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Mac Mini mid 2011

Y

yval

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2016
2
0
Spain
Hi,

I have the posibility of get a mac mini mid 2011 core i5 at 2,3 (Mid-2011 - MC815LL/A - Macmini5,1 - A1347) with 2 Gb of ram

The cost for the mac is 50$

I can upgrade the memory for 90 $ (Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) SO-DIMM DDR3 1333MHz)

The hd Crucial M500 - Disco duro interno SSD de 240 GB (SATA, 2.5") for 134$


I want to put el Capitan.


Total cost are 280$ aprox. i think that´s a big offer

The questions:

I want the mac mini for:

Intense web browser (2 browsers with 10 tabs)
Music (youtube, spotify, itunes)
Some ocasional programing( ios, phyton, web)
Some ocasional photo.
Some ocasional vmware windows-linux
Some ocasional game low graphics
Sometimes 2 monitors
Its a god machine for that?

Thanks

Pdta. Sorry my english is very bad
 
yval said:
I have the posibility of get a mac mini mid 2011 core i5 at 2,3 (Mid-2011 - MC815LL/A - Macmini5,1 - A1347) with 2 Gb of ram

The cost for the mac is 50$
Click to expand...

Very nice price for a 2011 Mac! (You could easily turn around and sell it on Ebay for a profit.)

I want to put el Capitan.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you'll definitely need more than 2GB of RAM for that. :) But if you're going for 16GB, you'll have no problems.

I want the mac mini for:

Intense web browser (2 browsers with 10 tabs)
Music (youtube, spotify, itunes)
Some ocasional programing( ios, phyton, web)
Some ocasional photo.
Some ocasional vmware windows-linux
Some ocasional game low graphics
Sometimes 2 monitors
Its a god machine for that?
Click to expand...

Hmm. With 16 GB RAM, you should have no problem with as many browser tabs open as you'd like. Music should be fine with this machine. A very nice machine for programming, in my opinion; you should face no problem with that.

On photos: the additional RAM and SSD will make it a good machine for working with that. (Photo apps frequently make greater demands on memory and storage than other apps.)

On VMware: if you're going to be running two OSs simultaneously, you definitely need as much RAM as you can get. :) The 16 GB of RAM will really help here.

On games: Really, really, really low graphics. The Intel HD 3000 GPU is extremely limited. It'd be best not to expect any 3D games from the last decade or so to run. :) Games that don't use 3D graphics should run fine...

On 2 monitors: No problem for this machine. :)
 
I had 2011 mac mini and had connectivity issue with Acer XB270HU. My wife's 2012 Air 2012 connected beautifully, and I have been using the air since then. I personally do not recommend 2011 mini unless you already have one. It served well but just getting old nowadays. It is painful to work on compatibility issue with recent peripherals, and that might cost you as much as you buying a new machine.
 
jpietrzak8 said:
Wow! The XB270HU is a gorgeous, high-res, enormous high-end-gaming monitor. And, you wanted to hook this beast up to a machine sporting an Intel HD3000 GPU? I'm not exactly sure what to say here...
Click to expand...

Thank you for recognizing it. I have a home made PC with nothing other than fantastic parts and games. Mac is for checking email and storing family pictures.
 
Using a base 2011 Mini here, it still works perfect, but I might put in a SSD if good deal found. It was a refurb with 2GB ram that I upgraded to 8GB. I have noticed a small amount of swap usage in the last year as OSX and apps get bigger and 16GB probably fixes that.
 
yval said:
Hi,

I have the posibility of get a mac mini mid 2011 core i5 at 2,3 (Mid-2011 - MC815LL/A - Macmini5,1 - A1347) with 2 Gb of ram

The cost for the mac is 50$

I can upgrade the memory for 90 $ (Crucial 16GB (2x8GB) SO-DIMM DDR3 1333MHz)

The hd Crucial M500 - Disco duro interno SSD de 240 GB (SATA, 2.5") for 134$


I want to put el Capitan.


Total cost are 280$ aprox. i think that´s a big offer

The questions:

I want the mac mini for:

Intense web browser (2 browsers with 10 tabs)
Music (youtube, spotify, itunes)
Some ocasional programing( ios, phyton, web)
Some ocasional photo.
Some ocasional vmware windows-linux
Some ocasional game low graphics
Sometimes 2 monitors
Its a god machine for that?

Thanks

Pdta. Sorry my english is very bad
Click to expand...

I have a 2011 Mac mini and it's my workhorse to this day. I should state first though that I have the 2.5GHz version that came with AMD graphics and I've done an after market upgrade to 8GB.

I love it, best desktop I've ever owned.

As for your questions:

El Capitan: Yes, runs fine as long as you give it 8 or more GB of RAM

Web browsing: Yes, great for that, again you limiting factor is RAM

Programming: I'm a web and python developer and it's great machine for that. I have Xcode installed and have played around with Swift; from what I can tell it has the chops for iOS development too.

Photos: Yes, it's our family's photo storage hub and editing platform (Pixelmater is great)

Virtual Machines: Yes, I do a lot of dev work on a VM (Server and Mate flavours). Again, Ram is primary limiting factor.

Game: Hmmmmm, this really depends on what your idea of low graphics is. As noted, I have the AMD GPU in mine and can play Starcraft, Diablo and Tomb Raider on medium settings settings at 720P with framerates acceptable to me. Games older than that run fine. HD3000 will limit you even more than that, so keep your expectations very low and stick to older titles.

Two monitors: Yes, even the HD3000 will drive two monitors. The HDMI port is limited to 1920x1200 I think.
 
Question - forgive me for being naive.

If you are gonna buy a $50 computer with a processor from 2011, presumably technology from 2010 knowing Apple, and then sink $225 upgrading it's ram and SSD, why don't you just buy a newer version? It's very likely I would think that the old processor is going to be a huge choke point. And you are doing nothing about it.

For 'intense web browsing' maybe a more modern processor would be more beneficial than 16GB of ram or a new SSD? Just some thought.
 
I literally just got a Mid 2011 mini this past Friday from our IT dept who had it laying around. It is the base model that came with 2gb ram; I got a little ahead of myself and decided to do all the updates including El Capitan before picking up additional ram.
I'd say OS updating took the better part of 8-10 hours. Trying to browse/switch between stock apps was horrible. Upgrading to 8gb ram immediately solved this - computer works great now and has no issues handling basic tasks. I'm curious how big of an improvement an SSD would make.
 
SSD makes a big difference. Once you experience it, it is difficult to go back to a mechanical drive. 2011 Mini can host 2 internal drives. I bought an iFixit Mac Mini upgrade kit which includes SATA connector and all and drivers necessary to operate the surgery. Install OS to SSD and use the HDD as the second drive.
You wait the machine starts up with HDD, after the upgrade, you watch the machine starts up right away.
I recommend SSD upgrade.
 
Totally said:
Question - forgive me for being naive.

If you are gonna buy a $50 computer with a processor from 2011, presumably technology from 2010 knowing Apple, and then sink $225 upgrading it's ram and SSD, why don't you just buy a newer version? It's very likely I would think that the old processor is going to be a huge choke point. And you are doing nothing about it.

For 'intense web browsing' maybe a more modern processor would be more beneficial than 16GB of ram or a new SSD? Just some thought.
Click to expand...
There is nothing new with Apple technology that makes the 2011 Mac Mini obsolete...I would put the maximum of ram possible....I have a 2011 and it does everything just fine.....
 
This is my current machine. In fact, I'm typing my response on it now. The only bad thing is when I try to screen record on a Java-intensive application, but that goes across the line of current Macs also with this one piece of software.

It is one hell of an amazing machine.
 
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