Speccing a replacement Mini

[MR_Boogy]

The point is coming where my 2012 Mini is due to be retired. I use it all day as my main machine, mainly for Parallels, as well as for music stuff (currently just GarageBand but planning to upgrade).

The M1 chip puts me at a bit of a crossroads, especially as only the entry-level Minis are M1. The low memory available on M1 (especially once shared memory is taken into account) could come to bite me as I want this machine to last several years, especially as it is utterly non-upgradeable. I'm also not sure the software is quite ready yet. But, it seems damn quick.
On the other hand the 2018 MM does allow RAM upgrade (if you can be bothered) and is tried and tested... but I'd be buying into a discarded technology.

Price-wise the i5 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD comes in at £1300, or £1500 for the i7 (10-20% benchmark improvement).
The M1 with same memory and disk is £1100, and smashes even the i7 in benchmarks.

Right now, I cannot run Parallels with a Windows guest OS on M1 as far as I can see - it's in development but even then Windows ARM licenses are confusing.

Is it too early for someone like me to jump into M1? Should I just get an i5/i7 and assume by the time my next upgrade cycle comes along, everything will be figured out, knowing that I've lost a lot of processing power and paid more? Who knows what the higher-spec ARM MM will offer in performance?!

 

[MR_Boogy]

By the way this might be a dumb question, but the Mini is the best bang-for-buck of any Mac, if I don't need a laptop?

 

[mdgm]

If you already have a screen, keyboard and mouse then yes the Mac
Mini is the way to go.

If you need to run Windows or other software not yet working on the M1 then go with the Intel model.

Once Apple stops providing security updates for it the Intel Mini it could be repurposed as a Windows machine using BootCamp and likely get updates for years longer.

 

[MacCheetah3]

From the looks of it, you've already narrowed down the top points.

Should I just get an i5/i7 and assume by the time my next upgrade cycle comes along, everything will be figured out...?!

In my assessment, yes.

knowing that I've lost a lot of processing power and paid more

I think, you're being too critical here. There's (presumably) always something better if you can wait, and replaced products always lose value. Do your best decision based on all of the current facts and options, unless you want to create your own e.g. Hackintosh.
The 2018 Mac mini, even though it's now two year old tech, is still 3x to 6x more capable/powerful than the 2012 versions -- beyond CPU, the IGPU is more capable SATA vs PCI-E for storage bus, DDR3 vs DDR4 RAM, HDD vs SSD, etc.

By the way this might be a dumb question, but the Mini is the best bang-for-buck of any Mac, if I don't need a laptop?

I haven't done any calculations to determine if it's the best value, however, it is the most affordable.

 

[mdgm]

The 2012 Mac Mini will still get security updates for nearly 2 years. Another option would be to stick it out with the 2012 Mini for a bit longer and hope that a reasonable solution for running Windows on an Apple Silicon machine emerges before then.

People have figured out how to run Big Sur on the 2012 Mini even though it's unsupported by Apple.

If your 2012 Mini has a hdd in it you could speed it up by booting off a USB3 SSD. Even better (though much more expensive) would be Mac Mini -> TB (1/2) cable -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Dock -> TB3 NVMe SSD. A TB3 Dock would be needed if using a bus powered external TB3 SSD as the only bi-directional adapter the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter doesn't transfer power.

My 2011 Mac Mini doesn't have USB3 and booting it off a TB3 SSD rather than using the internal hdd it's like having a much newer machine. Apps that used to take half a minute to load, now open within a few seconds or so.

 

[MR_Boogy]

The 2012 Mac Mini will still get security updates for nearly 2 years. Another option would be to stick it out with the 2012 Mini for a bit longer and hope that a reasonable solution for running Windows on an Apple Silicon machine emerges before then.

People have figured out how to run Big Sur on the 2012 Mini even though it's unsupported by Apple.

If your 2012 Mini has a hdd in it you could speed it up by booting off a USB3 SSD. Even better (though much more expensive) would be Mac Mini -> TB (1/2) cable -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Dock -> TB3 NVMe SSD. A TB3 Dock would be needed if using a bus powered external TB3 SSD as the only bi-directional adapter the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter doesn't transfer power.

My 2011 Mac Mini doesn't have USB3 and booting it off a TB3 SSD rather than using the internal hdd it's like having a much newer machine. Apps that used to take half a minute to load, now open within a few seconds or so.

This would be my preferred option, I already have it booting from SSD with the original drive relegated for data and performance is rarely an issue... But problems are starting to mount up and as my primary work machine reliability is important. If it dies on me, a day's lost billing will make me wish I hadn't tried to hang on!

This doesn't seem the best time to buy a new Mac with things in such flux, and I'm not normally an early adopter, but the Intel MM is so darn pricey for the spec... The 2012 was such a great price in comparison.

 

[mdgm]

In that case getting a new Intel Mini and perhaps keeping the 2012 around just in case the 2018 ever has problems (as a stop gap to use until the 2018 gets fixed) is probably the best way forward.

The RAM in the 2018 Mini can be upgraded but you have to basically pull apart the whole machine to do so, unlike the 2012 Mini where it's an easy upgrade. For using Virtual Machines you want to have plenty of RAM. 16GB would be the minimum recommended for that use case and more is of course better.

As the SSD is soldered on some would prefer to boot off an external SSD whether that be a TB3 one (fastest) or a USB-C one (less expensive, but slower).

The price has been one of the things holding me back from getting a new Mini too, but with the current Intel Mini almost certainly the last Intel one I may still decide to get one.

The 2018 Mini running Mojave 10.14 can run 32-bit Intel apps. So if you have 32-bit apps that haven't got upgrades or have expensive paid upgrades for the 64-bit version that can be attractive option to say run Mojave for nearly a year till it stops getting security updates and purchase new software at that time spreading out the costs a bit. Or you could put Mojave in a VM and fire that VM up on the 2018 Mini whenever you need to run a 32-bit ap

 

[4sallypat]

....
If your 2012 Mini has a hdd in it you could speed it up by booting off a USB3 SSD. Even better (though much more expensive) would be Mac Mini -> TB (1/2) cable -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Dock -> TB3 NVMe SSD. A TB3 Dock would be needed if using a bus powered external TB3 SSD as the only bi-directional adapter the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter doesn't transfer power.

My 2011 Mac Mini doesn't have USB3 and booting it off a TB3 SSD rather than using the internal hdd it's like having a much newer machine. Apps that used to take half a minute to load, now open within a few seconds or so.

I used to connect my 2012 Mini to a LaCie Thunderbolt SSD external drive to boot from instead of the slow spinning internal drive.

$50 for a 1TB SSD was a deal!

 

[richmlow]

In that case getting a new Intel Mini and perhaps keeping the 2012 around just in case the 2018 ever has problems (as a stop gap to use until the 2018 gets fixed) is probably the best way forward.

The RAM in the 2018 Mini can be upgraded but you have to basically pull apart the whole machine to do so, unlike the 2012 Mini where it's an easy upgrade. For using Virtual Machines you want to have plenty of RAM. 16GB would be the minimum recommended for that use case and more is of course better.

As the SSD is soldered on some would prefer to boot off an external SSD whether that be a TB3 one (fastest) or a USB-C one (less expensive, but slower).

The price has been one of the things holding me back from getting a new Mini too, but with the current Intel Mini almost certainly the last Intel one I may still decide to get one.

The 2018 Mini running Mojave 10.14 can run 32-bit Intel apps. So if you have 32-bit apps that haven't got upgrades or have expensive paid upgrades for the 64-bit version that can be attractive option to say run Mojave for nearly a year till it stops getting security updates and purchase new software at that time spreading out the costs a bit. Or you could put Mojave in a VM and fire that VM up on the 2018 Mini whenever you need to run a 32-bit ap

It's always good to have a backup computer, if possible.


richmlow

 

[MacCheetah3]

@d000hg I see it this way... Even if Parallels compatibility for Apple’s M series chips is only a couple of months away, it still means you wouldn't be able to do that part of your workflow, whether you buy the 2030 Mac mini or not before that compatibility exists. If you can’t or feel you shouldn’t wait, an Intel mini is your only option, unless the app(s) you use do function in the ARM version of Windows.

Microsoft Brings x64 Emulation to Windows on Arm PCs

Microsoft today announced the first preview of x64 emulation for Arm PCs, with the feature now available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. That...

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[MR_Boogy]

In that case getting a new Intel Mini and perhaps keeping the 2012 around just in case the 2018 ever has problems (as a stop gap to use until the 2018 gets fixed) is probably the best way forward.

The RAM in the 2018 Mini can be upgraded but you have to basically pull apart the whole machine to do so, unlike the 2012 Mini where it's an easy upgrade. For using Virtual Machines you want to have plenty of RAM. 16GB would be the minimum recommended for that use case and more is of course better.

As the SSD is soldered on some would prefer to boot off an external SSD whether that be a TB3 one (fastest) or a USB-C one (less expensive, but slower).

The price has been one of the things holding me back from getting a new Mini too, but with the current Intel Mini almost certainly the last Intel one I may still decide to get one.

The 2018 Mini running Mojave 10.14 can run 32-bit Intel apps. So if you have 32-bit apps that haven't got upgrades or have expensive paid upgrades for the 64-bit version that can be attractive option to say run Mojave for nearly a year till it stops getting security updates and purchase new software at that time spreading out the costs a bit. Or you could put Mojave in a VM and fire that VM up on the 2018 Mini whenever you need to run a 32-bit ap

I had only found this week how much harder RAM upgrade is on the 2018. I don't really want to do that but it's SO much cheaper to buy your own RAM. Especially if you start getting above 16GB, and the 2018 does support 64GB which would be awesome for Logic/Ableton music work.

Running a Mac VM on a Mac is something I've been wondering about. I haven't been able to find out yet how I get licenses for that, and which versions are still available. A legacy VM running pre-Catalina could be neat.

On the M1/Intel point, I typically use a Windows VM to in turn RDP to a secure machine on my client site through VPN. So, it struck me that actually, as long as I have a good RDP/VPN client it doesn't matter if I'm running Windows on Intel, Windows on ARM, Mac, Linux in the VM - it's just a terminal.

 

[Boyd01]

If you already have a screen, keyboard and mouse then yes the Mac
Mini is the way to go.

Before making that leap of faith, spend a little time reading the many threads here about issues with older monitors on the M1 Mini. Might not be a problem, but there are clearly many monitors that work on a 2012 Mini but not the M1. To be fair, some of these screens might also have issues on the 2018 Mini however.

Regarding the rest, I got an i7 Mini back in June and absolutely love it. Would even go so far as to say it's about the best Mac I've had, and I go all the way back to the 512k "Fat Mac" in 1985. I replaced my old desktop PC with Windows 10 in Parallels and it is substantially faster, plus so much more convenient to have everything on one computer now. I also run MacOS Mountain Lion and Sierra in Parallels virtual machines which lets me use literally thousands of dollars of 3d, CAD and database legacy software. None of this would be possible on the M1 Mini, and I wonder if it will ever be? It would have to run as emulation on the M1 which would surely affect performance/compatibility.

The M1 is cool and someday it might be a good choice for me, but right now I'm glad I have the 2018 Mini and 64gb RAM.

 

[mdgm]

I had only found this week how much harder RAM upgrade is on the 2018. I don't really want to do that but it's SO much cheaper to buy your own RAM. Especially if you start getting above 16GB, and the 2018 does support 64GB which would be awesome for Logic/Ableton music work.

Indeed. The prices Apple charges for RAM upgrades particularly to the top amounts are very high

Running a Mac VM on a Mac is something I've been wondering about. I haven't been able to find out yet how I get licenses for that, and which versions are still available. A legacy VM running pre-Catalina could be neat.

You can use VMWare or Parallels, maybe even Virtualbox. Virtualbox is free. VMWare Player is free for personal use on Catalina and Big Sur.

You can get installers from https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT211683

There are instructions for how to create the VMs on the web. I haven't done it as yet, but I may need to soon.

On the M1/Intel point, I typically use a Windows VM to in turn RDP to a secure machine on my client site through VPN. So, it struck me that actually, as long as I have a good RDP/VPN client it doesn't matter if I'm running Windows on Intel, Windows on ARM, Mac, Linux in the VM - it's just a terminal.

Yes, you can do that. It can be handy to have your own VM or machine to work with to test things out before applying changes at a remote site.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I had only found this week how much harder RAM upgrade is on the 2018. I don't really want to do that but it's SO much cheaper to buy your own RAM. Especially if you start getting above 16GB, and the 2018 does support 64GB which would be awesome for Logic/Ableton music work.

A suggestion... Find a reputable Apple Authorized Reseller and Service Provider, inquire about the cost of replacing the memory if you purchased a Mac mini and third-party RAM from them, or provided your own. It‘d still be a significant savings, you wouldn’t need to deal with the hassle of disassembly and assembly, plus it should maintain the Apple warranty.

On the M1/Intel point, I typically use a Windows VM to in turn RDP to a secure machine on my client site through VPN. So, it struck me that actually, as long as I have a good RDP/VPN client it doesn't matter if I'm running Windows on Intel, Windows on ARM, Mac, Linux in the VM - it's just a terminal.

You could give it a try. Apparently, which I didn’t know, Microsoft has a free client available.

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Otherwise, I suggest looking at LogMeIn. The last I used them, it was a very seamless and least hassle experience. It just wasn’t worthwhile for me to pay when they dropped the free tier.

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[IowaLynn]

I needed a new machine. Chose Intel late-2020 Mini i5/16/512. Blown away. Didn't want to deal with 1.0 or 11.0 and OWC has 32 and 64GB sets, would buyback my Apple memory and has necessary tools and kit and video for DIY.

The latest SSD is just 2500/2200 r/w speeds. so happy - For now I run Windows 10 natively which is superb. Very fluid. Was using Surface Laptop 2. My MacBook (2015) was struggling with Catalina/BS and dying battery.

The i5 runs cooler and I don't and didn't need i7 and added heat/cost.