New entry level Mac Mini - performance is very poor..

[yjchua95]

Thank you all, I have met with some success.
in case anyone else asks;

SSD used: OCZ Arc 100, 240 GB SSD
Enclosure: innatek USB 3 enclosure (UASP supported)

Method:

Used CCC to clone mac hard Drive (minus user profile) to SSD.
Once completed, in System Prefs. selected SSD as boot device.
Rebooted.
Selected my home folder on the original drive via system prefs.
Rebooted again (mush faster now!)

So now I have the OS on the SSD and my user data on the HDD.

Speed increase is very evident, but I might get even better by buying an even bigger SSD (500 GB) and repeating but this time moving the user profile also.

So far, excellent, thank you all

You'll get even better performance if you buy a PCIe blade pulled off other Macs on eBay, and stick it into the PCIe slot in your Mac Mini.

 

[GilesM]

Like the posters before have explained, having an ssd is not just a thing you can do as an idea. It has to be done! A higher speced mini without an ssd will still perform relatively purely. Everytime something is read or writen to the harddrive, an hdd will cause lag, beachballs, bouncy apps ...

That is trying to peddle new macs with hdds inside shows bad intentions on their part. It's somewhat anoying with the minis, because they need to be upgraded by hand, but it's an insult for the imac series, because the hdd inside them is not upgradable for normal consumers.

I am still surprised, that the entry mini works that bad for you. I have the 2012 mini, but also with an hdd, 4gb of ram, b even hd4000 gpu and ivy bridge cpu. I can open several apps without running into any unusual lag, once these apps are open.

Hi, yes I am not sure why my mini was running so poorly, it is less than a month old. I have done nothing to stress it as far as I know, just email, web browsing and itunes. Itunes is run from an SSD via USB 3, so I have no clue as to why my mini was so stressed out.
So, I completed the move to a boot disc on an external SSD and it is better now. This is the performance I expected initially, so I am pleased.

What I am not pleased with is Apples policy here, why does this entry level Mini even exist? From a customer point of view it is the most disappointing Apple product I have ever bought. In my opinion it is not fit for purpose and Apple should be brought to task over this, but that is not going to happen.
So it is "buyer beware" and don't trust Apple quite the way you did before the demise of Mr. Jobs.
So sad, have you forgotten your core market Apple? Or do you not care as much as you used to about iMac and Mac Mini anymore?

Is it possible that this is a reflection of Apples away from computers and in to tablets, phones and watches? I can not believe Apple would have set out to build a product like this in the pre iphone era.

 

[steve217]

Thank you all, I have met with some success.
...
So now I have the OS on the SSD and my user data on the HDD.

Speed increase is very evident, but I might get even better by buying an even bigger SSD (500 GB) and repeating but this time moving the user profile also.

So far, excellent, thank you all

Glad it worked out for you! I still contend the base mini is good machine, it's just a pity you have to be technically proficient to bring it to life. The market for that box is newcomers to Apple and what an unwelcoming entry it is!

Giles, now think about fusing that external SSD with your internal HDD. Let CoreStorage manage data locations for you. It's a pretty slick implementation of tiered storage.

 

[GilesM]

Glad it worked out for you! I still contend the base mini is good machine, it's just a pity you have to be technically proficient to bring it to life. The market for that box is newcomers to Apple and what an unwelcoming entry it is!

Giles, now think about fusing that external SSD with your internal HDD. Let CoreStorage manage data locations for you. It's a pretty slick implementation of tiered storage.

Steve, I will need to research it first. I see 3 options ahead;

1) make a new time machine back up (in progress) and stay as I am.

2) invest another SSD and case, but make it bigger and faster, better ( Samsung EVO 500 GB) and do the same again but this time including the user profile).

3) as you suggest fuse the two drives.

Hmmmm... Lots to think about.

 

[Meister]

Glad it worked out for you! I still contend the base mini is good machine, it's just a pity you have to be technically proficient to bring it to life. The market for that box is newcomers to Apple and what an unwelcoming entry it is!

Giles, now think about fusing that external SSD with your internal HDD. Let CoreStorage manage data locations for you. It's a pretty slick implementation of tiered storage.

I am really surprised that the 2014 entry level doesn't perform well, because my base 2012 still runs strong, even with an hdd.

 

[GilesM]

I am really surprised that the 2014 entry level doesn't perform well, because my base 2012 still runs strong, even with an hdd.

I have found many online reviews and videos warning of this for the entry level 2014 MacMini. Wish I had heeded this advice, but at least it is better now.
The improvement is impressive.

 

[Meister]

I have found many online reviews and videos warning of this for the entry level 2014 MacMini. Wish I had heeded this advice, but at least it is better now.
The improvement is impressive.

Most of these reviews, including the blog here on macrumors are misleading.
The mid-range mini won't perform much better. It's the ssd that is key!

 

[aajeevlin]

I'm curious as to what the difference in performance will be if I do a) the external SSD as mentioned above, or b) get a big enough SSD and simply swap out the drive?

I'm surprised that USB3 external SSD is working out so well (sorry, all of my machines are more than five years old), giving that I have no experience with using USB3. I do recall that running external boot from firewire was a rather slow experience.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ Most of these reviews, including the blog here on macrumors are misleading.
The mid-range mini won't perform much better. It's the ssd that is key! ]]

The SSD makes the most difference, but once up-and-running, the midrange WILL "perform better" because its CPU runs about 50% faster, AND it has a better GPU.

This is why again and again and again I've advised folks NEVER to buy the "entry level" Mini. Buy the midrange model with the fusion drive.

It costs more -- no way around that.
But the difference will be seen in excellent performance vis-a-vis intolerably slow performance (in most cases).

The entry-level Mini exists as so that Apple can boast of having a low "entry point" into the Mac desktop lineup. Unfortunately, the low price point yields an equally low user experience...

 

[Ice Dragon]

Not crazy at all.

The 5400 rpm drive Apple tosses in barely makes a decent drink coaster. The good thing is (or was) I don't feel bad about tossing them in a drawer to languish.

All my Minis have at least one SSD in them, and all of them have at least 8, and most have 16 Gigs of RAM.

But none of them got that way by lining Apple's coffers, they were all third party upgrades that I chose, and they all work flawlessly at half the price of Apple's upgrades.

My complaint is that Apple touts the low entry price, then foists the basic model on unsuspecting first-timers, or at best upsells them overpriced RAM & storage to make an adequate desktop.

Now that Apple's selling watches for more than desktop computers, and probably with fatter margins, I'm surprised they even bother with Minis

The good news is, upgrades are getting cheaper. When I bought my base mini at in 2011 at $599 it came with 2 GB of RAM and a 500 GB HDD at 5,400 rpm. To get an SSD, I would have needed to spend $800 at the time by paying $200 to go to $799 mini and another $600 to get the SSD.

When the 2012 mini came out an SSD went from $600 to $300 and later $200. Now a 256 GB PCIe SSD remains at $200. I say it doesn't get much cheaper than that and prices will only further drop.

 

[Meister]

[[ Most of these reviews, including the blog here on macrumors are misleading.
The mid-range mini won't perform much better. It's the ssd that is key! ]]

The SSD makes the most difference, but once up-and-running, the midrange WILL "perform better" because its CPU runs about 50% faster, AND it has a better GPU.

This is why again and again and again I've advised folks NEVER to buy the "entry level" Mini. Buy the midrange model with the fusion drive.

It costs more -- no way around that.
But the difference will be seen in excellent performance vis-a-vis intolerably slow performance (in most cases).

The entry-level Mini exists as so that Apple can boast of having a low "entry point" into the Mac desktop lineup. Unfortunately, the low price point yields an equally low user experience...

The mid-range mini does not have a fusion drive.
It has the same lame spinner as the entry model.

The mid range cpu boosts up to 3.1ghz, the entry one to 2.7ghz.
Both have 3mb l-cache and dual core haswell architecture.

In the OPs usage scenario there is no advantage having hd5100 instead of hd5000 gpu. Or 8gb over 4gb ram.

Overall the entry and mid-range mini will perform exactly the same for the OP.

 

[GilesM]

[[ Most of these reviews, including the blog here on macrumors are misleading.
The mid-range mini won't perform much better. It's the ssd that is key! ]]

The SSD makes the most difference, but once up-and-running, the midrange WILL "perform better" because its CPU runs about 50% faster, AND it has a better GPU.

This is why again and again and again I've advised folks NEVER to buy the "entry level" Mini. Buy the midrange model with the fusion drive.

It costs more -- no way around that.
But the difference will be seen in excellent performance vis-a-vis intolerably slow performance (in most cases).

The entry-level Mini exists as so that Apple can boast of having a low "entry point" into the Mac desktop lineup. Unfortunately, the low price point yields an equally low user experience...

I really feel I have had a lucky escape by being able to improve the performance enough by booting and running the OS from an SSD. Prior to this morning I was contemplating buying another device, and god forbid, buying a Little HP windows machine, I was that piss€d off with Apple.
Now I don't have to worry, but I feel bad for anyone else who buys this model who, for whatever reason, can not perform this little boost!
From now on it's SSD all the way for me, already have one hosting my Itunes library as well as the one running OSX. Pretty soon spinning discs will be a thing of the past for me.

----------

The mid-range mini does not have a fusion drive.
It has the same lame spinner as the entry model.

The mid range cpu boosts up to 3.1ghz, the entry one to 2.7ghz.
Both have 3mb l-cache and dual core haswell architecture.

In the OPs usage scenario there is no advantage having hd5100 instead of hd5000 gpu. Or 8gb over 4gb ram.

Overall the entry and mid-range mini will perform exactly the same for the OP.

Indeed, but you could configure the mid level unit with the SSD if you buy direct from Apple. Of course there is an inflated price to pay as per Apples usual pricing structure. Perhaps that is what is eluded to here.

----------

I'm curious as to what the difference in performance will be if I do a) the external SSD as mentioned above, or b) get a big enough SSD and simply swap out the drive?

I'm surprised that USB3 external SSD is working out so well (sorry, all of my machines are more than five years old), giving that I have no experience with using USB3. I do recall that running external boot from firewire was a rather slow experience.

Actually, you do not need a very big SSD. Mine is 240 GB, but only around 35 GB is used by the OS, so I could have used a much smaller SSD. That is only the case if you only copy over the OS and not the home folder. That would have been larger than the SSD, so this is the only option I had, but it certainly made a big difference.

----------

I'm curious as to what the difference in performance will be if I do a) the external SSD as mentioned above, or b) get a big enough SSD and simply swap out the drive?

I'm surprised that USB3 external SSD is working out so well (sorry, all of my machines are more than five years old), giving that I have no experience with using USB3. I do recall that running external boot from firewire was a rather slow experience.

USB 3 is a whole other ball game. It really is a game changer.

 

[phrehdd]

The bottom end Mac Mini, in my estimates, should not even be sold as it really is a poor performer other than for doing web browsing and minor applications. As others pointed out, it has a wimp CPU, slow drive and suffers when RAM is only 4 gigs.

More RAM, faster drive would make it somewhat tolerable but where was Apple when that decision had to be made? Oh yeah, sticking to their latest incarnation of their marketing model.

If anyone cares to install MacTracker, you can compare the various Mac Mini models to see that the only real advantage of the latest crop of Mac Mini remains with USB3, TBolt, and a better on board video (which is also castrated when not provided sufficient RAM to share).

Candidly, I admit to being a fan of the Mac Mini. One of my Mini models is the old quad 2.0 server with a 3rd party RAM upgrade and SSD. That lil' monster is still going strong and puts these newer Mini models to shame in nearly all venues of application.

For now, I'll wait to see what the next Apple decision is with the Mini and if they continue this pathetic path, I'll have to consider alternatives which saddens me. Let's hope Apple brings back quad cpu, provides healthy options for RAM and drives. All this hard wired stuff is pretty damn unpleasant.

 

[steve217]

Actually, you do not need a very big SSD. Mine is 240 GB, but only around 35 GB is used by the OS, so I could have used a much smaller SSD. That is only the case if you only copy over the OS and not the home folder. That would have been larger than the SSD, so this is the only option I had, but it certainly made a big difference.

Your usage scenario makes you a perfect candidate for a Fusion Drive. Your home folder is bigger than your SSD but your OS is a fraction of that.

I don't mean to nag you about this, Giles, but seriously think about fusing the two drives and rather than shuffle files from disk to disk, let CoreStorage manage your drives.

USB 3 is a whole other ball game. It really is a game changer.

USB 3 really makes all the difference. It's probably the single best thing about the Mac Mini 2012+.

 

[yjchua95]

Indeed, but you could configure the mid level unit with the SSD if you buy direct from Apple. Of course there is an inflated price to pay as per Apples usual pricing structure. Perhaps that is what is eluded to here.

Apple's pricing for the SSD isn't all that inflated, because:

1. It's not a regular SATA3 SSD. It's a way-faster PCIe SSD.
2. It uses MLC NAND, instead of the cheaper (and not as good TLC NAND) found in consumer grade SSDs like the Samsung Evo series

 

[GilesM]

Your usage scenario makes you a perfect candidate for a Fusion Drive. Your home folder is bigger than your SSD but your OS is a fraction of that.

I don't mean to nag you about this, Giles, but seriously think about fusing the two drives and rather than shuffle files from disk to disk, let CoreStorage manage your drives.



USB 3 really makes all the difference. It's probably the single best thing about the Mac Mini 2012+.

I get the point, it really do, but I have read what is involved, and it is just to much for me to take on. I would rather buy another SSD big enough to hold everything. I know this is expensive but it is simple and safe. Unless I am wrong?...

 

[steve217]

I get the point, it really do, but I have read what is involved, and it is just to much for me to take on. I would rather buy another SSD big enough to hold everything. I know this is expensive but it is simple and safe. Unless I am wrong?...

No, you're right, a large SSD is simple and safe. In fact, with a Fusion drive, you quite possibly "square the probability of failure" with two drives acting as a single volume. I doubt that the probability is very high, though, and if a failure happens to my Fusion-drived, low-tech friend, I'll be the first one to report back on what went wrong and where.

I just remember the incomparable nerd buzz I got when I fused those two drives and the Macintosh HDD showed as 620gb in a single volume.

Take care and I'm glad your Mac is rescued from that cheap platter.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

The bottom end Mac Mini, in my estimates, should not even be sold as it really is a poor performer other than for doing web browsing and minor applications. As others pointed out, it has a wimp CPU, slow drive and suffers when RAM is only 4 gigs.

More RAM, faster drive would make it somewhat tolerable but where was Apple when that decision had to be made? Oh yeah, sticking to their latest incarnation of their marketing model.

If anyone cares to install MacTracker, you can compare the various Mac Mini models to see that the only real advantage of the latest crop of Mac Mini remains with USB3, TBolt, and a better on board video (which is also castrated when not provided sufficient RAM to share).

Candidly, I admit to being a fan of the Mac Mini. One of my Mini models is the old quad 2.0 server with a 3rd party RAM upgrade and SSD. That lil' monster is still going strong and puts these newer Mini models to shame in nearly all venues of application.

For now, I'll wait to see what the next Apple decision is with the Mini and if they continue this pathetic path, I'll have to consider alternatives which saddens me. Let's hope Apple brings back quad cpu, provides healthy options for RAM and drives. All this hard wired stuff is pretty damn unpleasant.

I have worked with the 1.4GHz Haswell MacBook Air on several occasions and I can tell you the CPU is not the problem with the base Mini. It blew my 2010 mini clear out of the water at pretty much any task, including video editing.

It's not a processing monster, but it certainly does not get the credit it deserves.

The problem is, simply, the hard drive. No computer in 2015 should be sold with a mechanical hard drive.

Having said that, I do agree Apple should bring back the quad core option for Skylake.

 

[cynics]

Apple makes way too much money on their SSD option to include it as standard.

IMO at the very least should be a fusion drive like the 5k imac.

From a business perceptive 7200 rpm should be the bare minimum and even then with a lot of focus being put on software to keep frequently accessed thing near the outer edge of the platter.

 

[Meister]

Apple makes way too much money on their SSD option to include it as standard.

IMO at the very least should be a fusion drive like the 5k imac.

From a business perceptive 7200 rpm should be the bare minimum and even then with a lot of focus being put on software to keep frequently accessed thing near the outer edge of the platter.

For an average customer, there is no noticable performance difference between a 5400rpm and 7200rpm hdd. Ssds are faster by a factor of 1000!

 

[scottsjack]

If you're going to spend base mini money you might want to consider this;

http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=Homepage_SS-_-P4_9SIA68F2B19552-_-04062015

The cost of a new mini with the power of a last gen Mac Pro. Such a deal

 

[Meister]

If you're going to spend base mini money you might want to consider this;

http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=Homepage_SS-_-P4_9SIA68F2B19552-_-04062015

The cost of a new mini with the power of a last gen Mac Pro. Such a deal

Your link shows a windows PC with a sata3 hdd inside ...

 

[Altis]

The mid-range mini does not have a fusion drive.
It has the same lame spinner as the entry model.

The mid range cpu boosts up to 3.1ghz, the entry one to 2.7ghz.
Both have 3mb l-cache and dual core haswell architecture.

In the OPs usage scenario there is no advantage having hd5100 instead of hd5000 gpu. Or 8gb over 4gb ram.

Overall the entry and mid-range mini will perform exactly the same for the OP.

Not entirely true. Yosemite is a memory hog that can use ~4GB at fresh idle. So the base model with only 4GB total ends up doing a lot of memory paging to the slow hard drive. With 8GB on the mid-range, at least it isn't making constant trips to the hard drive when just doing general tasks (as OP describes).

Ultimately both should have an SSD, but you have to spend nearly double the price of the base model to have it configured with one as it isn't available on the base unit.

PCIe SSD doesn't make that much of a difference.

 

[yjchua95]

Not entirely true. Yosemite is a memory hog that can use ~4GB at fresh idle. So the base model with only 4GB total ends up doing a lot of memory paging to the slow hard drive. With 8GB on the mid-range, at least it isn't making constant trips to the hard drive when just doing general tasks (as OP describes).

Ultimately both should have an SSD, but you have to spend nearly double the price of the base model to have it configured with one as it isn't available on the base unit.

PCIe SSD doesn't make that much of a difference.

Yosemite isn't a memory hog. In fact, free RAM is wasted RAM. Free RAM values are no longer relevant ever since Mavericks introduced RAM compression and caching.

Real usage should be dictated by just looking at the memory pressure graph and absolutely nothing else.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Not entirely true. Yosemite is a memory hog that can use ~4GB at fresh idle.

This is nonesense. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. On my computer with 4gb of ram, it is "using" nearly 4gb at bootup, then when I launch Safari it is still using 4gb with only a few kb of paging, then when I launch iTunes it's still using 4gb, then when I launch Word it's still using 4gb, and then when I launch iFlicks and begin converting converting a video file it's still using 4gb with still less than 100kb pageout. The whole time, the memory pressure is green. I am not running low on RAM.

Clearly, the understanding of what "using" memory and "free" memory actually is, is important. Think of it being more as reserved. At fresh boot, Yosemite reserves all the memory right off the bat so it can be used even quicker and smarter than it would if it was simply free - it's managing the RAM rather than letting apps simply get dibs at it, first come first serve, like older OSs.