Mac Mini M4 256GB vs 512GB?

[Allen_Wentz]

Hello,
my 13-year-old computer is starting to show its age (13 years) and I am looking for a new one. I edit short videos with Davinci Resolve (maximum 6 minutes and 4K being the highest resolution) for YouTube and social media and do some simple Fusion effects. I also edit my photos with Affinity Photo and RAW with DxO PhotoLab. All these edits are for my personal use (not making a living of it)
I would like to purchase the Mac mini M4 16GB RAM/256GB SSD because of its relatively low price and the many positive reviews.

I am going to connect an external SSD to move my movies, photos, and anything that is not an application.
The only thing that worries me is the 256GB Internal SSD (even though on my old Windows PC the Internal SSD is also 256GB during its 13 years life) I know of the possibility of transferring the Mac Mini Home folder to the external SSD but not being a tech-savvy person and I want to keep it simple so I will not go this route.

People claim that the internal 512GB SSD is faster than the 256GB. I guess that it is true but is it something that matters in real daily use or makes a huge difference? Is it worth the $200 difference?

Thank you very much

You need more mass storage and substantially more RAM than you are suggesting. Buying a new box is not about what you are doing today, it is about what will be happening during the life of your not-even-purchased-yet computer: 2025-2030 or maybe 2035 if you try foe 10 years again.

Those apps, the OS and the increasing use of AI by apps will drastically increase RAM demands over the next 5 years. Even though the Mac OS will always make it work, 16 GB RAM would be sub-optimal immediately. You will have to decide how sub-optimal you want to build your new computer to be; 24 or 32 will be sub-optimal during a 5 year life cycle.

Personally I would keep the stock SSD and configure a good quality external SSD of TB type capacity. And buy as much RAM as I can afford. Personally I paid the $800 to max out RAM on my M2 MBP. IMO if you spend a bunch of money to buy a box to compute with it makes sense not to forever limit computing operation with suboptimal RAM. And, your apps are RAM hogs.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Not time yet. They're still fairly new.

The M1 started shipping four years and four months ago, we can’t really say that anymore.
And once again, no matter what you purchase, the older it gets the chance of failure goes up.
OP’s choices:
Pay $500 today and get a computer that will be perfectly fine for the next seven years or more, because again there has been no mass failure of 256 GB SSD’s from Apple.
Pay $1000+ (double the price) to get some extra specifications that won’t extend the life of the computer and have the large possibility of never being taken advantage of.
I’d argue go with the cheaper option, in the rare instance that it does fail a decade from now there will be something at that time the money you would have spent on upgrades today you can buy you a new computer 10 years down the road.
Also if someone truly thinks that 16 GB of RAM isn’t good enough, it’s not like 24 GB is that far behind, and again that’s how Apple get you to spend thousands and thousands of dollars when $500 will work perfectly.

 

[brofkand]

Get the base model and hang an external SSD off the back to store your video files. No big deal.

 

[Jacques Wegier]

I’d go for the 512gb. This should allow you to load up lots of raw footage in order to make your video whilst not impacting with your ever growing video 4K library and other files.

You mean the base 16GB RAM and 512GB internal SSD?

 

[Astuces iOS]

I think 512gb is better than 24gb of ram. If you do only the video editing when you do that. 16gb might be ok but 256gb might not. Personally I have a mbp with 16gb and 512gb of storage (and also I have a 2tb ssd) I am ok. You can even pick the base model and get a ssd like me with the 200$ extra. Since it’s a Mac mini, I guess using an ssd might be ok since you are not carrying it everywhere (like a MacBook user would need to do)

 

[Ifti]

I am using Final Cut and Adobe doing the same editing.

I bought a 24GB ram and 1TB drive for my editing and mostly 720/1080.

I also have a Qwiizlab enclosure and a 2TB WD Black SN850X and I keep the video all on the external to keep the write as low as possible on the internal.

This is also how I work, and have done for years.
I have a 64GB/1TB system, yet all of my video files are stored, and worked on, from external TB4 or USB4 SSD enclosures/drives. Never had any issues at all.

 

[Ctrlos]

If you’re only filling up the internal drive with working clips then 256 will be enough. By the time you’ve upgraded the RAM and Storage you could have bought a second Mac Mini altogether.

 

[hajime]

If not booting from an external drive nor moving the home folder to the external drive, is there any problem just attach a TB4 external drive to a Mini M4 with 256GB and manually save user files to the external?

 

[Mac-key]

I can tell you that 16GB of RAM will not be enough for video editing in premiere pro - even photo editing in Lightroom. Does it work flawlessly? Yes! But you will have quite a bit of memory swapping going on. I'm editing on Premiere right now and I'm using 17-18GB of RAM. So while I have a M2 Pro Mac mini 16/512 - when I upgrade I'll be getting AT LEAST 24 GB of RAM - if not more.

 

[EugW]

I can tell you that 16GB of RAM will not be enough for video editing in premiere pro - even photo editing in Lightroom. Does it work flawlessly? Yes! But you will have quite a bit of memory swapping going on. I'm editing on Premiere right now and I'm using 17-18GB of RAM. So while I have a M2 Pro Mac mini 16/512 - when I upgrade I'll be getting AT LEAST 24 GB of RAM - if not more.

How much swap do you have? 17-18 GB RAM in just that application, or overall? Also, how much total RAM do you have? Cuz macOS will go to compressed RAM before hitting swap. If you have 32 GB RAM for example, you might be using 17-18 GB RAM with not much memory compression.

 

[Mac-key]

well let me open my activity monitor and tell you... a little more than 2GB of "swap used" it shows.

and yes 17-18 in JUST adobe premiere.

 

[Mac-key]

How much swap do you have? 17-18 GB RAM in just that application, or overall? Also, how much total RAM do you have? Cuz macOS will go to compressed RAM before hitting swap. If you have 32 GB RAM for example, you might be using 17-18 GB RAM with not much memory compression.

well let me open my activity monitor and tell you... a little more than 2GB of "swap used" it shows.

and yes 17-18 in JUST adobe premiere.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Pay $500 today and get a computer that will be perfectly fine for the next seven years or more

The idea that with the apps/usage cited one can "Pay $500 today and get a computer that will be perfectly fine for the next seven years or more" using Apple's lowest-end computer and base 16 GB RAM is absurd. Those apps will be driving a base Mac Mini to suboptimal performance very quickly. Anyone who thinks images apps "will be perfectly fine" in 7 years with 16 GB RAM really needs to analyze better.

Mac OS is very solid. So solid that it makes all kinds of suboptimal hardware run, but just running is not perfectly fine.

 

[VicVendrell]

Buy the cheaper one, and upgrade the drive later.

Will cost about 200$ for a replacement 3rd party internal 2TB drive for the M4. Bit painful as you'll need another Mac to do it, and reformat while in DFU mode, but not super hard. Not sure if the drives are making their way across to wherever you live, but they do exist here in China.

Sorry, but it's absolutely ridiculous to just casually recommend something that you must know very few people would be willing to do. The vast majority wouldn't even consider changing components in a PC, which is far less complicated than replacing the SSD in a Mac Mini.

 

[EugW]

well let me open my activity monitor and tell you... a little more than 2GB of "swap used" it shows.

and yes 17-18 in JUST adobe premiere.

Is this on that M2 Pro 16 GB / 512 GB?

I'm curious, as a professional photographer/videographer, any reason why you limited the purchase to 16 GB? Is it because of Apple's memory tiers? IIRC, there was no 24 GB option, so you had to jump up to 32 GB for $400 more to get more than 16 GB.

 

[Mac-key]

Is this on that M2 Pro 16 GB / 512 GB?

I'm curious, as a professional photographer/videographer, any reason why you limited the purchase to 16 GB? Is it because of Apple's memory tiers? IIRC, there was no 24 GB option, so you had to jump up to 32 GB for $400 more to get more than 16 GB.

Yes great question - for several years I had been getting by on a 2017 iMac - the i5 chip, 64GB of RAM and 8GB of dedicated GPU RAM. My Lightroom had come to a crawl and it also my 4K video time line was far from smooth, BUT I'm a tight ass and made it work as long as I could. So last August I went back and forth between a base m2 Mac mini, the m2 pro Mac mini and the m2 max studio. But since I was also having to get a new monitor, track pad and keyboard, I didn't really wanna spend the $4k to do that if I got the Mac studio. Yes I bought the studio display - sure I could have saved money there, but I wanted perfect color correction out of the box. So I landed on the base m2 pro for $1200 from BH Photo. I figured it had to be a MASSIVE improvement over my 2017 iMac - and it is! Hear me when I say I see zero performance issues from this swap memory. My machine does everything I ask of it and does it quickly and smoothly. It does have some issues for example in playback when I'm doing speed ramps in my video, but I can deal with that. I'll probably upgrade to the Mac Studio whenever the m4 chips are released. Again, not because my Mac mini isn't doing the job NOW - but will it do the job for say - 5 more years? Probably not.

 

[windysaturday2025]

I personally would go for the 24GB/512GB combination as a bare minimum. Especially if you hang on to your computers for a long while.

That is what i thought 24gb and 512 gb is the future proof

 

[Allen_Wentz]

You can do what you need on a 13 year old computer. I can do what you need on a 2016 12” MacBook

Those spaffing on about minimum RAM requirements are costing you money. It’s not that it won’t be faster, obvs it will. But that’s mainly in render time it will improve, you’ve got all the time in the world, it’s not an issue.

I’d go for the 512gb. This should allow you to load up lots of raw footage in order to make your video whilst not impacting with your ever growing video 4K library and other files.

If you’re only filling up the internal drive with working clips then 256 will be enough. By the time you’ve upgraded the RAM and Storage you could have bought a second Mac Mini altogether.

Sure "By the time you’ve upgraded the RAM and Storage you could have bought a second Mac Mini altogether." But two Mac Minis would not run the apps any better than one over the next 5 years.

Fact is that images apps require RAM and also mass storage; mass storage can be done with inexpensive external SSDs but RAM cannot. Just because the lowest end of the latest chip can be had cheaply does not make it an appropriate way to configure a box for images apps for the next 5-10 years. Any doubts look at the constant Mac RAM usage growth for the last 40 years. And ask any experienced images pro.

 

[throAU]

well let me open my activity monitor and tell you... a little more than 2GB of "swap used" it shows.

and yes 17-18 in JUST adobe premiere.

using swap doesn’t mean thrashing swap. idle things get swapped out first.

 

[Mac-key]

using swap doesn’t mean thrashing swap. idle things get swapped out first.

good to know - thank you! What does "thrashing swap" mean?

 

[throAU]

good to know - thank you! What does "thrashing swap" mean?

Thrashing is basically swapping the same things in and out because your active data doesn't fit in to memory.

 

[Ctrlos]

Sure "By the time you’ve upgraded the RAM and Storage you could have bought a second Mac Mini altogether." But two Mac Minis would not run the apps any better than one over the next 5 years.

Fact is that images apps require RAM and also mass storage; mass storage can be done with inexpensive external SSDs but RAM cannot. Just because the lowest end of the latest chip can be had cheaply does not make it an appropriate way to configure a box for images apps for the next 5-10 years. Any doubts look at the constant Mac RAM usage growth for the last 40 years. And ask any experienced images pro.

I’d just put one in a drawer for a rainy day

 

[ForkHandles]

You mean the base 16GB RAM and 512GB internal SSD?

Honestly Jacques, it will do a great job for you.
Of course you can spend more, it will be faster, by seconds!!!

This forum is famous for creating RAM anxiety, members will try their best to convince you that anything less than 96Gb will mean your computer is a joke. They’re plain wrong for your use case.

If you’re keeping it for thirteen years then be mindful that home movies rendered at 4K and 8K take up space on your hard drive, that the apps you use will get bigger.

Personally I want all my movies together, not held on some random drive I stored in a drawer once.

 

[Jacques Wegier]

members will try their best to convince you that anything less than 96Gb will mean your computer is a joke

No chance! My budget is limited.
Of course, if they are ready to generously contribute to the purchase...

 

[cjsuk]

Using 16Gb / 512Gb here. Running Lightroom, mathematical simulations, programming stuff, Photoshop, all sorts absolutely fine. I have 200 gig of space left and that disk contains everything I have ever done in the last 50-odd years.

It'll be fine.