A 128 GB drive costs less than a 256 GB drive. We should be able to pay less for the product while Apple maintains the same margins. But unfortunately other people think it’s their place to tell us what we need.
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Should I get the 2020 Mac Mini or wait for next gen?
- Thread starter leeuk321
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Apple likes to have a simplified lineup, which makes good business sense and also aligns with their ideology. If they appealed to all user needs and budgets, it wouldn't be an efficient business model and would also create a cluttered store. They need to move with the market, and it makes best sense all-round to have the 256gb hard drive on their $799 model; which effectively gives a $200 reduction on all machines that feature a hard drive of 256gb and above. What's the alternative?
- They keep their 2018 pricing of $799 for a 128gb machine. Doesn't make sense.
- They keep the 128gb option and also give that a $200 reduction to make the base model $599. Doesn't make sense.
They've made the decision to have the base Mac Mini at $799, whatever the base spec, and you've got to respect their decision since they're quite a profitable company, ahem; so having the base of $799 start with a 256gb hard-drive makes sense for that price in 2020.
So, in practical, actionable terms I'm not sure what you're suggesting with your desire for a 128gb hard drive in the lineup?
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Your numbers are off. They could give a reasonable reduction in price like they did with the new iPhone 11. With cloud computing becoming so prevalent, there are many people out there who don’t need excessive and expensive hard drive space.
Unfortunately Apple only hears the loud people who constantly scream that 128 GB is not enough and everyone needs more than that, even though that is simply not true.
If you are buying a new computer and in particular an Apple computer the real difference in cost between a 128gig and 256 gig drive is negligible in 2020. It's not like the first iMac when you were looking at a 4 or 6 gig hard drive with a significant cost difference. A larger SSD will also be faster and likely longer lasting.
No, the reality is that you are in a minority group that believes their needs will not change during the life of the device, given many keep these devices more than 5 years, the OS gets bigger, as does software, image and so on.
As @ashleykaryl notes again, the cost difference is negligible these days, few want to have less storage to save a couple of bucks, especially when you cannot upgrade it later.
I'm not sure what you mean sorry? These aren't my number's, they're Apple's, so it's impossible for my numbers to be off. Since you didn't give an actual illustration of what you was wanting to happen, I'm assuming what you're suggesting is for Apple to have a Mac Mini with 128gb hard drive for less than $799? Doesn't make sense, like others have mentioned the actual cost difference to them would be negligible, and they've set the "floor" at $799, which is what they've come to as the base cost that they feel would be best, all things considered. Be even if they did, are you wanting a Mac Mini at what, $779? And maybe reduce the RAM to 4GB for those who are ok with it, for $749. Maybe give an option of a lower CPU for $699? Or a plastic body for $649?
They've decided that $799 is the price for the base model, and they've matched the spec according to the market and maximum profitability. As times move on, the $799 model might be able to fall in line with current demands, and hopefully we'll then see them offer the i5 with the base model, with i7 and i9 being the two upgrade options. Or they might (*might*) e.g. later on deem that there's still a huge demand for i3 models and deem that they can make the base model $699 with that CPU, if they think it'll make good money and market sense. That's the direction that Apple is going to head in. But I'd say that dropping a few dollars off the $799 price just to give a hard drive option that's becoming more and more unsuitable just doesn't make good market/money/marketing sense whatsoever.
This $200 number is yours alone:
“They keep the 128gb option and also give that a $200 reduction to make the base model $599. Doesn't make sense.”
Being implemented on 8th gen Intel CPUs I'd probably wait for a refresh. That said, given Apple's track record you might be waiting a while. So if today's units fulfil your needs of today then I'd be more likely to be buying today. If you're happy to wait then wait.
I did wonder if the 2020 update might carry some undocumented improvements. I read something the other day saying it had resolved some bluetooth issues and other points that were present with early production computers.
My personal rule of thumb for that is to double the RAM and storage of the base model apple offers and you'll usually be OK after 3 years or so depending on your particular usage.
Going too far beyond that - you need to give yourself a proper business case as to why you need that inside the next 3 years. Some people might, but if you can't think of a legitimate reason it would help you in the short-medium term, don't go there.
Apple are pretty stingy with RAM and SSD in their base models though to hit a price point.
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often see people use the cloud as an excuse for minimal storage. I'd say sure - to a point. But data is getting bigger and SSD is much, much faster than the internet. Having a super-fast SSD is kinda pointless if your important stuff won't actually fit on it. I can understand if you don't actually HAVE any important stuff and the machine is purely for media streaming... but then... that's better done by an AppleTV or an iPad.
Cloud as I see it is a replacement for your NAS or backup storage. As file sizes expand and as we do more with computers local storage needs will continue to grow. It may still be only 10% of your total data stored locally, but that 10% is going to still get bigger over time.
Cloud also isn't always available.
Skimping out on local storage too much is just going to bite you down the line.
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You are stating a lot as a definitive fact, but in reality this is nothing more than your opinion, which is not representative of everyone else.
It was approximately 21 years ago when I remember having to buy a 120 GB hard drive because the 80 GB hard drive in my computer was getting full.
Since then I have used less and less storage. Your idea that one day that’s going to reverse is nonsensical.
I don’t just consume media on my computer and switching to an Apple television is very silly for you to say. I use my computer to run my business, and a normal person would consider those documents “important stuff”.
While you may have a shrinking storage need that's not the norm. You would definitely be in the minority. At the end of the day Apple's storage offering at the bottom are ridiculously low and/or slow and only serves as a vehicle to highly priced upgrades.
Like you I can say that my computer storage needs have shrunk. There was a time my desktop computer needed in excess of 2TB whereas today I only need 200GB, or even less. Leaving it at this would be a big lie though as that ignores the fact that I've implemented greatly on NAS. I've done it so I'm not having to pay for those excessively price upgrades at each and ever computer, or phone/tablet. Spending 6.000€ on my NAS implantation has in fact been ultimately cheaper and simpler.
A "normal person" has an ever increasing storage need.
Maybe you should re-read.
"I'd say" = my opinion. Based on working in the computing industry professionally for 23 years (and being that nerd kid who's good with computers who went to university for computer science before that). i.e., my informed opinion.
You're in the minority. And those documents will tend grow over time due to the inclusion of higher resolution media being sent to you. Whether you like it or not, compute and storage cost continually falls over time and people's data expands to make use of it. This has happened reliably since the 1960s and isn't slowing down any time soon.
In terms of the total BOM cost, upgrading 1 tier of storage is cheap. Which is why apple did it for free to give you a slightly less stingy option in the 2020 base model air this year.
Sounds like you're stating that as definitive fact, whereas the industry and computing history does not support your assertion. Where's your evidence. Hint: one person (yourself) is not evidence.
If what you say is true, hard drive vendors would not be spending billions of dollars on SMR for 20+ terabyte hard drives - and actually selling them.
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I expect to keep mine for ten. Hardware doesn't change that fast anymore. As Apple move to a services model there is an incentive for them to keep supporting older hardware.
In the past 10 years:
- USB transfer speed has gone from 480 megabit to 10 gigabit (i.e., 20x)
- wifi has gone from 100 megabit to gigabit+ (10x)
- storage speeds: IOPs have gone from 75 to say 8,000-10,000 (100x random IO) transfer rates from ~100MB/sec to 3GB/sec (30x)
- AES encryption acceleration built into CPUs to speed up crypto (e.g., any encrypted data transfers you do either on the internet or using FileVault) by 30x or more
- Both h.264 and h.265 video codecs have been given hardware acceleration instructions inside the CPU to dramatically speed up / reduce cpu load on 1080p and 4k video
- TouchID has become a thing
- Retina displays are now a thing
If you're still using a machine from 2010 you have missed out on all of those improvements. Sure, the machine might still work, but its going to be massively slower at just about everything than even a modern budget netbook or tablet.
No, it's not mine alone. It was one of two hypothetical examples asking what you propose, since you didn't (and still won't) actually specifically say what you think Apple should do in terms of specs and pricing. If I remember correctly, the 128gb -> 256gb upgrade cost on the Mini used to be $200, so it's not "mine alone", and in any case was a hypothetical figure/example standing in for the actual figure/example that you're refusing to give.
I mean, with all due respect, all of your comments are borderline trolling. Even though pretty much everyone else is explaining in detail and great length why it makes sense to evolve to 256gb, and why it's pretty much a moot point anyway in terms of pricing, what you're replying with almost just boils down to: "Nope, could be cheaper with 128gb, which is enough for a lot of people because it's enough for me."
There's no reason, logic or understanding of the working world in anything you're saying.
Most of that sounds impressive but when I look at the practicalities it makes zero difference to my use case. I have one USB device that TM backs up to, it could run at half it's current speed and I wouldn't notice. My WiFi far exceeds my broadband connection. I wouldn't want to give up my retina display but I can't see another doubling of resolution making any difference. TouchID doesn't exist on the Mac Mini. And despite all these so called advances my 2018 MM still chokes on JavaScript heavy pages.
I'll stay on the slow track thank you.
Indeed, a lot of people in the same position, advancements are great but in reality, they don't bring much to what you actually do.
You could guess that the co-location guys don't want external PSUs littering the place. One cable into the mini and no bricks hanging around outside the unit makes for a much tidier rack.
If I were looking to design a mini now I'd look at ease of cleaning dust out as well as access to internals for adding or replacing faulty RAM and storage - yes I know the SSD on the Mini is soldered to the motherboard). I guess it's rare that a PSU goes down but for a co-lo person the ability to just slot in to the rack and restore from a backup makes them desirable.
The 2018 PSU is technically accessible, like the RAM, it's just a more technical disassembly required to get to it and you'd need to get the part of course.
As for Mini refurbs, they do appear in the UK refurb store. For a brief time after the bump the old storage SKUs were available as 'refurbs' before disappearing - Apple changed the RRP internally before discounting the usual 15% to mark for a very attractive discount if the buyer was happy with the storage on offer. I suspect Apple were clearing out their channel.
The same happened for the previous generation iPad Pros - for a brief time the lowest storage levels were very good deals and they still turn up on brief occasion. The higher storage variants don't have as much discount applied so it's probably worth waiting for current models to become available as refurbs as there's only a £100 difference there - well worth the extra RAM, extra cameras, better GPU, and LIDAR.
The 128Gb option was probably removed as a combination of some or all of these reasons:
a. SUPPLY CHAIN - Reduces the number of parts to manage in the supply chain.
b. PERFORMANCE - 128Gb parts perform slower than 256Gb and larger sticks due to parallel access speeds.
c. MARKETING - There's more people who would buy the base model with 256Gb than 128Gb
d. COST TO APPLE - The cost of the 128Gb parts may have been uneconomical to buy against a larger bulk spend on 256Gb parts which would go into other products - even the new 2020 MacBook Air now comes with 256Gb on the base model.
e. VALUE FOR MONEY - Apple's continuing buying power makes it possible to offer larger capacities without passing on the costs. By sticking to Apple tradition that way it keeps the perception and second hand value of Macs high.
To be fair I know someone who uses as little storage as you but you probably don't know enough people would would see the Mini now as better value - all additional storage SKUs became cheaper so the Mini becomes better value for everyone buying higher SKUs.
If I were buying a Mini today I might even BTO the SSD to 1Tb - you never know when you might need more - better to be safe than sorry - and even if I regretted not getting enough afterwards there's plenty of Thunderbolt ports to add more storage.
Apple simply won't cut prices because that doesn't fit into the perception of the Mac as quality brand and not a PC box shifter like Dell or HP. It's the factor that keeps the residual value of your Mini higher than most Wintel boxes after 3 years.
Knowing that I suspect you might be happy to see your Mini fetch a decent price on eBay in years to come rather than be comparatively worth a lot less like a Dell or HP of the same age.
Apple's iPhone pricing does appear to double up nicely, 64Gb for $x, add $50 for 128Gb, add $150 for 256Gb. The increase appears to be linear but to Apple that uplift to 128Gb may cost them $10, and the uplift to 256Gb may cost them $30 - entirely for the sake of argument.
The 'loud' people are giving Apple the profit margin. To be blunt - you're not.
In the Mac sphere of things 128Gb to 256Gb of the kind of NAND that goes into Macs, the supply chain may actually say that the 128Gb part costs $10 to make, and the 256Gb costs $12 to make (again purely for the sake of example, numbers not real). And the manufacturer then says it's uneconomic for them to keep making the 128Gb because orders have fallen so low.
Let's take a real world example: A Crucial 240Gb SATA SSD in Amazon can be bought for £35. The 120Gb version is £28.
That's NOT double the price any more as you can see. And this is budget NAND for price sensitive buyers.
Lower capacity high performance NAND NVME PCIe SSD of the kind that Apple need (comparable to Samsung 970 Pro) isn't even on sale in Amazon any more at 128Gb sizes. They sell 256Gb and 512Gb sizes and they scale in in a sane fashion (up to 1Tb and 2Tb for example).
For me that's pretty decent evidence that Apple realise that they could no longer source the parts for 128Gb SSD and simply doubled up using their economy of scale without passing the price on due to their spending power and a drop in the price of NAND since 2018.
There are repercussions for the rest of the Mac range though. What about the NAND used for Fusion drives (24Gb and 128Gb sizes respectively), could this be the reason why Apple is rumoured to be bumping the iMac range soon?
Double Bummer.
"AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory."
This can fit into the 16 inch MacBook Pro. A 'THIN' machine.
But it can't fit into the Mac Mini? :? So you can buy a £1500 Mini and still have crappics. No model offered with superior graphics? Or design and sell a mini gpu style dock that serve the gpu needs. A double height mini would give the space for the gpu. But if the Macbook Pro has space for a 'decent' (loose description) graphics, why not the mini?
Meh.
Perhaps Apple should take leaf out of Intel's book with the Nuc..?
Or put the impressive (and recently released) Ryzen laptop CPUs with Integrated Graphics into their next mini?
Mini could be a decent machine. But it's all about the upsell. To get low end graphics, you have to buy the iMac. To get a mid-range gpu you have to buy a £6k Mac Pro. And if you want high end gpu? You have to get your wallet out, a kidney to pay extra on top of that Mac Pro.
Azrael.
[automerge]1587229524[/automerge]
Meh.
Azrael.
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The mini is supposed to be able to do that on a more sustained basis than the MacBook Pro though. The CPU is a 45w part while the Navi AMD 5500M GPU uses 50w (previous Polaris graphics parts are supposedly sipping at 50w).
The Mini as it is becomes an uneconomical machine if you have to add a GPU to it for real world use.
Yup.
I was disappointed when I heard the Mini was going Pro and there was no GPU in it. Seriously, Apple? So, it inflates it's price (no accident.) ie. You have to eGPU it for Pro workloads. eg. For something like Blender. Or for preview windows.
I'd have been far happier with a double height Mini with dedicated GPU in it.
'Only Apple.'
Azrael.
[automerge]1587233343[/automerge]
Sharing My Experience with eGPU Solution
Hi, I used to read the forum for 2 or 3 years. I never attended to participate in the conversations. However, today I decided to write a post sharing my experience with the eGPU solution. In the past 2 or 3 months, I checked a couple of articles, posts and Youtube videos that promote the eGPU...
forums.macrumors.com
Interesting thread.
But again, it inflates the Mini. When buying a 12 core Ryzen with 5700XT (dual boot PC/Hack) is going to run you about the same price.
Azrael.