Mac Mini m2 Pro - 16GB vs 32GB

[NeonNights]

I guess the answer to the 16GB vs 32GB question depends on which of the following categories you belong:

1. Your current workflow requires 32GB
2. Your future workflow may require 32GB
3. You don't need 32GB now and likely won't need it later

The difference between 2 and 3 is largely a question of how long you plan to keep the machine. If you plan to upgrade soon the answer is clear, but if you tend to keep hardware for long then I think we can use Apple support history to assess the likelihood of needing more memory.

2007-2009 Mac Mini was supported at least a generation longer if it had more RAM. After that all Mac Minis had 9-10 years of support by Apple, i.e. they were considered usable enough to provide up to date MacOS. Normally during 9-10 years minimal memory requirements at least doubled. So I suspect that by the end of support Mac Mini M2 Pro with 16GB will feel like current machines with 8GB, i.e. it will be Ok for some tasks, but you would probably desperately want to upgrade

I definitely fall into case #3. My base M1 Mini with 8GB RAM easily handles all my photo and 4K editing needs. That said, my M1 MBA is equipped with 16GB so that was already enough future-proofing myself.

I expect the M2 Pro Mini with 16GB/1TB will get me through this decade until 2030. At that point I may finally get 32GB but more likely will upgrade for other reasons, such as latest SoC or new ports/interfaces rather than RAM. We will see. My 2015 MBP 13 with 8GB RAM still serves our family well after almost 8 years and still looks new, lol. I do take very good care of my things though.

 

[higgsboson]

So I guess we are converging on having double of what is acceptable now as good enough for future proof for long term ownership.

 

[Jeremy M.]

I noticed those posts too. Some reviews say M2 Pro is silent, some hear noise. I will judge it myself once it arrives. If it is truly irritating then I'll return it. Will see.

The M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini have the same fan design and base speed, so it is unlikely to have a different sound or noise.

 

[the_max0r]

I wanted to get the Pro/1TB/32GB, but the European upgrade prices are insane (+460 EUR for 32GB option in Germany), so I‘ll go with 16GB instead.

 

[NeonNights]

Oh no, someone posted in another thread that Costco has the base Mac Studio for $1699! That's less than even the US Apple education discount and really tempting to scrap my M2 Pro 16GB/1TB order and go with Mac Studio with M1 Max/32/512.

Buying from Costco means I won't be able to upgrade internal storage but the extra performance of the M1 Max is appealing and includes 10GbE. Same number of Thunderbolt 4 ports as M2 Pro Mini but also a couple of USB-C 3.2 ports up front and an SD Card reader. Decisions, decisions...

Edit: On the other hand, I think base M2 Pro scores about as powerful as a base Mac Studio. Perhaps I'll stick with M2 Pro Mini.

 

[npn]

That Costco deal might be pretty good IMO. I am looking at the mac mini m2 pro. I am on the fence between 16G and 32G. My 2014 mac mini has only 8G and I do see performance issues in Xcode, especially with SwiftUI. My linux desktop has 16G and while I don't see any issues, I wonder if in a few years 16G might not be enough. I know a really fast ssd might compensate when memory gets low (fast swap), so I was thinking maybe I would go with a 1T (1T has 2x the bandwidth of 512) mac mini with 16G. That gets me to $1599. For $100 more I can get the base studio which has 32G of faster RAM. I think if you keep the important stuff on the fast internal ssd and when needed off load the less used stuff to an external ssd or even harddrive, that might be a better solution.
So for me I think it comes down to $1699 for a M1 Max studio + maybe some external ssd vs $1899 mac mini with 1T and 32G.
I think RAM wise the studio is faster, but cpu the mac mini is faster, but gpu the studio is faster ... wow

 

[spooklog]

I'd prefer an M2 with 32GB of RAM even though I'm not doing intensive computing with video and so forth. Why 32GB? I'm a user who likes to keep apps open -- simple as that.

At the moment I have the following apps open, and its incredibly convenient: Vivaldi, Edge, Mail, Music, Calendar, Evernote, Devonthink, Nisus Writer Express, Omni Outliner, Word and Scrivener. I generally use about 23GB of RAM, so 32GB of RAM is perfect for me.

If I get an M2 it would likely be the base model with 16GB. But holy ****, I'd have to work with fewer apps open! I think I can manage with fewer open apps -- after all, an M2 with 32GB of RAM is expensive.

Anyone else using a lot of RAM to keep many apps open?

 

[Cham2000]

I'd prefer an M2 with 32GB of RAM even though I'm not doing intensive computing with video and so forth. Why 32GB? I'm a user who likes to keep apps open -- simple as that.

At the moment I have the following apps open, and its incredibly convenient: Vivaldi, Edge, Mail, Music, Calendar, Evernote, Devonthink, Nisus Writer Express, Omni Outliner, Word and Scrivener. I generally use about 23GB of RAM, so 32GB of RAM is perfect for me.

If I get an M2 it would likely be the base model with 16GB. But holy ****, I'd have to work with fewer apps open! I think I can manage with fewer open apps -- after all, an M2 with 32GB of RAM is expensive.

Anyone else using a lot of RAM to keep many apps open?

The MacOS is very efficient at memory management. Even with only 8GB ram, you may keep all your apps open (I do keep all my apps open on a very old 8GB system). The system will take the memory used by the idle apps (which normally don't need much memory when they do nothing) and give it to the front app. Going back to a background app will move the memory around. So buying 32GB just to keep apps open is insane!

 

[Che Castro]

32GB was tempting but I saw a few MaxTech videos showing minimal-to-zero benefit between 16GB vs 24GB/32GB on Apple Silicon, and their tests pushed the system harder than my typical use case.

I went with the base 10-core M2 Pro with 16GB/1TB because the storage upgrade was only $180 and 1TB guarantees the fastest "disk" speed compared to 256/512 NAND configurations. If 32GB RAM upgrade was also $180 then I may have just done it, but $360 (edu) was hard to justify for my light photo/video editing needs (and the final price starts getting into Mac Studio territory).

your making me think i should have chosen 1tb over 500gb but im only using 100gb so far

 

[NeonNights]

your making me think i should have chosen 1tb over 500gb but im only using 100gb so far

Then you're probably fine with 512GB.

I tend to fill up my drives quickly with family vacations. A week long trip can easily fill 400-500GB (1200 photos and dozens of 4K videos from various phones and cameras). If I only have 512GB internal storage then it doesn't give me much headroom to work on projects locally. I do try to clear off data once I'm done and that's why I don't need more than 1TB, but 512GB is tight for me.

 

[icemantx]

Has anyone seen a comparison between the M2 Pro 16GB vs 32GB yet?

If you go by the M1 MacBook Pro 16 vs 32 videos on YouTube, it seems like there really is limited benefit to the extra cost.

 

[Cham2000]

Has anyone seen a comparison between the M2 Pro 16GB vs 32GB yet?

If you go by the M1 MacBook Pro 16 vs 32 videos on YouTube, it seems like there really is limited benefit to the extra cost.

I'm also interested in this. The 32GB upgrade considerably rises the price of the mini M2 Pro! Too bad there isn't a 24GB option for this model. That would have been ideal. According to some videos on YT, there isn't much benefits in performances from a 32GB, relative to the 16GB. The only apparent difference is the use of more swap files on the SSD, with 16GB, depending on the computer tasks. Using more the SSD may impact its durability on a very long range of time.

 

[gusping]

I'm also interested in this. The 32GB upgrade considerably rises the price of the mini M2 Pro! Too bad there isn't a 24GB option for this model. That would have been ideal. According to some videos on YT, there isn't much benefits in performances from a 32GB, relative to the 16GB. The only apparent difference is the use of more swap files on the SSD, with 16GB, depending on the computer tasks. Using more the SSD may impact its durability on a very long range of time.

I agree a 24GB option would be perfect, but it was not to be. I feel pretty comfortable with choosing 16GB RAM going off what I have seen online, including the Max Tech video you hinted at. The SSD speed (I chose 1TB) will be 3-5x faster than my 2018 Mac mini SSD, not to mention the SSD sits in the SoC, so it'll be blazing fast.

 

[Luap]

I went with the 10 core M2 Pro, 32GB, 1TB. I suspect 16GB ram would have been adequate for my needs, but I don't buy computers very often, so went with 32 more for future proofing reasons, and obviously it can't be upgraded later.
And all for a mere 3 times the cost of a base spec M2 Mini! 😱

PS, Only had mine a day, but it has been completely silent so far. It hasn't even got noticeably warm!

 

[icemantx]

I went with the 10 core M2 Pro, 32GB, 1TB. I suspect 16GB ram would have been adequate for my needs, but I don't buy computers very often, so went with 32 more for future proofing reasons, and obviously it can't be upgraded later.
And all for a mere 3 times the cost of a base spec M2 Mini! 😱

PS, Only had mine a day, but it has been completely silent so far. It hasn't even got noticeably warm!

Have you been watching the activity monitor and memory pressure? Have you gotten over 16gb often or at all?

 

[NeonNights]

Alright, have been patiently awaiting delivery of my 10-core M2 Pro 16GB/1TB. Have been pretty confident about 16GB being all I'll need for the next 5-7 years for light photo/video editing, and even a single Win10 VM every now and then. Then I remembered I also want to get into app development (Xcode/Android Studio).

Any developers out there that think I'll still be fine with 16GB? I fear the act of asking pretty much confirms I may need to modify my order and get 32GB. I think running the IDE would be fine with 16GB but then there's also virtual servers and device emulation during testing.

According to this Xcodebenchmark test, 10-core M2 Pro scores same 85-sec time whether 16 or 32GB, but I'm guessing that's purely assessing build and compilation. It is still faster than the 89-sec time of a base Mac Studio so I'll stick with the Mini, whether 16 or 32GB. Thank you for sharing development experiences.

 

[Rix__Mix]

I've been using a 16GB 512GB Mini M2 Pro for 4 days now and have come to some conclusions.

It's a great device and performs well, but I have just placed an order for M2 Pro 32GB 1TB build. My usage sees me often going over 16GB and getting in to swap a lot of the time. To anyone having the same internal debate on whether 16GB is enough, if you heavily multitask with heavy hitting applications and/or running VMs and don't want to rely on swap; then no it isn't enough.

The delivery to store is 9th Feb. The good news is with 14 days to notify of return and then another 14 days to actually return it means I won't be without a device.

It's been an expensive week and is kinda hilarious that I've ended up spending over 3x the cost of a base M2. It's a shame about the upgrade price, Apple really does have you by the balls with their structured upgrade tier and pricing.

 

[Cham2000]

It's a shame about the upgrade price, Apple really does have you by the balls with their structured upgrade tier and pricing.

I totally agree! Shame on them!

 

[icemantx]

The one thing that makes me consider 32GB vs 16gb is how will 16gb feel 3 years now after various OS and software updates?

Right now it seems as though 16GB vs 32GB is minimal in terms of real world benefit.

 

[now i see it]

8GB is yesteryear’s 2GB.
16GB is yesteryear’s 4GB.
32GB is yesteryear’s 8GB.

How gracefully did those older machines age?

 

[NeonNights]

Have you been watching the activity monitor and memory pressure? Have you gotten over 16gb often or at all?

I decided to hook up my M1 MBA 16/512 to my 4K TV to see what the memory pressure would be with just Xcode and Android Studio open, but not actually doing anything. Safari only has 5 tabs open in this example. The graph is still green but spikes to yellow if I load up a small 4GB Windows10 VM. If I have more browser tabs open, some productivity apps, or export photos/render video in the background while coding then for sure I'll exceed 16GB RAM easily. Like @Rix__Mix, I think it will be wise for me to get 32GB for the long haul. It seems each of our Macs doubles up RAM and storage:

8GB/256GB M1 Mini
16GB/512GB M1 MBA
32GB/1TB 10-core M2 Pro Mini (future order)

I am looking forward to the M2 Pro Mini because the M1 MBA doesn't feel very fluid with the 4K display. Maybe it has something to do with my USBc-to-HDMI-hub adapter.

 

[npn]

I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about 16G vs 32G and even mac mini m2 pro with 32G and 1T SSD vs the base Mac studio. Most of the time was spent considering the M2 Pro 16G vs 32G. If I was getting paid for the time I spent thinking about this I would have already wasted more time than the $400 delta. In the end I will probably get the 32G version, just because $400 over 8 years is less than $5 per month, but it's really greedy that Apple puts us in this position. If you do a search on the web for 16G of dd5 or even dd4 ram, it's only, worst case, $100 (closer to $50), so we are paying 4-8 X what it is really worth.

 

[acesnick]

I've been using a 16GB 512GB Mini M2 Pro for 4 days now and have come to some conclusions.

It's a great device and performs well, but I have just placed an order for M2 Pro 32GB 1TB build. My usage sees me often going over 16GB and getting in to swap a lot of the time. To anyone having the same internal debate on whether 16GB is enough, if you heavily multitask with heavy hitting applications and/or running VMs and don't want to rely on swap; then no it isn't enough.

The delivery to store is 9th Feb. The good news is with 14 days to notify of return and then another 14 days to actually return it means I won't be without a device.

It's been an expensive week and is kinda hilarious that I've ended up spending over 3x the cost of a base M2. It's a shame about the upgrade price, Apple really does have you by the balls with their structured upgrade tier and pricing.

I've been thinking about returning my mac mini m2 pro base model and upgrade to 32gb. You are right. The swapping of memory makes me think I need more memory. But if I go to 1tb then thats the studio max pricing. I know the 1tb probably more faster than the 512 but I think that real world speed might be negligible.

 

[NeonNights]

I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about 16G vs 32G and even mac mini m2 pro with 32G and 1T SSD vs the base Mac studio. Most of the time was spent considering the M2 Pro 16G vs 32G. If I was getting paid for the time I spent thinking about this I would have already wasted more time than the $400 delta. In the end I will probably get the 32G version, just because $400 over 8 years is less than $5 per month, but it's really greedy that Apple puts us in this position. If you do a search on the web for 16G of dd5 or even dd4 ram, it's only, worst case, $100 (closer to $50), so we are paying 4-8 X what it is really worth.

It's funny, I arrived at the same "$5 a month" breakdown earlier today too. Too late to cancel my 16GB order as it's in Preparing To Ship stage. I'm definitely reordering with 32GB, but now I have a new dilemma. Should I just go all in and get the 12-core version too, lol?

 

[NeonNights]

I've been thinking about returning my mac mini m2 pro base model and upgrade to 32gb. You are right. The swapping of memory makes me think I need more memory. But if I go to 1tb then thats the studio max pricing. I know the 1tb probably more faster than the 512 but I think that real world speed might be negligible.

I know, that Mac Studio still looks tempting. The latest MaxTech video pits the 12-core M2 Pro against a couple of Mac Studios and the Mini does quite well against the base Mac Studio, other than video encoding where the extra GPUs and extra encoders favor the M1 Max. All other tests show 12-core M2 Pro beating out the M1 Max. Hoping they'll post another comparison soon with the 10-core M2 Pro.

Cores do stay much cooler on the Mac Studio though. I don't know if that will play into longterm reliability of the Mini. Overall I prefer the slimmer and quieter Mini over the Mac Studio, but the Studio is not without its charm. Both are good machines.