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Oops.. I just pulled the plug on my Mac mini that was running any damage?

S

Sarah Hamilton

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 19, 2021
109
24
I was plugging in a different socket and needed an empty one and had a blonde moment and pulled out the Mac mini’s plug and then realised after.

It’s working fine now no problems dm it booted straight up

Will it be damaged?
 
Get yourself a small UPS (the Mini power output is tiny, especially if an M1).
Connect your mini and monitor to it for peace of mind.

If your lights ever flicker during bad weather but doesn't affect your tv for example, it is a tiny spike.
If your Mac is on, this can (theoretically) damage it.
A UPS would kick in for the smallest spike/drop in voltage and protect your equipement.

Obviously this is not applicable with a laptop, as it has a battery built-in.
 
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The only thing I know of that could be an issue is if the drive is being read from or written to when you unplug it - that data might be corrupted go missing. But that's not going to physically damage your computer or critical system files.

Someone suggested a UPS, but of course that will do you no good if you unplug the computer from the UPS. It only kicks in during a power outage. But that's definitely something you want still want to buy.
 
usagora said:
It only kicks in during a power outage.
Click to expand...
It will kick-in more than you think, not just from a complete power cut.
The smallest change in voltage will activate it (spike or drop), where your day-to-day electrical items won't even know it's happened, a computer is more sensitive.
 
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MarkC426 said:
It will kick-in more than you think, not just from a complete power cut.
The smallest change in voltage will activate it (spike or drop), where your day-to-day electrical items won't even know it's happened, a computer is more sensitive.
Click to expand...

Sure - power outage or dropped voltage. But if your voltage is dropping often enough to make your UPS kick in, I'd have an electrician look at your wiring, as that's not normal. Before using a UPS, I never had a comptuer fail/shut off unless the power went out completely. But my point was that the UPS only does good if the computer is plugged into it, and the OP was about him unplugging the computer accidentally. Of course, if he unplugs the UPS instead, then he's good ?
 
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MarkC426 said:
It will kick-in more than you think, not just from a complete power cut.
The smallest change in voltage will activate it (spike or drop), where your day-to-day electrical items won't even know it's happened, a computer is more sensitive.
Click to expand...
I am pretty sure that low end UPS's do not have the "Boost/Buck" feature. This to me is the most important feature a UPS can have.
 
Cape Dave said:
Question: Does that unti have a fan and/or make noise? Specs did not answer that question. Thanks.
Click to expand...

No, there's no fan on it. My UPS doesn't have one either. It's basically just a surge protector with a battery inside.
 
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usagora said:
No, there's no fan on it. My UPC doesn't have one either. It's basically just a surge protector with a battery inside.
Click to expand...
I have two APC UPS'es just like that (or maybe older versions). They definitely have fans, I can't imagine that any UPS could work without a fan. However, the fan only kicks in when you run on battery power. The UPS will get quite warm running on battery and would surely overheat without a fan.

Anyway, this is all rather off-topic because (as others have pointed out), if you unplug the computer itself then a UPS isn't going to do anything for you. ;)
 
Boyd01 said:
I have two APC UPS'es just like that (or maybe older versions). They definitely have fans, I can't imagine that any UPS could work without a fan. However, the fan only kicks in when you run on battery power. The UPS will get quite warm running on battery and would surely overheat without a fan.
Click to expand...

Perhaps higher capacity ones do, but here's a teardown of a comparable UPS, and you can see there's no fan:


However, there are heat sinks and vents for heat dissipation.

Most consumer-grade UPS units are only going to be able to keep you running for a few minutes anyway - they're not intended as backup power generators so much as to simply give you a few minutes to save your work and shut down your equipment properly.
 
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My comments were in relation to the 1500 watt APC UPS that was linked to above. I was answering the specific question that was asked about that unit. Like I said, I have two of them and the fan kicks in quite loudly when the line power drops.

Now, perhaps there is a new version of that device that looks exactly the same but doesn't have a fan? I got mine a number of years ago.
 
Sarah Hamilton said:
I was plugging in a different socket and needed an empty one and had a blonde moment and pulled out the Mac mini’s plug and then realised after.

It’s working fine now no problems dm it booted straight up

Will it be damaged?
Click to expand...
In general modern computers and OSes appear to be fairly resilient to this (journaling file systems etc) - especially if they we're actively writing files to disk.

Don't worry about it.

Try to avoid it in the future (as others have mentioned, consider a UPS).
 
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Boyd01 said:
My comments were in relation to the 1500 watt APC UPS that was linked to above. I was answering the specific question that was asked about that unit. Like I said, I have two of them and the fan kicks in quite loudly when the line power drops.

Now, perhaps there is a new version of that device that looks exactly the same but doesn't have a fan? I got mine a number of years ago.
Click to expand...

And my reply was in response to you saying this:

I can't imagine that any UPS could work without a fan
Click to expand...

;)

I'll concede I don't own that model that was linked, so perhaps I'm wrong about that one, but I found a teardown of one the same brand here that also has no fan, so maybe they've added one to them since? They seem to only use heat sinks and vents for cooling. So it's definitely possible for a UPS to function without a fan.

In any case, fan or no fan, it shouldn't be an issue in terms of noise. As you said, it's only when you're drawing on the battery that it turns on with your unit.
 
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usagora said:
And my reply was in response to you saying this:



;)

I'll concede I don't own that model that was linked, so perhaps I'm wrong about that one, but I found a teardown of one the same brand here that also has no fan, so maybe they've added one to them since? They seem to only use heat sinks and vents for cooling. So it's definitely possible for a UPS to function without a fan.

In any case, fan or no fan, it shouldn't be an issue in terms of noise. As you said, it's only when you're drawing on the battery that it turns on with your unit.
Click to expand...
If it is only when battery is used, I can deal with that.
 
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