M2 Pro Mac mini - Any regrets?

[Chuckeee]

Three week and I’m still overjoyed with my Mac mini M2 pro.

But a lot of that comes from where I started from: a late 2012 27” iMac with the Core i7 processor. It was just getting to worn out, HDD died so I was using an external drive instead (via USB) and the power supply was going bad ( occasionally after a long session the whole system would “blink” and reboot.

I just hope this new Mac mini will last me 10 years

 

[MacNeal]

To be perfectly honest, I've been a bit disappointed in the performance of my m2 Pro 10-core, 16GB ram, 1T SSD internal. Upgrading from a 2018 Mini with the Intel chip, 16GB, and 512GB SSD, I expected a noticeable leap in speed and crispness, but in most respects I'm not seeing much improvement. Firefox remains grindingly slow, opening aliases on my desktop of folders on external drives is, in some cases, slower than the same process on the 2018 Mini, and so on. I'm willing to bet that the issue isn't with the m2 Pro Mini per se, but with some of the USB connections (via a USB hub) and with unidentified speed-killers in my Firefox settings. I've been trying to trouble-shoot it, but progress is slow. Make of this what you will.

 

[jasnw]

Out of curiosity, what version of macOS were you running on your 2018 Mini?

 

[MacNeal]

Out of curiosity, what version of macOS were you running on your 2018 Mini?

Mojave! LOL... I kept it that far back to still be able to use Adobe CS5. I still have that Mini for when I may need to use it, but I got a new 2023 m2 pro to take advantage of expected improvements in more recent OSs and chips.

 

[George Dawes]

I find the main culprit Ventura , it’s just awful 😢 . Finder crashes all the time , weird behaviour

Apple - good hardware , mediocre software

Used to be the complete opposite … so much for progress

 

[colinsky]

To be perfectly honest, I've been a bit disappointed in the performance of my m2 Pro 10-core, 16GB ram, 1T SSD internal. Upgrading from a 2018 Mini with the Intel chip, 16GB, and 512GB SSD, I expected a noticeable leap in speed and crispness, but in most respects I'm not seeing much improvement.

I was disappointed with my m2 Pro Mini 16/512 because it wasn't that much better than my m1 Mini 16/512, so I sent it back and got the 32/1tb model, which ROCKS.

 

[MacNeal]

I was disappointed with my m2 Pro Mini 16/512 because it wasn't that much better than my m1 Mini 16/512, so I sent it back and got the 32/1tb model, which ROCKS.

Hmm. I'm mildly tempted to do as you did, though I am halfway there already, since I got the 1tb SSD. As 16GB ram had seemed sufficient on my 2018 Mini, I figured it would be enough on the m2Pro, so I'm puzzled why it would take 32GB to get the Mini up to snuff. Having spent upwards of $1800 on my new Mini configuration, I'm not enthusiastic to spend hundreds more to goose it from 16gb ram to 32gb ram. Any idea why 32gb would be the magic amount?

 

[colinsky]

The m2 Pro 16/512 that I tried for a week could process an Adobe Premiere file twice as fast as the m1 16/512 Mini, but Memory Pressure was always in the yellow if I was doing any real work and things slowed down.

I don't know that 32gb is the magic amount. It was the only possible memory upgrade for the Mini m2 Pro. Maybe 24gb would have been good enough but Apple doesn't give us that option on the m2 Pro. All I know is I can have all my Adobe Creative Suite apps running while I'm watching the Dodger game and browsing the web and working on Wordpress pages, and the memory pressure never starts barking at me.

 

[MacNeal]

The m2 Pro 16/512 that I tried for a week could process an Adobe Premiere file twice as fast as the m1 16/512 Mini, but Memory Pressure was always in the yellow if I was doing any real work and things slowed down.

I don't know that 32gb is the magic amount. It was the only possible memory upgrade for the Mini m2 Pro. Maybe 24gb would have been good enough but Apple doesn't give us that option on the m2 Pro. All I know is I can have all my Adobe Creative Suite apps running while I'm watching the Dodger game and browsing the web and working on Wordpress pages, and the memory pressure never starts barking at me.

Many thanks for the details. I guess my confusion or doubt is that I'm not really pushing the limit with any software as I do my daily rounds. I'm using Firefox and Brave, and sometimes Textedit and Libreoffice, but that's mostly it. I'd think that 16gb RAM could handle that, as it did with Mojave. Which is why I suspect that perhaps I've got issues with USB connections and hubs reverting to the slowest options. It is mostly annoying that my upgrade to M2 Pro did not immediately show higher speeds or swifter connections. I'm still experiencing 20-30 second lags for new pages to appear with Firefox. WTF?

 

[richmlow]

Many thanks for the details. I guess my confusion or doubt is that I'm not really pushing the limit with any software as I do my daily rounds. I'm using Firefox and Brave, and sometimes Textedit and Libreoffice, but that's mostly it. I'd think that 16gb RAM could handle that, as it did with Mojave. Which is why I suspect that perhaps I've got issues with USB connections and hubs reverting to the slowest options. It is mostly annoying that my upgrade to M2 Pro did not immediately show higher speeds or swifter connections. I'm still experiencing 20-30 second lags for new pages to appear with Firefox. WTF?

Hello MacNeal,


The 20-30 second lags for new pages to appear with Firefox sounds very strange to me! That should not be happening with your new Mac mini M2 Pro with 16GB RAM. Do you experience this same phenomena with other web-browers?

Try working (temporarily) with your Mac mini, using only the ports in the back of your computer.....ie, no hubs, auxillary connections, etc. to your Mac mini. Experiment with this restricted configuration for a little bit. Does it make a difference in speed and "snappiness?" If so, then it is indeed your auxillary hub(s) and indirect connections to the Mac mini.

Let us know if you see positive results! Good luck.


Sincerely,
richmlow

 

[Qaulity]

bought a refurbed unit, saved about $1500 over the equivalent M2 Max and I'm about 90% certain this unit was simply a case of buyer's remorse and got returned when the studio came out. I maxed out the cpu and gpu and ram and 10gbE and 4tb of storage. Man would that not make sense as a brand new unit.

 

[ChrisA]

No regrets for me either. I replaced an M1 Max Studio with a M2 Mini Pro and I consider that a good tradeoff. The only thing I miss is 64G of RAM, but it really hasn't been much of a problem. I just can't run as many VM's at a time.

I've mostly stopped running VMs. To run Linux, I just use a headless 16-core Xeon PC tower and then "share" the screen to my M2 Mac Pro. I have a headless 2014 Mac Mini that runs some low-end servers to backup my Synology NAS and for home automation.

The headless 2014 Mac only cost $125 and can run just about anything as it is Intel based. The Xeon system is reserved for machine learning experiments and is otherwise powered off. This works MUCH better than when I used to run VMs on my older iMac.

 

[clingfreeze]

No regrets. Got a Mac Mini M2 Pro 32/1TB from the Refurb Store. Best Mini I've ever had.

 

[MacNeal]

Many thanks for the details. I guess my confusion or doubt is that I'm not really pushing the limit with any software as I do my daily rounds. I'm using Firefox and Brave, and sometimes Textedit and Libreoffice, but that's mostly it. I'd think that 16gb RAM could handle that, as it did with Mojave. Which is why I suspect that perhaps I've got issues with USB connections and hubs reverting to the slowest options. It is mostly annoying that my upgrade to M2 Pro did not immediately show higher speeds or swifter connections. I'm still experiencing 20-30 second lags for new pages to appear with Firefox. WTF?

I am happy to report that the longer I use my new Mini M2pro, the more it seems to work up to my expectations. Most significantly, after Firefox installed a new security update on 9/12/23, suddenly it (Firefox) booted up instantly and the lag in opening new pages disappeared. Thus, I blame much of the sluggishness I experienced on a flaky Firefox version that was not well-aligned with the M2pro.

I'm still experiencing some lag in opening file folder aliases on my desktop to external HDs, which I didn't have with my previous Intel chip 2018 Mini, but I suspect that were I to switch from external Seagate platter HDs to SSD drives, that would disappear.

As for issues with USB hubs reverting to the lowest speed USB device plugged into them, that may well be an ongoing problem, but I will likely try to sort that out, plug by plug and cord by cord, in due course.

 

[Chuckeee]

As for issues with USB hubs reverting to the lowest speed USB device plugged into them, that may well be an ongoing problem, but I will likely try to sort that out, plug by plug and cord by cord, in due course.

To be fair, that USB issue has been on ongoing issue even with the intel macs. It is NOT a new M2 pro problem.

 

[MacNeal]

To be fair, that USB issue has been on ongoing issue even with the intel macs. It is NOT a new M2 pro problem.

Certainly, I've been aware of the USB issue for years. I didn't mean to imply that it was a new M2 pro problem. That's why I referred to it as an "ongoing problem". I just wish some enterprising engineer would take it on and devise a solution or work-around. It's kind of a ridiculous situation to tout ever-faster USB speeds, when the weakest link in the chain can slow down the whole lot.

 

[Beyo]

Good thread because unfortunately I lost my 2018 Mini and being several months without computer I need to finally do something.
BTW Mojave is still the best MacOS without this later crap, with still support for 32bit and OpenGL.

That being said what about mediocre SSD Apple put in all M2 Minis? Shouldn’t I rather buy basic M1 16GB/256GB ? Unfortunately new M1 is nowhere to be found so it has to be refrurbrished, but outside US there are no good deals at all. To have things worse euro exchange rate to zloty went too high
So is it a dead end? Or maybe used-not-refurbished 2018/i7/16 is better choice?

 

[Chuckeee]

what about mediocre SSD Apple put in all M2 Minis?

“Mediocre” is a relative term. Even the slowest internal SSD in any (M1 or M2) SoC mini is significantly faster than the SSD in a machine using an Intel processor on an external SSD.

The “mediocre” M2 SSD performance is only associated with the smallest internal SSD size. The simple fix is to get the next to the smallest internal SSD, although I understand that is a pricey solution and would make your difficulties in locating a system even worse.

I would strongly recommend getting a SoC machine over an Intel machine (unless you are a heavy boot camp user). The end of Apple Intel support is coming and you really want to avoid that potential quagmire. I would suspect either M1 or M2 would work great for you, just depending on cost and availability.

 

[Beyo]

Thanks for advice. As you pointed yourself this slower SSD Apple put in M2 comparing to M1 makes you pay more if you want faster machine, and this is no way relative term.

I really wish market force Apple to go back to intel. There should only be one company that produce CPU for desktop. It’s better for the planet and cheaper for companies if everyone uses the same architecture.
And don’t forget about Hollywood that bought lot of Intel Mac Pro that don’t allow Apple to abandon support for such expensive machines.
I don’t care about loosing support for Intel machines I was using Mojave anyway because it’s the best macOS and I could do anything I needed on it. The only problematic thing was homebrew but not because other OS are better but because developers were lazy which always is bad thing.

So I think I try to find refurbished i7 (I also like to play games on my computer instead of buying console) or find non-programming job.

 

[umbilical]

not the Pro but: base model here 8/256, I'm amazed how I can do for the money $499, I work on web development/design (affinity photo, sketch, vscode, edit video screenflow etc.) I'll buy later the Pro or well the Studio.

Just one thing: I use it with the trackpad, there's sometime strange, I don't know if it's the mini, or the trackpad or the browser but sometimes, the pointer of the trackpad stuck and jump to another place for a second, is like if somebody catch the pointer for a second and release it, is annoying, I bet a lot people don't notice that but I feel it and see it.

Maybe is due is the base model and stuck sometimes? is the trackpad and bluetooth related issue? is the browser (firefox) ? I say about the browser because I notice more on when I use the browser.

For now is the only issue.

 

[JanetTheGreat]

No problems or regrets. I got mine in March of 2023 and replaced my old Windows machine, which marked my transition into MacOS.