Mm 1,1-6,2 The Best “Early” Intel Mac

[alex_free]

I recently discovered that the Mac mini late 2012 (2.5ghz) is considered an early intel! Hurrah! Because I can finally brag about it…

I bought this for ~$50. You can run the worlds best operating systems with first class support:

* Windows 7 x86_64 via bootcamp.
* Modern Fedora Linux 43. PERFECT SUPPORT.
*Mac OS 10.8-10.14 officially, newer version unofficially…

Honestly, I Triple-boot mine with all 3. Windows 7, Mac OS 10.8-10.15, and bleeding edge fedora. Not only is Linux support flawless under default gnome, but:

* you can REPLACE the HDD with an SSD (TBD by myself).
* You can install a second HDD/SSD if you feel like it (no user mod necessary).
*You can install Windows 7 or any OS via USB (if you have an earlier Intel Mac you ll know how important this is).
* If you install the right codecs on fedora, your torrented x265 1080p content will play perfect.
* If you use legacy-chromium on Mac OS , you’ll have a first class experience no matter what Mac OS you decide on.

This is the last “true” Mac mini imo.

* You can upgrade the storage, hell you can add two different storages to it.
* You can upgrade the RAM to 16GBs.
* It has Intel HD-4000 with a gig and a half of vram allocated to it. Linux loves this, so does every other OS.. so throw your 2012 and below games at it with ease…. It doesn’t have vulkan but it does have windows 7 native support… stop asking soo much. It’ll easily due fallout 3, fallout new Vegas, bio shock, basically early 7th gen no problem either via wine or Windows.
* With linux you can turn it into a modern server. I have a 20TB BTRFS HDD connected to mine. And I can still connect to it with Legacy-SSH-Enabler while it’s running modern Linux perfectly with CyberDuck on much older hardware.

I guess end of rant. But this thing is amazing. I can play any h.265 content with it, it’s my media player on my 4k tv (even tho it only does 1080p output) and stores all of my music and torrents. The most future proof Mac ever imo

 

[eyoungren]

I have a late 2009 Mini that has Catalina on it. 8GB with a 500GB SSD and a 6TB external drive. I shut it off for summer in early 2024 and haven't gotten back to it yet (it's in the garage). When I do, I'll be installing Sonoma via OCLP on it. Works great for me. Glad you're happy with yours.

 

[!!!]

* With linux you can turn it into a modern server. I have a 20TB BTRFS HDD connected to mine. And I can still connect to it with Legacy-SSH-Enabler while it’s running modern Linux perfectly with CyberDuck on much older hardware.

I've never heard of this so I read it. Unfortunately, it seems like it's more of a solution in search of a problem:

There are other solutions that require you to add a bunch of arguments to your ssh command...
You need to remember all of the arguments every single time you use ssh or scp....
What Legacy SSH Enabler does is adds 2 custom configuration files to your /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d and /etc/ssh/sshd_config.d directories. This doesn’t modify any existing OpenSSH configuration files directly, super cool

The developer doesn't seem to know about ~/.ssh/config, which is where you should put host-specific config for stuff like this. By modifying the system files you're applying the option to all connections, which could potentially reduce security. Additionally, they're adding it to the daemon config as well, which is to connect to your machine.
For connecting to old snow leopard/lion installs I have this in my ~/.ssh/config:

Host snowleo
    HostName snowleo.local
    User ...
    Ciphers aes256-ctr
    PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes ssh-rsa
    KexAlgorithms diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1

It then simply tells your OpenSSH to work with all of them!

There's a reason why they're disabled by default, because they're insecure. Re-enabling the option for all connections just isn't a great idea.

---

As for the question at hand, I like my 2011 mini. You can unofficially install Snow Leopard on it with very minimal tinkering, and it runs just fine.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I recently discovered that the Mac mini late 2012 (2.15ghz) is considered an early intel! Hurrah! Because I can finally brag about it…

A little bit of periodic bragging is good for the soul.

I bought this for ~$50.

Congrats, Alex! I checked eBay (UK) and found quite a few bare bones MM 2012's (500GB HDD & 4GB RAM) hovering around the £50 GBP price range - which is a tad higher than $50 USD but Apple products are usually more expensive in Europe.

Good to see that you're having fun with yours.

 

[MBAir2010]

alex_free​

yes, these Mac mini from 2010 are very great1!
I lost my 2012 last year as the graphic card went after successfully replacing the thermal paste 4 day before.
you seem like you have things under control although Mojave might the best OS for that.

We across the pond have OWC macsales and are asking $39 for a Mac mini 2.5GHz Dual-Core Core i5 processor.
they include a spinning 1TB hd which we always swap.
they have a 2014 mini for $59, Intel Iris 5100, with 1GB VRAM, that runs Monterey and 8GB ram.
I have an M1 with Monterey that is staying with Monetrey 2022.

the 2014 mini is very tempting!

 

[alex_free]

I've never heard of this so I read it. Unfortunately, it seems like it's more of a solution in search of a problem:

The developer doesn't seem to know about ~/.ssh/config, which is where you should put host-specific config for stuff like this. By modifying the system files you're applying the option to all connections, which could potentially reduce security. Additionally, they're adding it to the daemon config as well, which is to connect to your machine.
For connecting to old snow leopard/lion installs I have this in my ~/.ssh/config:

Host snowleo
    HostName snowleo.local
    User ...
    Ciphers aes256-ctr
    PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes ssh-rsa
    KexAlgorithms diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1

There's a reason why they're disabled by default, because they're insecure. Re-enabling the option for all connections just isn't a great idea.

---

As for the question at hand, I like my 2011 mini. You can unofficially install Snow Leopard on it with very minimal tinkering, and it runs just fine.

I can’t stop laughing, IM THE DEVELOPER. I personally do not care about my local network security. Id rather be able to ssh in from Mac OS 9, iOS 4, Mac osx 10.4 tiger, or whatever then deal with these issues. Please understand this is LOCAL NETWORK not exposed to the internet 🤣 your points are all still valid of course.

 

[alex_free]

A little bit of periodic bragging is good for the soul.



Congrats, Alex! I checked eBay (UK) and found quite a few bare bones MM 2012's (500GB HDD & 4GB RAM) hovering around the £50 GBP price range - which is a tad higher than $50 USD but Apple products are usually more expensive in Europe.

Good to see that you're having fun with yours.

I truly don’t think I’ve gotten more out of 50$ then with this Mac mini. It is completely competent in 2025 maxed out to 16GBs, and it’s the last model you can upgrade the ram and storage on. It also can run such a range of operating systems

 

[r6mile]

I've just recently set up my parents' old and long-unused 2012 i5 dual-core Mac Mini (which already had 8GB of RAM and an SSD + an HDD), to put in a bigger SSD and HDD, to make it into a headless Time Machine backup server, as well as a Content caching server, for their Apple Silicon Macbooks.

It was running super hot even while idle, so I put in new thermal paste and it's honestly a night and day difference. Basically it's now a sort of glorified Time Capsule!

 

[ToniCH]

I have 3 2012 Mac Mini Servers (i7 2.3GHz) which have 16GB RAM and all have 1-2 SSDs. One is run by my wife as her daily driver, one is a backup server and one is a media server. Years ago I paid 250€ for the first one but the others were in 100€ range couple of years ago. Great machines still! 👍

The media server one even has a Sonnet eGPU connected.

What is the difference between normal and Server Mac Mini 2012? Pretty much the same thing but all Servers have i7 4 core cpus and 2 internal drives as stock. The non servers only have 1 setup for internal drive from factory, to install a second drive another installation kit must be purchased.

I also run a Mac Mini Server 2009 (30€) which still works perfectly as a file server too.

 

[r6mile]

Speaking of the great i7 quad 2012 Mini, if anyone in the UK is after one I may soon have two for sale… Both with SSDs of course. One with 12GB RAM, the other 16GB.

(One has been my main computer for years, until I just upgraded to a 2018 i3 quad. The other I recently bought as “for spares” and fixed up)

 

[MacInTO]

I think the forum name should be Intel Macs because they are all fairly early now!

I'm the same way but with the 2014 Mac mini (2.6 8GB) which I basically got for free. It has soldered RAM which is a drawback but it can take two drives, SATA and NVMe. I did not think I had any use for it but ended up using it as a media server. I really like the HDMI port because it can output 4k@30Hz. I read it can do 60Hz via the mini DisplayPort but I find 30Hz is fine for my use.

I have a 2012 15" MacBook Pro i7 2.3 which is the same processor as one of the variants of the 2012 Mac mini. I can get 4k@30Hz from the mini DisplayPort with it so I'm surprised you are only getting 1080p from your Mac mini.

 

[notabitail]

I have pretty much all Intel Macs. People just keep getting rid of those 13 inch MacBook Pros. I have a 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 13 inch ones. I plan on fixing up the 2012 to give to a Sibling since it's still pretty good. The 2011 is fine but it's really loud. The other two are great but they are kinda slow with some more modern tasks. I really like the design of that era of Mac since I can upgrade them. My 11-inch 2014 MacBook Air is nice but it's only got 8GB of RAM. I did put Sequoia on it though so at least I can do modern Mac stuff.