Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The "I just ordered / bought / got my new/refurb Mac mini" threads, merged

I just ordered my first ever mac mini i7 2.3 with 256 ssd hope it lasts for a few years was tempted to buy the 2014 i5 with 16 gb ram and the ssd but pulled the trigger on the 2012 hopefully i made the right decision it was impulse moment.
 
Finally

Yeah baby!

Woken up at 6.30am on Saturday morning by RefurbMe notification, glanced at it thinking "Same old crap", then did a comedy double take when I realised what I was seeing! The next 20 minutes were a frenzy of fumbling fat fingers to buy a refurbished 2012 Mac mini on my iPhone, before giving up in a rage and starting over on my iPad. All the while expecting to be told at any second that they had now run out. Imagine my joy when the transaction completed and I got that sweet confirmation email.

Now I've been umming and ahhing over which Mac to get for ages, and when the 2014 Mac minis came out I was gutted that I'd missed the boat. So this is a happy day indeed. I opted for the 2.3 i7 with 1Tb HDD. Not the sexiest of the bunch, but I didn't want to splurge TOO much in case the Mini isn't up to my modest GarageBand and iMovie needs. Anyway I figure I can add an SSD later if it gets slow. And from the looks of things resale value should stay good for a while yet, unless Apple finally delivers a better upgrade. Personally I don't think they will, because it could undercut their iMac. But that's just an opinion based on gut feel.

I suppose I ought to invest in a better monitor, as my current one is a 5 year old Acer v193w, which I probably can't even connect up. Slightly dubious about my wireless Microsoft keyboard & mouse too. So next Tuesday I could be looking at a nice new Mac wondering what it will look like when it's plugged in!

Hope you got yours too.
 
How Much RAM?

fatboyhouston said:
Yeah baby!
...in case the Mini isn't up to my modest GarageBand and iMovie needs. Anyway I figure I can add an SSD later if it gets slow...
Click to expand...

Although it will run both programs fairly well with 4GB of RAM, I suggest you use a minimum of 8GB to maintain good performance.

SSDs are great but many of us leave our computers on which minimizes the thrilling boot advantage of the solid state storage option.
 
Just ordered my Mac Mini through the Apple Store UK.

Fingers crossed I should be getting it tomorrow; have had my iMac four years now and fancied a change.
 
I bought the Mac Mini late 2009 brand new in Jan 2010 and love the little machine. I upgraded it to 8 GB of Ram for only $43 back in 2011. I took it apart and installed it and it was fun seeing how they fit everything inside a small space.

I'm planning to upgrade to SSD to replace the aging 160 GB hard drive. The SuperDrive has been dead for 2 years, it's a known issue with many Mac Mini owners.
 
Randomly went on the refurb site at 1am last Thursday and saw the middle Mac mini on there for $589 and for some reason I felt the need to buy it without even thinking. I like it a lot. Quad-core would be nice, but the dual core i5 isn't a slouch at all. Fusion or SSD should be standard on all Macs though in my opinion.
 
itsOver9000 said:
I just received my new Mac mini yesterday, as well as a new Apple TV. I got the 2.3GHz quad i7, 4gb RAM, 1TB HDD, with AppleCare. I decided in the end it wasn't worth waiting for a hopeful 2014 refresh of the mini when the current model will already do everything I want it to just fine. Although, it might sting just a little if the rumors are true and a new model is out before the end of Feb. Oh well, the mini I got is probably overkill for what I'm going to use it for as it is!
It's mostly going to be used as an "iTunes server" for watching movies/tv shows through my new Apple TV on the TV in the living room. I'm still working on that project - storing my iTunes library on a 4TB USB3 HDD I bought a few days ago as well. I wanted the quad i7 so Handbrake encodes would go a little faster. I'll also use the mini for music. I finally got all my CD's digitized and copied into iTunes. Other than that probably just some light web browsing and light gaming. The HD4000 iGPU should be more than enough for the few (old) games I would ever play on it: Half Life/Half Life 2, Doom 3, Day of Defeat: Source, etc. I have plenty of consoles for the rest of my gaming needs.

I still have a few things left on my shopping list.. I'd like to get a decent battery backup for the mini, upgrade the RAM to 16GB in a few months, maybe get a magic trackpad. Maybe in a few years upgrade the internal drive to a 500GB or 1TB SSD, if/when prices come down.
Click to expand...


weeee! One year already. Doesn't seem like it's been that long but I guess it has! Still lovin my Mini. So glad I didn't hold out for the 2014 refresh. Still haven't upgraded my Mini to 16 GBs of RAM, 4GB seems to be doing fine. If RAM prices ever get back to a resonable price again I'd do it. Just pains me to pay $130+ when I see posts that just a short time ago, 2013?, people upgraded to 16GB for ~$60.
 
Bought a new one ... A new Mac Mini to replace the "old" one. Reason is display output can now be 4K (thru HDMI port) ... Gotta have it for the business (and its all deductible 😎 )

No significant problems syncing, except the usual: email screw ups (mostly my fault) and desktop recovery (which appears to be an Apple OS Yosemite question).

Yosemite on the old and the new, and the new one is significantly faster.

I shipped the two year old Mini to my niece's family, so she can run the new versions of GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, etc. ... (Stripping the business and private stuff from the old one took the longest time 😕 )

We have two Minis in this office, both used for web site & page development. We also have a brand new iMac w/the 4K/5K display for 4k hardware tests ... (YeeHa!)

Discovered: the ThunderBolt ports on Mac Mini and iMac can bi-directionally pass pseudo-FireWire connectivity (data & "co-processing" rendering) equal to something greater than FireWire "3200" performance using certain programs like Maya 😀
 
Last edited:
Hi,
I was thinking to buy a mac mini for my parents, and mainly to watch movie on a monitor full HD.
Reading here in this forum somewhere I realized going for a 2014 would not make any sense. it would be almost identical buying the 2012, Am I right?
Is there something I do not know about this product to consider before taking any decision?
Am i a bit upset all of them come without ssd if you want to keep you in and affordable range.

If i found a 2.5ghz 2014 or a 1.4 ghz 2012 the decision would be straight forward or not so obvious?
I am quite unaware of mac mini universe.
 
Thunderboltedge said:
Hi,
I was thinking to buy a mac mini for my parents, and mainly to watch movie on a monitor full HD.
Reading here in this forum somewhere I realized going for a 2014 would not make any sense. it would be almost identical buying the 2012, Am I right?
Is there something I do not know about this product to consider before taking any decision? ...
Click to expand...

Newer/newest Mac Mini does have HDMI output upgrades and a bit faster processor. (Untested: faster Thunderbolt ports?)
 
Thunderboltedge said:
Hi,
I was thinking to buy a mac mini for my parents, and mainly to watch movie on a monitor full HD.
Reading here in this forum somewhere I realized going for a 2014 would not make any sense. it would be almost identical buying the 2012, Am I right?
Is there something I do not know about this product to consider before taking any decision?
Am i a bit upset all of them come without ssd if you want to keep you in and affordable range.

If i found a 2.5ghz 2014 or a 1.4 ghz 2012 the decision would be straight forward or not so obvious?
I am quite unaware of mac mini universe.
Click to expand...

Newest Mini is not upgradeable. At least the 2012 models can still be opened up and upgraded with more RAM and a different HDD
 
BigDukeSix said:
Newest Mini is not upgradeable. At least the 2012 models can still be opened up and upgraded with more RAM and a different HDD
Click to expand...
I just bought a good deal of a new Mac mini 2014 8gb RAM, with i5 2.8ghz and fusion 1TB on ebay.

I hope it works, the graphic intel iris, coming from a HD3000, made the choice.
I hope it will be ok, since it is not supposed to work for heavy stuff.

For the bootcamp option running also windows in the machine will it make any difference for me being a Fusion Drive?
 
Thunderboltedge said:
I was thinking to buy a mac mini for my parents, and mainly to watch movie on a monitor full HD.
Click to expand...

Thunderboltedge said:
I just bought a good deal of a new Mac mini 2014 8gb RAM, with i5 2.8ghz and fusion 1TB on ebay.

I hope it works, the graphic intel iris, coming from a HD3000, made the choice.
I hope it will be ok, since it is not supposed to work for heavy stuff.

For the bootcamp option running also windows in the machine will it make any difference for me being a Fusion Drive?
Click to expand...



So the Mini you bought is going to your parents for watching HD movies? Even the base Mini would do that no problem.

I think for boot camp the Windows partition runs off of the HDD not the SSD portion of the Fusion drive.
 
itsOver9000 said:
So the Mini you bought is going to your parents for watching HD movies? Even the base Mini would do that no problem.

I think for boot camp the Windows partition runs off of the HDD not the SSD portion of the Fusion drive.
Click to expand...

Not really, it is a home one, it will be need to run Windows too on bootcamp for some basic programs to be ran + a bit of programming.
Nothing very demanding indeed
 
Last month I purchased a refurb 2012 2.3 i7 and immediately added 16GB and a 480 SSD using the OWC kit. I made a 1.5 TB fusion drive out of the 2 drives and reinstalled Mavericks. Works fine and very fast thanks to the SSD. Few notes I wanted share.

1) The SSD install is substantially more difficult than anything I've had to do to build an ATX style PC. It is a small case and is much more akin to working inside a laptop.

2) SSD TRIM is not enabled by OS X for non-Apple drives. This was easy to fix prior to Yosemite. In Yosemite, the kext signing security feature needs to be disabled for this work which is not the best option. TRIM is an optimization, this install will work without it.

3) Itunes authorization for iTunes Match would not work because the prior owner had not de-authorized prior to return. This required a call Apple support and the help of a level 3 technician.
 
GoYankees said:
Last month I purchased a refurb 2012 2.3 i7 and immediately added 16GB and a 480 SSD using the OWC kit. I made a 1.5 TB fusion drive out of the 2 drives and reinstalled Mavericks. Works fine and very fast thanks to the SSD. Few notes I wanted share.

1) The SSD install is substantially more difficult than anything I've had to do to build an ATX style PC. It is a small case and is much more akin to working inside a laptop.
Click to expand...

That is why if I had it all to do over again I would buy a 2.3 i7 server and install the SSD in the lower bay. Doing so would eliminate a lot of the work and would have more OEM content available for Apple Care use.
 
scottsjack said:
That is why if I had it all to do over again I would buy a 2.3 i7 server and install the SSD in the lower bay. Doing so would eliminate a lot of the work and would have more OEM content available for Apple Care use.
Click to expand...

I agree with your 2nd point but getting to the lower bay still requires a full disassembly. It's not a job for everybody.

I love the that the Mini has a built in power supply, nice design.
 
I just picked up an installed my Late '12 Mac Mini (MD388ll/a) new in security sealed factory box (that was an interesting surprise). Its the i7 2.3, I was just about to buy a '14 but couldn't justify paying more money for something that was slower... I got it for 789 at Best Buy market place. Bought some crucial 16GB ram and a samsung 850 evo 256GB SSD, along with the OWC data doubler, and some accessories.

Overall, super happy with the purchase, the install of the SSD was more difficult than expected but nothing that couldn't be handled by someone who has worked on computers.

The thing is blazing quick, there isn't an app that I've tried to load that I do not see pop up within a second or two. The boot speed on Mavericks is between 15 and 18 seconds... anyway, first Mac Desktop (I've used macbooks) and I can just say that so far I'm in love 🙂. For 1k, I don't think you can get much better that is even close to as silent and has a similar form factor.
 
Last edited:
Just got a 2012 dual core i5 2.5ghz with 4gb ram and 500gb hdd mac mini.

FOR FREE.

Going to use as a home computer, iTunes server, plex server, photo library, home theatre, printer server etc... 🙂
 
im late to this thread..

i ordered and already received my mac mini i7 3GHz, 16GB ram and 2TB HD. (max specs)

Im very very very happy with it.
 
Getting a tricked out 16 gig 3.0 ghz i7 mm on Friday , bought it w/ a 2tb fusion drive.

Ran out of Hd space on my old one and my external makes so much noise it drives me nuts.
 
Where?

adamcarvell said:
I just ordered my first ever mac mini i7 2.3 with 256 ssd hope it lasts for a few years was tempted to buy the 2014 i5 with 16 gb ram and the ssd but pulled the trigger on the 2012 hopefully i made the right decision it was impulse moment.
Click to expand...


Where did you get your i7 mac mini from?
 
George Dawes said:
Getting a tricked out 16 gig 3.0 ghz i7 mm on Friday , bought it w/ a 2tb fusion drive.

Ran out of Hd space on my old one and my external makes so much noise it drives me nuts.
Click to expand...

A 2TB FD will give you tons of storage not available with SSD only. Also you now have OEM connections for both storage locations so future upgrades will be easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back