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How does it "struggle"? My 2012 i7 has no problems with Safari. It also runs Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro quite well. I run Sierra from an external iTB Samsung T3 SSD. I have 16gb, but I don't understand why Safari would need more than 8gb. Are you doing something especially intense in Safari?

I do tend to keep a lot of tabs and windows open owing to work i do - I find that over time (say an hour) the CPU usage suddenly zooms up to 200%+ and I have to force quit Safari or if I'm too late wait for it to calm down as machine freezes, or reboot. Safari Technology Preview is also prone to this.

The memory failure is a known fault with the 2012 Mini - the bottom socket has failed probably due to a connection with the motherboard (nothing wrong with the ram itself). However, I was getting the same Safari problem with 16GB ram.
 
I do tend to keep a lot of tabs and windows open owing to work i do - I find that over time (say an hour) the CPU usage suddenly zooms up to 200%+ and I have to force quit Safari or if I'm too late wait for it to calm down as machine freezes, or reboot. Safari Technology Preview is also prone to this.

The memory failure is a known fault with the 2012 Mini - the bottom socket has failed probably due to a connection with the motherboard (nothing wrong with the ram itself). However, I was getting the same Safari problem with 16GB ram.

Even if the total memory usage is kept under control (by reducing window count, ect), you're still running at half memory bandwidth. Very unfortunate, though I wasn't aware of a common memory slot failure (guess I'm glad mine doesn't have that).
 
How does it "struggle"? My 2012 i7 has no problems with Safari. It also runs Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro quite well. I run Sierra from an external iTB Samsung T3 SSD. I have 16gb, but I don't understand why Safari would need more than 8gb. Are you doing something especially intense in Safari?
Not the commentor you asked, but the only issue I’ve had with my 2012 2.6 is after it sits for a while, there’s a lag in responding. I have all my energy settings / hard drive sleep turned off. And it’s an entirely SSD. So I’m not sure what that few second delay is from. It’s annoying, but I’ve been living with it.
 
Not the commentor you asked, but the only issue I’ve had with my 2012 2.6 is after it sits for a while, there’s a lag in responding. I have all my energy settings / hard drive sleep turned off. And it’s an entirely SSD. So I’m not sure what that few second delay is from. It’s annoying, but I’ve been living with it.

That is odd behavior. Maybe the power supply has issues? Have you tried resetting the SMC and see if you still get that issue.
 
I have the 2012 Mini as my daily driver, bought it at the end of 2012 so a bit over 6 years ago now. It has the i7 2.6GHz and 16GB RAM. At the time the "Fusion" drives were fairly new, so I got the 1TB Fusion for I think the same price as a 256GB SSD at the time? I suppose overall it was a decent choice, boot time is good and commonly-used apps are moved to the SSD portion so load fairly quickly. Then, a "1TB Fusion" drive was a 128GB SSD plus 1TB HDD, so there was enough room for several apps, etc on the SSD - now the 1TB "Fusion" drive has I think only 24GB SSD, something like that? Very different deal. Some apps I only use like once a month (Excel for example) take a long time to load, you can definitely tell when an app is on the HDD! All of my actual data is on an external DAS, but I was concerned that 256GB of internal storage would be too constraining, and the price of 512GB SSD at the time was significant.

I'm going for a 2018 Mini, once they hit the Refurb store - probably this Summer. I'll find a good deal on an i7, at least 512GB storage but probably 1TB to be safe. I expect it'll last me the same 6+ years as the last one, if I spec it that way - i5 would be fine for now, but in 6 years it might not.
 
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I still have a 2005 mini chugging away in the basement.
Other than never seeing the internet, it still does everything I want it to do.
Last couple, three OS updates->Mojave, haven't added any must have technology to my other Macs as far as I've noticed.

I have to enter my password more often, and add more Apps to my privacy settings, but that's about it.
We had "Dark Mode" back in the mid 90's with mods to System 7. Never liked it much.
A new mini, with the speed memory and SSD I'd want would cost double what payed for my 4 core dual SSD Lenovo a couple years back.

Stick with the old until you actually need something new. You'll save a thousand or two.
 
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There is a lot of struggling going on here. My 2012 mini 2.3 i7 16GB 1TB SSD was replaced by a 2012 Mac Pro 3.46 (or something like that) hex 24GB same SSD. They have both been mothballed by a 2018 mini i7 16GB 1TB. It feels more responsive than either of the earlier Macs. I like having a more modern HDMI port and four TB3 ports. Each of my Thunderbay 6 drive boxes has its own TB3 port. To me that is a plus.

If someone has a 2012 mini, only needs one or two internal storage drives and is satisfied with its monitor performance then keep it. A 2012 should be viable for a couple more years or so. 2012 mini i7s are really nice computers.
 
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hello there
I have a late 2012mac mini(i7 ,256gb ssd 16GB Ram ) it served me well all these years mostly using it with logic pro(music production) and some video editing and export (mostly imovie)
But now with the new mac mini 2018 out i am thinking about selling my 2012mini and upgrade, is it worth it?
Or should i stick with my old mini?

Depends. The 2012 i7 is a solid machine. Mine has been solid for 6 years. My wife uses it now and it's still in excellent condition for probably years to come.

Only upgrade if you need it to drive a 5K screen or if you really need Thunderbolt 3. Those are it's biggest features. The Geekbench scores might suggest otherwise but for Logic Pro X The i5 processor is basically 2 as fast and the i7 3 times as fast as the 2012 i7. That's my experience.
 
I have a late 2014 mini 8gb ram i5 but think9ng of replacing the sata hdd with a ssd
Do u think I will see lesser of the beach ball spinning?
 
I have a late 2014 mini 8gb ram i5 but think9ng of replacing the sata hdd with a ssd
Do u think I will see lesser of the beach ball spinning?

Yes, and fyi you wouldn't get too much of a penalty of making it external (over installing internally, which requires a little bit of effort). Swapping from HDD to SSD is one of the largest upgrades you can make for regular use.
 
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a question, do i need to get an enclosure with thunderbolt2 port for the ssd?
Samsung 860 Evo 250GB SSD, is this good?
 
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a question, do i need to get an enclosure with thunderbolt2 port for the ssd?

You can get a sata to usb 3.0 cable for under $10 on Amazon. You don't need thunderbolt to see the difference (nor would it be much different then usb 3.0 on typical tasks, including using it as a boot drive.
 
You can get a sata to usb 3.0 cable for under $10 on Amazon. You don't need thunderbolt to see the difference (nor would it be much different then usb 3.0 on typical tasks, including using it as a boot drive.
noted please. btw, will my data on the old hdd be gone once i install the recovery os on the ssd?
 
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noted please. btw, will my data on the old hdd be gone once i install the recovery os on the ssd?

If you do the external route, you can have both the ssd and the internal hdd on the desktop at the same time. Having the boot drive be a ssd is the important part (beach balls are from the OS looking for something on the drive).

Doesn't really matter if you install a recovery partition (though not sure what your concern is).

Samsung evo is a good model ssd, though it's hard to go wrong unless you get a knockoff brand with a bad rep.
 
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If you do the external route, you can have both the ssd and the internal hdd on the desktop at the same time. Having the boot drive be a ssd is the important part (beach balls are from the OS looking for something on the drive).

Doesn't really matter if you install a recovery partition (though not sure what your concern is).

Samsung evo is a good model ssd, though it's hard to go wrong unless you get a knockoff brand with a bad rep.
Thanks
 
I do tend to keep a lot of tabs and windows open owing to work i do - I find that over time (say an hour) the CPU usage suddenly zooms up to 200%+ and I have to force quit Safari or if I'm too late wait for it to calm down as machine freezes, or reboot. Safari Technology Preview is also prone to this.

The memory failure is a known fault with the 2012 Mini - the bottom socket has failed probably due to a connection with the motherboard (nothing wrong with the ram itself). However, I was getting the same Safari problem with 16GB ram.
I own a 2.3 i7 too with 16 GB RAM. Installed a 1 TB SSD. New OS too.
My mini still struggles with safari now and then. Think it has to do with images and videos...
 
I own a 2.3 i7 too with 16 GB RAM. Installed a 1 TB SSD. New OS too.
My mini still struggles with safari now and then. Think it has to do with images and videos...
A 2012 quad core Mini configured as yours is should easily be able to handle browsing the web. I use older, much less capable systems on the web. You may want to start off with investigating if there is something wrong which is resulting in your poor performance.
 
A 2012 quad core Mini configured as yours is should easily be able to handle browsing the web. I use older, much less capable systems on the web. You may want to start off with investigating if there is something wrong which is resulting in your poor performance.
Reinstalled MacOS from scratch
 
finally bought an external ssd and speed is indeed faster and seeing less of the rainbow ball.
some of my apps are installed in the old sata hdd. how do i transfer them over to my external ssd without reinstalling again?
 
I have the same MacMini with an upgraded 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD. I don’t see any need to upgrade at this point.

Regardless of your hardware, if you want to speed up Safari, install an adblocker, like AdGaurd, then add this custom rule %video% and you’ll be amazed how fast Safari can run. Just whitelist sites like YouTube.
 
I have the same MacMini with an upgraded 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD. I don’t see any need to upgrade at this point.

Regardless of your hardware, if you want to speed up Safari, install an adblocker, like AdGaurd, then add this custom rule %video% and you’ll be amazed how fast Safari can run. Just whitelist sites like YouTube.
Is %video% the only thing you put in? What does that do? Thanks
 
I use a quad-core 2012 i7 Mac Mini as well, with 16 GB of RAM. I also swapped out the spinning hard drive in it a few months ago with a 960 GB SSD, and it REALLY shortened the startup time of the system and apps. This was like a breath of fresh air, as booting was starting to get sluggish anyways.
I also saw that this Mini will be able to support MacOS 10.15 when it comes out, so I may stick with it for a while longer before the I decide to replace it (preferably with one of the modern, more beefed-up Mac Minis). But right now I'm still hoping to get a new Retina MacBook Air...
 
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Jus a comment for the OP, as you already know the issue of doing things faster is a pointless one when talking about Logic X.
Either it can handle what you need to do, or it doesn’t, in which case you need more power, memory or both.
This is entirely dependent on what type of music productions you need to do, how many tracks, plug-ins, effect, software instruments, etc...

For this reason, if your mini is handling the load now, it will carry on doing so for ever, until and unless something changes.
I know of people running old versions of Logic over old versions of MacOS/OS-X on old Macs dedicated to this job only. They are essentially appliances working for a specific job and they will carry on doing so until your requirements will outgrow them.
 
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For anyone experiencing poor performance with Safari... Why not just try using Firefox for MacOS? It has more privacy features by default. Because it's not a built in browser it offers a high level of security for whatever OS you are using. It offers frequent updates with new features including continuously enhanced security. It's cross platform and easy to use.
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hello there
I have a late 2012mac mini(i7 ,256gb ssd 16GB Ram ) it served me well all these years mostly using it with logic pro(music production) and some video editing and export (mostly imovie)
But now with the new mac mini 2018 out i am thinking about selling my 2012mini and upgrade, is it worth it?
Or should i stick with my old mini?
It's not a bad idea to go with a 2018 Mini if you want more performance. Make sure you get the higher specs (i7, more RAM, larger SSD, etc.) that you need so you future proof the purchase. I would recommend keeping the 2012 machine as backup and for other uses. I have my 2011 Mac Mini and 2012 Mac Mini stacked on top of each other. I only run one at a time and have a KVM switch for monitor viewing and a separate Mac Keyboard to use for each Mini.
 
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