New Mac mini setup with small SSD

[ftaok]

OK. We got a new Mac mini for my wife to replace/supplement her current MBA (2014-retina). Being as we wanted to keep the budget reasonable, we got the 256GB version and opted to get a 4TB SSD a uGreen 10-1 dock.

So here's the issue/question. Her MBA has been upgraded with a 2TB drive, so it's not as easy as doing a straight migration since the 256 is smaller than her MBA.

So what would be the best procedure? I'm looking to keep it simple and keep her home folder on the 256 and put her Photos, Music, Videos onto the 4TB. She's got tons of photos and looking to take many many more.

Should I set up the Mac with her iCloud login and then copy over her Photos Library and iTunes Library first, and then point to them in the app settings? Or should I let Photos and iTunes set up a fresh library, move it to the 4TB drive, then replace her actual libraries?

I think I'm ok with the apps as I'll just redownload them.

Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

You're not going to like this reply.

You've been "penny-wise but pound foolish".
The money for the dock and external SSD should have been "put into the Mini" from the outset.

I'm going to speculate that very few users have had a satisfying experience by attempting to "upgrade" from a 2tb internal drive to a 256gb drive.

At the very least, the Mini should have had a 1tb internal SSD.

Put the photos and music libraries on the external -- it's easy enough to designate them as "the primary libraries" for their respective apps to use.

Re-install apps as needed.

My best recommendation would be to return the Mini (if it's still within the return period) for another that is more "fully configured"...

Sorry to be contrary, but that's the way I see things and I'm stickin' to it...

 

[ftaok]

You're not going to like this reply.

You've been "penny-wise but pound foolish".
The money for the dock and external SSD should have been "put into the Mini" from the outset.

I'm going to speculate that very few users have had a satisfying experience by attempting to "upgrade" from a 2tb internal drive to a 256gb drive.

At the very least, the Mini should have had a 1tb internal SSD.

Put the photos and music libraries on the external -- it's easy enough to designate them as "the primary libraries" for their respective apps to use.

Re-install apps as needed.

My best recommendation would be to return the Mini (if it's still within the return period) for another that is more "fully configured"...

Sorry to be contrary, but that's the way I see things and I'm stickin' to it...

I respect your opinion, but I don't think the higher end mini would have worked for our budget. My wife's workflow is to not use any cloud services and she's stubborn, so it's all local storage. Her current 2TB MBA is getting closed to being full, so a 1TB mini would still have these issues. A 2TB mini is way out of the price range. Right now, I'm not interested in doing the DIY swap with a 3rd party SSD, mainly because we don't have another Apple Silicon Mac to use for setup.

If the 256 drive becomes too restrictive, I'll look into selling it and buying a new one ... maybe an M5 by then. At least I can re-use the new monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[!!!]

Plug the ext SSD into the MBA, move the photos and whatever else so that what's left is less than 256GB. Then, run the migration to the mini. Then you can set up the mini and link up the photos library and all that.

 

[chrfr]

Right now, I'm not interested in doing the DIY swap with a 3rd party SSD, mainly because we don't have another Apple Silicon Mac to use for setup.

I agree with your reasoning, but I just wanted to mention you don't need another Apple Silicon Mac to set up the mini after a disk upgrade. You just need a Mac new enough to run a fairly new version of Apple Configurator.