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Mac mini M1 RAM advide 8GB vs 16GB?

J

James2McGill3

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 9, 2019
66
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Hi peope wanna upgrade my computer, currently have a macbook air 13" i7 8gb from 2013, my plan is buying a mac mini m1 cause mi macbook dosen't go out, so prefer a computer without integrated screen. Planning to use the mac mini for almost 7-10 years draining all his useful life. Would you recommend me buying the 8gb ram option or upgrade it to 16gb.

Not planning to do heavy work in short, mid and long term. Just browsing along the web, office suit (iwork and microsoft office), watch online platforms video and mail.
 
Ten years ago 4GB was plenty but now 8GB is insufficient and 16GB considered minimum so if you're projecting 7 to 10 years out then minimum 16GB but better 32GB. OS, apps, internet, games, etc. all get more bloated over time.

You can barely run a mediocre RPG with only 8GB half a year ago.

 
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yeah if it wasnt for the insane deal on my M1 air i wouldve 16gb config'd it.
 
I, personally, would be inclined to go 16Gb/1Tb just for the sake of staying below its limits. Like, in the old days, they told us to buy a 200W amp for the house because 2W output would be way louder than we would ever be able to tolerate, and that would leave us far below the first bend in the distortion curve.
 
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James2McGill3 said:
Hi peope wanna upgrade my computer, currently have a macbook air 13" i7 8gb from 2013, my plan is buying a mac mini m1 cause mi macbook dosen't go out, so prefer a computer without integrated screen. Planning to use the mac mini for almost 7-10 years draining all his useful life. Would you recommend me buying the 8gb ram option or upgrade it to 16gb.

Not planning to do heavy work in short, mid and long term. Just browsing along the web, office suit (iwork and microsoft office), watch online platforms video and mail.
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For a 7-10 year planned lifetime, I would be inclined to go for 16GB, unless you are confident that your usage will not change substantially during that time.

I would study the memory usage of your current MBA under your "maximum load" with your usual apps open and see how much pressure the memory / storage is under. If you already using more than 2-4GB of swap memory consistently, you will probably find that allowing for an increase in general software memory footprint over the years, that you will be under-specced after 5 years...and maybe sooner.

I have a 2011 Mac mini that I upgraded to 16GB years ago, and am glad that I did. It is still moderately capable, but I think it would be less useful if it only had 8GB (mainly due to increased swapping to much slower SATA SSDs)
 
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Depends! if you plan to use a DAW or video program then go with 16 version! This is design for one program to run for hours at a time! If you are just plain user the 8 gig would be enough!
 
James2McGill3 said:
Hi peope wanna upgrade my computer, currently have a macbook air 13" i7 8gb from 2013, my plan is buying a mac mini m1 cause mi macbook dosen't go out, so prefer a computer without integrated screen. Planning to use the mac mini for almost 7-10 years draining all his useful life. Would you recommend me buying the 8gb ram option or upgrade it to 16gb.

Not planning to do heavy work in short, mid and long term. Just browsing along the web, office suit (iwork and microsoft office), watch online platforms video and mail.
Click to expand...
For most users (including creative work) the 8GB is fine. No reason to suggest that will change over the lifetime of the device. Numerous respected commentators back up this assertion. People really need to drop old assumptions about RAM.
 
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I registered to post this because I was shocked to see so many people say 8GB is probably fine for most users. Picking up an iMac 24 earlier this year has been a huge regret specifically because it struggles severely any time I have more than about a dozen tabs open in Chrome (TYPO: meant Safari) - no, it's not a great idea to leave lots of tabs open or to leave browsers open overnight, but this was never an issue for my other computers (Windows, 16 GB in both of them) and I have been severely disappointed with how much it effects the iMac. I plan to sell or return this iMac for one with more RAM (or perhaps the rumored Mini with the M1 Max) as soon as it is financially feasible for me to do so.
 
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Hi, after having an M1 Mac Mini (8GB/256GB) for the last 9 months, I wish I could have gone back and grabbed the 16GB RAM upgrade. At the time I scoffed at the £200, and quite rightly so £200 for an extra 8GB?!

However, I'm now starting to use my Mini for editing audio in Garage Band and some basic video editing in iMovie. While the Mac mini can do this without an issue on the base model, I can feel it get a little laggy after a while of editing. Part of this is likely my fault as I often tend to have ~10 safari tabs, mail, skype, messages, OneNote, garage band, imovie and then maybe a few other apps open at the same time. I have once or twice had a warning asking me to close apps down to free up some RAM, but again I can 'feel' the mac get a little laggy before then.

It's certainly not bad enough to be an issue, especially when I'm doing lighter tasks, but I've not had the mini for a year yet, so I don't think it will last me the 3-5 years I was hoping for.
 
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It really is a shame that Apple is still selling computers with only 8GB of RAM I mean that was okay in like 2017 but we're rolling along in 2022 and 8GB is still the norm here? I guess it would make sense in only the most base configurations as a "value" proposition but the standard in all Mac computers really should be 16GB/512GB as the "preferred" package but could be BTO with 8GB/256GB if you really wanted to save a few bucks but these would have to be special ordered while most shops/outlets would be getting 16GB/512GB.
 
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Sydde said:
That is most likely your problem right there. Why not try a better browser?
Click to expand...
Misspoke, apologies- I use both for different work contexts, but on my iMac I stick with Safari, and its performance is not what I would call great.
 
cwwilson said:
It really is a shame that Apple is still selling computers with only 8GB of RAM I mean that was okay in like 2017 but we're rolling along in 2022 and 8GB is still the norm here? I guess it would make sense in only the most base configurations as a "value" proposition but the standard in all Mac computers really should be 16GB/512GB as the "preferred" package but could be BTO with 8GB/256GB if you really wanted to save a few bucks but these would have to be special ordered while most shops/outlets would be getting 16GB/512GB.
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Go over to WalMart's computer section. 8 GB is the norm in low-end systems and some have even less.
 
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michaelsviews said:
Better to have it and not need it ? Check out the refurbished area and save some money.
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The only Mac mini's in Apple's Refurbished Store right now are 2018 models. Even when there are M1 models, 16 GB versions are hard to come by.

There are not many Apple Silicon machines for sale in the Refurbished Store right now and I didn't see any with 16 GB of RAM. I understand this with the MBP 14/16 because of the long wait times but it appears that the regular M1 models are in high demand too.

It's possible that we see a lot more 16 GB minis if and when the mini Pro launches in March.
 
James2McGill3 said:
Hi peope wanna upgrade my computer, currently have a macbook air 13" i7 8gb from 2013, my plan is buying a mac mini m1 cause mi macbook dosen't go out, so prefer a computer without integrated screen. Planning to use the mac mini for almost 7-10 years draining all his useful life. Would you recommend me buying the 8gb ram option or upgrade it to 16gb.

Not planning to do heavy work in short, mid and long term. Just browsing along the web, office suit (iwork and microsoft office), watch online platforms video and mail.
Click to expand...
An upgrade to the M1 Mac Mini from from your Macbook from 2013 will show a very large improvement whether you upgrade to a 8GB or 16GB version. However, having used the 8GB M1 mini for more than 6 months, I recommend the 16GB version since you will be using it for 7-10 years. In the short term (2-4 years), you will be fine with 8GB for the tasks you state, however, I don't believe 8GB will serve you well in the long run. I think you would be fine with a 512GB SSD. You can add an external, fast, SSD if you find you need more storage later.
 
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Everyone will have the own opinion, at this moment 8GB for general tasks should be enough, 7-10 years time who know but if you keep it that long I would say go for 16GB, I went for 8GB due to what I use it for as simple is that, below you can see the usage for 6 safari tabs/mail/messages/photos/pixelmator pro and usage is under 6GB.
 

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