes hand in hand with the need for bigger RAM and Storage.

That being said, I need to pay 230 Euros to have 512GB instead of 256GB. The topseller on Amazon > External SSDs is a SanDisk one for 80 Euros (1TB). Why should I go for the expensive internal upgrade when i can just slam an external SSD onto one of my ports?

But at least the entry model of the Mini is superb in terms of price vs value. I can just wait two years and then get an M6 Mini and I am still 300 euros below the price of the current M4 Pro Mini.
 
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Just how easy is it tho to offload to an external drive to decrease the size of the internal? I look at my current iMac and I’ve got a <user>/Library folder of 120GB. My Pictures folder is 100GB. So that’s 220GB right there. That’s without my Documents (that can go on my NAS tbh), Apps etc. Can you offload your entire home directory to an external drive? I have a 2TB NVMe in a TB4 enclosure available.
 
MrGimper said:
Just how easy is it tho to offload to an external drive to decrease the size of the internal? I look at my current iMac and I’ve got a <user>/Library folder of 120GB. My Pictures folder is 100GB. So that’s 220GB right there. That’s without my Documents (that can go on my NAS tbh), Apps etc. Can you offload your entire home directory to an external drive? I have a 2TB NVMe in a TB4 enclosure available.
Click to expand...

In my experience, pretty easy, but there are pros and cons:

Pros:
  • You free up space on your internal drive
  • External drives are less expensive than buying more storage upfront
  • External drives can be swapped for a bigger one as needed
  • If your machine dies unexpectedly all your files are immediately available for a new one
Cons:
  • You must always have it attached
  • Depending on the files, r/w times will impact how fast something loads, which may be an issue for some users
Personally, I offload rarely used files to an external drive as well as backup to several. That way, I have what I need as well as save space. I could be better at it but it has worked for me. Now that I have 1TB I am less carefull about storage.
 
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The M4 is basically faster than a M1 Pro. So will a M7/M8 be faster than the M4 Pro in ~4 years? Probably. So if you think it is more than good enough now and for the next 3/4 years, then buy the lower model - put the difference in some Apple Stock and then buy a new base in 3/4 years!
 
The future-proofing part of the M4 vs M4-Pro that I can see paying for is fringe benefits of Thunderbolt5 and memory bandwidth. The 3 rear ports on the M4-Pro variant are twice as fast and the CPU has double the memory bandwidth vs the M4. Those upgrades will allow things like 8K@120hz monitors, high-speed storage, and possibly eGPUs.

I do also think $100 for the 10G ethernet upgrade could be worth it if you could see needing it in the next year rather than needing to rely on a dongle(it's $90 in educational price).
 
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Gabebear said:
The future-proofing part of the M4 vs M4-Pro that I can see paying for is fringe benefits of Thunderbolt5 and memory bandwidth. The 3 rear ports on the M4-Pro variant are twice as fast and the CPU has double the memory bandwidth vs the M4. Those upgrades will allow things like 8K@120hz monitors, high-speed storage, and possibly eGPUs.
Click to expand...

It all comes down to use case. If someone sees a need for those fatures, then getting an M4Pro makes sense. If teh base meets their needs, then it's a question of value for money.
 
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jlc1978 said:
It all comes down to use case. If someone sees a need for <faster ports>, then getting an M4Pro makes sense. If the base meets their needs, then it's a question of value for money.
Click to expand...
I'm generally against "future proofing" since over-specing a machine today to meet your future use-case in 3-4 years rarely makes sense. I think TB5 ports are possibly an exception to that.

Hopefully TB5 devices come out soon and aren't crazy expensive; which may never happen. So I wouldn't spend a fortune betting on it, but for a marginal cost increase it likely is worth it this time since this is the first port speed update since 2016.

USB4 and TB4 are both minor tweaks of TB3, which is why all your old TB3 cables are also USB4/TB4 cables and all USB4 hubs are also TB3 hubs.
 
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neomorpheus said:
the base M4 mini is great, but the storage gives me pause
Click to expand...
They carefully design their configurations to do so, for upselling purposes.
At least the RAM shouldn't (for the time being).
Gabebear said:
Those upgrades will allow things like 8K@120hz monitors, high-speed storage, and possibly eGPUs
Click to expand...
By the time 8K@120Hz are "a thing" (reasonably affordable for the average consumer), you could buy a new Mac mini.
 
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jlc1978 said:
I find storage usage fall into two camps when discussing limits:

1. Those who regularly use very large files and have a bunch of them they need to access periodically; or,
2. Those who have saved everything they ever created, especially photos, on their machine. They have files they have't opened in many years but still keep them on the internal storage rather than backing them up, then saving them on an external drive, and deleting them to free up internal storage space.

I fall in the later camp as I have every project I have done, class I have taught, etc. over a long professional career on my SSD and thus have gone from 256-512-1TB. I also probably could delete many GB of programs I never use; the problem is stuff expands to fill the storage available.
Click to expand...
In my particular case, i needed to spin up a windows virtual machine to gather some data from a windows app.

It needed over 256gb of storage and my local 512 gb had around 300 gb free, so i barely made it.

On a system with 256gb, it would not be possible at all.

Granted, was an emergency but it was something that affected me at the moment and the only tool available was my MBP.

The honest and brutal truth is, apple could either offer just a bit more memory and storage on the base model and/or offer those upgrades at a more reasonable price without affecting their bottom line.

But they know that the hardcore fans will simply pay whatever apple wants because those people will never jump to a pc.
 
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When I got the 2012 i5 Mac mini in 2012 , years later I always regretted not getting the i7 for a few hundred more
So this time I went with the pro
 
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There was a time when future proofing made sense, but today's machines are not at risk of becoming obsolete anytime soon, mainly due to software requirements leveling out. Spec out a machine to meet your current needs, and there's a very good chance it will sustain you for a long time.
 
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Che Castro said:
When I got the 2012 i5 Mac mini in 2012 , years later I always regretted not getting the i7 for a few hundred more
So this time I went with the pro
Click to expand...
i5 was a dual-core CPU though, compared to the quad-core i7s.
Today is just... a lot (more) of cores anyway.
neomorpheus said:
The honest and brutal truth is, apple could either offer just a bit more memory and storage on the base model and/or offer those upgrades at a more reasonable price without affecting their bottom line.
Click to expand...
I suspect that the upsell to 512GB is quite popular common with their Mac customers. That's why I believe it would affect their bottom line considerably. At least when looking at their Mac business (which if of course dwarved by their iPhone business anyway).

Offering a bit more storage (than the very scant 256 GB standard config) would of course cost them close to nothing.
But they're selling $200 upgrades for what costs them next to nothing (more).

The $200 upsell is pure profit - without which they'd probably leave a lot of money on the table.
 
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I'm done with future proofing when my machine goes poof. My m1 16" MBP that is like new, never left my desk, just died. Shows zero signs of life. No safe boot, nada. Genius bar cracks open, removes battery, etc. Nothing. So I pre-ordered Mini pro (thinking of future proofing) but this thread has me rethinking and am just going to get the non-pro. Original driver was CAD work and light video/photo stuff. M1 mostly handled CAD fine. Money saved for non Pro means in 2-3 yrs I'll just get the 'new M10'.
 
neomorpheus said:
In my particular case, i needed to spin up a windows virtual machine to gather some data from a windows app.

It needed over 256gb of storage and my local 512 gb had around 300 gb free, so i barely made it.

On a system with 256gb, it would not be possible at all.

Granted, was an emergency but it was something that affected me at the moment and the only tool available was my MBP.

The honest and brutal truth is, apple could either offer just a bit more memory and storage on the base model and/or offer those upgrades at a more reasonable price without affecting their bottom line.

But they know that the hardcore fans will simply pay whatever apple wants because those people will never jump to a pc.
Click to expand...
I run VMs off external drives and never had an issue. I use external drives for my photo and video editing as well. 256GB has been fine for me but i understand everyone has different needs and workflows. I would like to see them move to 512GB at base though.
 
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AppliedMicro said:
I suspect that the upsell to 512GB is quite popular common with their Mac customers. That's why I believe it would affect their bottom line considerably. At least when looking at their Mac business (which if of course dwarved by their iPhone business anyway).

Offering a bit more storage (than the very scant 256 GB standard config) would of course cost them close to nothing.
But they're selling $200 upgrades for what costs them next to nothing (more).

The $200 upsell is pure profit - without which they'd probably leave a lot of money on the table.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of base vs upgrade sales.
 
theusualsuspect said:
There was a time when future proofing made sense, but today's machines are not at risk of becoming obsolete anytime soon, mainly due to software requirements leveling out. Spec out a machine to meet your current needs, and there's a very good chance it will sustain you for a long time.
Click to expand...
Future proofing especially with Apple upgrade tax makes zero sense at all. Better to buy more often than to buy once over a decade.

But we all know the people who wants to futureproof is just because of fomo, and they will still upgrade often and futureproof
 
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UltimateSyn said:
I'm worried that Apple will release a 5K 120Hz Studio Display in the next couple of years that's only fully supported by Thunderbolt 5, which is only available on the M4 Pro version of the Mac mini.
Click to expand...
Well then upgrade in a few years because I guarantee you will upgrade to the latest Mini then. You’ll want a new mini when Apple brings out a 5K 120 display because you will feel your M4 Pro is not good enough to drive it…
 
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