Mac Mini late 2014 shipped Yosemite - not liking Big Sur

[Chris1951]

Hi All

I am new to Mac as a day to day machine. But have manage to get used to how it operates and have completed some fairly complicated print publications and a mock-up for website successfully.

My problem is the very poor performance I have encountered since moving to Big Sur. For example today it took nearly two minutes to open Chrome browser and around 90 secs for Guitar Rig 5 pro.

When shipped - the minimum System Requirements for Yosemite were 2gb RAM, and 50gb HDD space. HDD space is not a problem start up disk is 500gb.

However the latest info for Big Sur the minimum RAM is 4gb. This version of Mac Mini comes with 4gb (non updatable) RAM.

I have considered installing 250gb NVMe or PCIe SSD but the outlay is pretty high (around 75GBP) for it not to make a significant improvement. Can anyone confirm good results from this approach?

Regards

Chris

Or is it ridiculous to think of doing downgrade back to OS X 10.10 ?

I would appreciate some advice on this

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Downgrading an old system to a better performance operating system is a valid option. Absolutely.

I took my Mac mini 2010 server to 1014 Mojave then eventually returned it to 10.12 Sierra before I replaced it with a 2018 mini.

 

[pmiles]

Running Mojave on my MacPro.

Just because Apple puts out a new OS, doesn't mean it was destined for your system. In fact, most OS upgrades are purely written for the architecture that it ships on, not previous architecture. Big Sur was definitely written for the last INTEL Macs that will ship and the new ARM Macs. It's a transition OS with future OS versions most likely being purely ARM going forward.

If you have a mechanical hard drive, you don't want to go past Mojave. Ideally you want a version of the OS that natively allows you to format MacOS Extended. APFS is the absolute worst format for a mechanical hard drive and will definitely slow your had drive down.

My MacPro has the system drive as APFS (because you have no choice), but the other internal drives are all MacOS Extended. Anything I want to run faster than molasses is on the MacOS Extended drives.

 

[Chris1951]

Hi Erehy and pmiles

Thanks for the speedy responses. I will certainly try a downgrade in next few days and post results.

C

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with Erehy above.

You don't want to try running Big Sur on a 2014 Mini with only 4gb of RAM.

Frankly, buying a 2014 Mini with only 4gb of RAM was a mistake, but you may not have had enough "Mac knowledge" at the time.

I'd go back to 10.10.
Be aware that you have to erase THE ENTIRE DRIVE to do this.

 

[Chris1951]

Hi Fisherman- thanks for your input.

I didn’t buy this MacMini - it was given to me with Sierra installed at the time and I let it auto update each version without any problems until Big Sur.

I only noticed the issue because my old but very nice PC had the bad manners to die - and not being able to buy replacement set the MacMini up for my day-to-day stuff. Before that it was running my guitar effects software that I used a couple of times a week.

Until trying to fix it I was completely unaware of how much more system resources each update was demanding. And then I discovered that the RAM was not updatable on this model.

Anyway will probably do factory reset later today.

Chris

 

[MBAir2010]

that is a shame, i remember having a 2012 Mini and  staying that they won't let us upgrade the RAM on these anymore, which i can't believe this was in 2014 when they still had a little more to prove as a solid home use computer company then.
High sierra is the latest edition that worked good on my 4GB mini
then i upgrade to 10 and sold the mini in 2019.

 

[Fishrrman]

The 2014 Minis have soldered-in RAM that IS NOT upgradeable in any way.

 

[djc6]

I have considered installing 250gb NVMe or PCIe SSD but the outlay is pretty high (around 75GBP) for it not to make a significant improvement. Can anyone confirm good results from this approach?

A cheap SATA SSD will make a big improvement.

I installed an SSD in my 2013 iMac - SATA - and it made an enormous difference. I think the 2014 mac mini has both SATA and NVMe because it was fusion drive capable, but a SATA drive should bring big performance gains - Big Sur or Yosemite.

I've breathed new life into some old windows laptops and old macbooks the same way.

 

[Chris1951]

Hi all who joined this thread. Thanks for the advice. I have undertaken what became a marathon.

So for benefit of other enquirers here’s how.

I did factory reset to Yosemite then so my current apps would work properly I updated to Sierra then High Sierra. I tried jumping to Mojave but only 10.14.6 was available and installer gave error message ‘can only install from 10.14. Anyway all is behaving nicely now.

I hope to upgrade to SSD in not too distant future - but I can at least do some work without the Big Sur frustration.

BTW - for those may be having similar issues the System Requirements jump to 4gb RAM at Catalina. Everything earlier is 2gb.

Thanks again

Chris

 

[utazdevl]

If it weren't for my desire to upgrade to the M1, I would have lived at Mojave for as long as possible on my 2018 Intel Mac Mini. The iTunes split is especially harsh, as all the artwork shifts from portrait (aka their One Sheet size) to landscape (one of their varied iTunes elements) and it all looks like crap.

 

[Fishrrman]

utaz wrote:
" The iTunes split is especially harsh, as all the artwork shifts from portrait (aka their One Sheet size) to landscape (one of their varied iTunes elements) and it all looks like crap."

Do you know about the free app named "Retroactive"?
It will let you run iTunes on m1 Macs...

 

[sgtaylor5]

Hi all who joined this thread. Thanks for the advice. I have undertaken what became a marathon.

So for benefit of other enquirers here’s how.

I did factory reset to Yosemite then so my current apps would work properly I updated to Sierra then High Sierra. I tried jumping to Mojave but only 10.14.6 was available and installer gave error message ‘can only install from 10.14. Anyway all is behaving nicely now.

I hope to upgrade to SSD in not too distant future - but I can at least do some work without the Big Sur frustration.

BTW - for those may be having similar issues the System Requirements jump to 4gb RAM at Catalina. Everything earlier is 2gb.

Thanks again

Chris

So, you're still on High Sierra? That sounds about right for that Mac mini.

I've been experimenting with various OS versions for my late 2013 13" MBP this past year and have decided that Mojave is best for it, even though Big Sur ran "OK" on it and I had no problems.

 

[utazdevl]

utaz wrote:
" The iTunes split is especially harsh, as all the artwork shifts from portrait (aka their One Sheet size) to landscape (one of their varied iTunes elements) and it all looks like crap."

Do you know about the free app named "Retroactive"?
It will let you run iTunes on m1 Macs...

What the what now?!?!?!?!?!!?

Checking this out ASAP.

 

[utazdevl]

What the what now?!?!?!?!?!!?

Checking this out ASAP.

@Fishrrman

This is awesome, and took me down a rabbit hole of different paths, each with their own hits (old style iTunes is there) and misses (no home sharing, no interaction with my AppleTVs, no iTunes store).

Thanks for calling it to my attention. I am hopefully after a few weeks of hard work, I'll have it all ironed out.

 

[andhi132]

Hi, just want to jump to this topic instead of creating new one due to same subject.

Btw, this is my first post , just joined...😎

Quite some time, I already want to jump to mac ecosystem, but still hesitate... and then last week decide to start with affordable one that still be able to run the newest OS. Found new old stock second hand mac mini 2014 with 1.4 Proc, 4GB RAM and 500GB HD with around 275USD (when converted to USD).

Due to I never use macOs before, need to learn some basic first, so I start with the OS High Sierra that came with the system. Maybe the previous owner install it with that macOs? because from the net I found this system should be delivered with older macOS.

With High Sierra performance was OK, but the issue was most of the apps I needed is only support at least Mojave.
As many normal people usually though, that newest OS must be the best, with all updated bells and whistles, I then skip Mojave and Cataline, and straight to Big Sur.

But.... after boot up, I was pretty much surprise with its poor performance, everything was slow.

So, I start read many topic on the net regarding this mac mini 2014.

After read those article, I have one voice in my mind, perhaps buying this base mac mini 2014 was not so good decision.

But... I already have it, so I need to make it worth... at least for a while and for me to learn about macOS.

I did have old 128GB SSD from my previous pc upgrade. So, I use it and install macOS using external enclosure. It was with old USB 3 enclosure. When I check the speed, it got around 150MBps read and 220MBps write. And running Big Sur basic office/browsing is pretty much acceptable.

Then... I read more articles... And after convinced by many articles, that changing the internal HD to SSD will greatly increase its performance. So I did bought 500GB SSD and new USB 3.1 USB C SSD enclosure.

First I put my BigSur OS external SSD to the new enclosure, and quite happy to get speed 400MBps read/write. And using it to everyday use is more than enough.

Still, I decide to put the SSD to replace the internal HD. I quite used electronics stuff, so after watching youtube how to disassemble the macmini, I did the replacement. And after replace it, found out the speed a bit increase than using external enclosure. With speed on the write side became 420MBps, and for read spead leap to 500MBps.

And now, I am quite happy with this mac mini 2014 performance. Try using some graphic apps like Corel and InDesign, so far is usable.

So, in my opinion mac mini 2014 base model 4GB RAM is still ok for everyday use like browsing/watching, office and if you want to use as small project graphic design editing IF and ONLY IF you upgrade the HD to SSD. If not, then dont go beyond High Sierra.

Also after experience the mac display, now I very much hesitate to use my laptop anymore, due to nice and soft feeling I feel on mac display compare to windows. 😅