MacMini 2014 i5 1.4Ghz - spinning disk 4.000 or 5.200 rpm?

[Giuanniello]

Got this MacMini late 2014, a base model with i5 1.4Ghz CPU 4GB RAM and 500GB spinning disk, previous user used to have lot of stuff onto it, practically unusable, not slow, basically dead.

Went the format route and it is much better but somehow it still feels slow, just wondering which kind of disk this used to ship with, if a 4,xK or a 5.2K RPM

I plan on upgrading to an SSD probably but in the meantime I would live it as it is, no money to throw on something which I don't strictly need nor I have the damn TR6 torx screwdriver to remove the bottom plate but just curious to know how comes it is that slow, CPU or HD? It kind of looks slower than another Mini I have which I only use to stream music which is a C2Duo with same RAM and 320GB spinning drive.

Grazie

P.S. found out it should be a 5.200RPM

 

[DeltaMac]

Any spinning hard drive in a mini will be 5400 rpm, and can be dog slow.
If you want the mini to be usable again, replace with SSD.
Each new version of macOS makes a spinning hard drive a bit less tolerable.
Best results will be to replace the spinning hard drive with SSD, but you will get noticeably better performance using an external SSD as the boot drive.

 

[ivnj]

An SSD will probably speed things up a little. But a 1.4ghz is still kind of slow. I have a 2.6ghz with 8gb ram and its still slow.
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Also just out of curiosity how long does the computer take to boot. Completely shut down to log in screen.

 

[Giuanniello]

Don't tell me, I also have a 2014 i7 3Ghz with 16GB and a 1TB SSD and it's nothing to tell home about with regards to responsiveness...

I pity my old 2011 MBPro with a quad core i7 and 16GB, it was damn fast but after replacing the spinning drive with an SSD it started to give me tons of issues, as of now I can only boot it into SafeMode, will have to try and find out if I can restore it.

Grazie a tutti

 

[Boyd01]

I have one of these Mini's too. Used it as an iTunes server for about 3 years and it was fine for that (it just ran iTunes 24/7 with home sharing and my media on a 4tb external disk). But for anything else, I found this machine just about useless. These are *very* slow computers... hope you didn't pay much for it! I'm sure a SSD will help, but we have discussed this model extensively and there is general agreement that it is crippled by the small amount of RAM and slow processor.

I replaced mine with a 2014 2.8ghz/8gb Mini for an iTunes server and it is much, much faster. I just put the old 1.4ghz mini in the closet because I can't think of any good use for it. I might install a SSD and use it as a Time Machine server someday, when my old Time Capsule finally dies. But right now, it's just not worth spending any time or money on such a crippled machine.

 

[Giuanniello]

I agree with all of the above, so very probably the CPU is the real deal there, I can't believe that even the C2Duo I use as a music server which is some 4 years older, same 4GB RAM and spinning disk is much snappier than the i5 one.

I got it as a deal, did fix a client's old iMac because the mini was too slow for him to work (iMac 2007 with ElCapitan being muuuuch snappier than the Mini...) and took it as a trade along with a cheapo HP 21" display, dunno what to do with it, thought to replace the C2Duo with this to steam LossLess music but I won't, maybe leave it there as an occasional torrent client or... or what?

Grazie everybody, this community is always big support

 

[ivnj]

Or try an external HD. Still a little faster. My mini boots in 30 seconds now.

 

[Giuanniello]

A 500GB SSD here is about 70 bucks/euros, it is planned as to replace the spinning one in the Mini I use as a music server, once this unreal situation unlocks and, hopefully (but not that much confident about it), we get back to work might get one and try the 2014 Mini first and if still too slow switch it into the one dedicated to music.

Grazie

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Got this MacMini late 2014, a base model with i5 1.4Ghz CPU 4GB RAM and 500GB spinning disk, previous user used to have lot of stuff onto it, practically unusable, not slow, basically dead.

...

P.S. found out it should be a 5.200RPM

I have never heard of a 5200 rpm hard disk drive. And 4000 rpm? Maybe there was such a beast in the early 90s but certainly not widespread in this millenium.

The normal commercially available hard drives come at: 5400 rpm, 7200 rpm, and 10000 rpm.

Note that modern operating systems run the best on SSDs as they are running many more processes that have need to read/write to storage. If you are running a version of macOS on your Mac mini 2014 that has some sort of cloud services, you will strongly benefit a move to a SSD.

Even back in the late 90s, the 5400 rpm drive was considered a "consumer" class device (TiVo set top boxes used these). 7200 rpm drives were mid-range and the 10000 rpm devices were enterprise class (you use a bunch of these for an Oracle database).

 

[DeltaMac]

Original MBAir (2008) used a 4200 rpm drive, but the device was a 1.8-inch drive -- a tiny thing...
No other Macs used anything like that, outside of iPods.

 

[Giuanniello]

Well, long time I didn't deal with spinning disks, mistaken for a few hundred RPMs 😉 back at the time I was still using PCs (my first Mac, a Ti667 PowerBook, what a machine!!!) I also got a U-SCSI 7.200RPM whose money could now buy me a used scooter... used it also in the Dual G4 PowerMac which, like the PowerBook, was a hell of a computer, too noise but even tho it's sitting in a storage since about 15 years, just plug in the AC and it works flawlessly.

I still own the 1st gen iPod with that spinning drive and remember the digital cameras using spinning disks in the form of memory cards

Everybody have a nice week end

 

[Boyd01]

my first Mac, a Ti667 PowerBook, what a machine!!!

I had one of those and just loved it! Unfortunately, I fried it connecting to a big video projector that was improperly wired back in 2003. Boy, was I upset especially since it happened at the beginning of a very busy week of long days mounting a large opera.

http://www.boydostroff.com/il-trovatore-2003/the-trovatore-project/

I went out to CompUSA (who remembers them, LOL?) that same evening but they no longer had the Titanium PowerBooks, only the new Aluminum G4 that had just been released so I bought one. At least my company paid for it. I still have the aluminum G4 in the closet (right next to my aluminum MacBook Pro, which looks identical), but all it will do is play the "chimes of death now".

 

[Partron22]

I'm quite happy running my 2014 mini off a 1TB Samsung SSD hooked into an Orico USB-3 caddy.
The 5400 1TB internal holds music, books, and an emergency boot drive. There's NO need for speed there, and leaving things as they are, I don't have to try bending 7 year old ribbon cables.