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andyngo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 8, 2020
20
9
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hi, I happen to have my first ever Mac—the Mac mini 2009, lying around. Thinking of giving it a new life and installing 8gb of RAM + SATA II SSD for some performance gain. The plan is to patch it so that it runs Catalina, or Big Sur whenever that is available.

Does anyone have any experience with a similarly aged Mac running Catalina / Big Sur. Could you comment on the performance and if it's usable for general computing stuff (email, web-browsing, word-processing, YouTube, etc), specifically on Catalina / Big Sur? Read somewhere that GPU acceleration is not available with these older models and I'm curious if it affects the performance much?

Would appreciate some insights before I commit to upgrading the components. Thank you.
 

Cookie18

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2014
584
684
France
I haven’t upgraded a Mac Mini but I upgraded my 2012 MacBook Pro which, according to Mac Benchmarks, is around 2-2.5x faster in single core and multi core than your Mac Mini. I put it up to 12GB of RAM and installed an SSD. It is running Catalina with no workaround too.

It works, but only just. Basic web browsing is ok and email is ok but I get a fair few beach balls even with that. I keep it around as a download machine but I don’t use it for much more than that. I wouldn’t expect your Mac Mini, at half the power of that MacBook Pro, to really work at all.
 

andyngo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 8, 2020
20
9
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I haven’t upgraded a Mac Mini but I upgraded my 2012 MacBook Pro which, according to Mac Benchmarks, is around 2-2.5x faster in single core and multi core than your Mac Mini. I put it up to 12GB of RAM and installed an SSD. It is running Catalina with no workaround too.

It works, but only just. Basic web browsing is ok and email is ok but I get a fair few beach balls even with that. I keep it around as a download machine but I don’t use it for much more than that. I wouldn’t expect your Mac Mini, at half the power of that MacBook Pro, to really work at all.

Oof. That doesn't sound too great. Perhaps I'll need to reconsider my decision. Mojave seems to run ok though, as seen in this video here:
Perhaps I'll install Mojave instead.

And this one shows the performance on Catalina running some apps:
YouTube seems to choke Safari if ran at 1080p.
 

apple_unreal

Suspended
Jun 15, 2020
53
43
I have that Mac Mini, did the upgrades but haven't install Catalina. The computer can do basically anything but the processor is maxed out and you can tell, besides the lack of enough video ram. I work with audio and video a lot, the web surfing I do it in my MBP on my lap. So, there is not much use for the mac mini, it cost me $50 when I saw it so I bought it, upgraded everything and is sitting here.
 
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Cookie18

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2014
584
684
France
Oof. That doesn't sound too great. Perhaps I'll need to reconsider my decision. Mojave seems to run ok though, as seen in this video here:
Perhaps I'll install Mojave instead.

And this one shows the performance on Catalina running some apps:
YouTube seems to choke Safari if ran at 1080p.

I think it’s the kind of thing where sure you can upgrade it and it will technically be useable but in reality you probably won’t want to use it if you have any other option.
 

iluvmacs99

macrumors 6502a
Apr 9, 2019
920
673
Hi, I happen to have my first ever Mac—the Mac mini 2009, lying around. Thinking of giving it a new life and installing 8gb of RAM + SATA II SSD for some performance gain. The plan is to patch it so that it runs Catalina, or Big Sur whenever that is available.

Does anyone have any experience with a similarly aged Mac running Catalina / Big Sur. Could you comment on the performance and if it's usable for general computing stuff (email, web-browsing, word-processing, YouTube, etc), specifically on Catalina / Big Sur? Read somewhere that GPU acceleration is not available with these older models and I'm curious if it affects the performance much?

Would appreciate some insights before I commit to upgrading the components. Thank you.

Have you thought about turning the Mini into a Linux Mint 20 machine? I have Macbook Pro 2009 that is running it. 4Gb of ram is plenty and a SSD speeds things up. It has all the latest security updates and supported up till 2025, with Mint 22 coming out in 2022 to go till 2027; try getting Mojave or Catalina to do that! You can do email, web browsing, word processing and Youtube up to 1080p. The fan does go on a bit just because it's an 11 year machine, but I love my 17" screen on the macbook which beats my 13" MBA running Mojave in terms eye comfort. GPU acceleration is available with Mint 20 with Nvidia GPUs that's on the 2009 Mini and my Macbook Pro 2009. Mint 20 can be customised to work like a Mac including the Dark theme which is what I am running now.
 

andyngo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 8, 2020
20
9
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I have that Mac Mini, did the upgrades but haven't install Catalina. The computer can do basically anything but the processor is maxed out and you can tell, besides the lack of enough video ram. I work with audio and video a lot, the web surfing I do it in my MBP on my lap. So, there is not much use for the mac mini, it cost me $50 when I saw it so I bought it, upgraded everything and is sitting here.

Noted. I definitely won't be running any professional work software on this machine eg: Adobe, Sketch, ++ but if it's gonna choke when running every day software then I guess it's a big no-no for me.

I think it’s the kind of thing where sure you can upgrade it and it will technically be useable but in reality you probably won’t want to use it if you have any other option.

You're probably right. I just happen to have it lying around and thought I could give it a second life.

Have you thought about turning the Mini into a Linux Mint 20 machine? I have Macbook Pro 2009 that is running it. 4Gb of ram is plenty and a SSD speeds things up. It has all the latest security updates and supported up till 2025, with Mint 22 coming out in 2022 to go till 2027; try getting Mojave or Catalina to do that! You can do email, web browsing, word processing and Youtube up to 1080p. The fan does go on a bit just because it's an 11 year machine, but I love my 17" screen on the macbook which beats my 13" MBA running Mojave in terms eye comfort. GPU acceleration is available with Mint 20 with Nvidia GPUs that's on the 2009 Mini and my Macbook Pro 2009. Mint 20 can be customised to work like a Mac including the Dark theme which is what I am running now.

This is the most likely scenario. I'll either install an older version of OSX, Windows, or Linux (the latest distro hopefully). I'm open to Linux but I think I forgot to mention that this machine will be shared between my partner and I, so running a familiar OS is quite important (she's a Windows + OSX user).

---

Thank you all for your input! I'll reopen this thread with any findings if I end up moving forward with this project. If anyone else has any input feel free to send me a message. I'd really appreciate it.
 

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,977
The Finger Lakes Region
As a home and work user I use the third party picture mutilation in Mac OS is called PixelMator Pro or the home version called PixelMator because they use X-Code in their programs so when upgrading the app updates come with it through two Mac OS upgrades! They then discount the third upgrade!

I liked it when the picture manipulation program can still be bought!
 

mrkapqa

macrumors 6502
Jan 7, 2012
497
88
Italy, Bolzano/Bozen
tried catalina also on the 2012 macmini quadcore (NO ssd) and have to say that Mojave runs definitely quicker;
on my macmini 2009 i still plan to run SnowLeopard but have also upgraded to Mavericks once,twice, also ElCapitan runs fine.
Windows 7 runs very well on it once it got installed (2009 server model).
 
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K two

macrumors 68020
Dec 6, 2018
2,311
3,180
North America
Do it, just avoid Safari, Chrome and Apple Mail.
resurrection.jpg

Use this tool: http://dosdude1.com/catalina/

YA DU.jpg


Well worth the effort. And a bit of adventure. ?
 
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loby

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2010
1,882
1,512
6 mos. later, this works great much like Catalina, a few minor graphics artifacts but good enough for daily use. Use OCLP to get there. These old 09' Mini's are a treasure.

View attachment 1783619
Humm....how well does Big Sur run on the Mac mini 2009? Curious to try, but I am sure the fans run constantly and the CPU is tapped (not to mention the graphics card). I "settled" on El Cap. Tried macOS Mojave and it worked ok...but with some glitches.
 

K two

macrumors 68020
Dec 6, 2018
2,311
3,180
North America
Humm....how well does Big Sur run on the Mac mini 2009? Curious to try, but I am sure the fans run constantly and the CPU is tapped (not to mention the graphics card). I "settled" on El Cap. Tried macOS Mojave and it worked ok...but with some glitches.
As installed w/OCLP this Mini3,1 runs cool, CPU die has never approached critical temp, graphics have minor issues, nothing to stop from being the daily driver. Up to macOS 11.5b3, now and going strong. ??

11.5b2.jpg
 
Last edited:

K two

macrumors 68020
Dec 6, 2018
2,311
3,180
North America
Last edited:

markj3000

macrumors newbie
May 11, 2021
14
4
It’s an old thread, but can anyone who has successfully installed Big Sur and above on their 2009 Mac mini report if the WiFi becomes unstable? I have installed Big Sur via OCLP on a couple of MacBook late 2008’s but the WiFi often drops/ refuses to come back after they wake from sleep. Works fine with Mojave but going above problems start. Would like to install Big Sur to a 2009 Mac mini but concerned if the same thing likely to happen.
 
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