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

Upgraded from M1 mini to M2 Pro mini, can't wait to get it

VitoBotta

VitoBotta

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 2, 2020
1,020
414
Espoo, Finland
What sort of performance difference will I see jumping from the regular M1 to the M2 Pro (10 cores)? I am upgrading to have more ram for virtual machines, but I am hoping to see a nice speed boost too. Has anyone done the same upgrade and can share experiences?
 
Depends what you do with it. If it's Safari and Mail, you're unlikely to notice anything. If you're do processor intensive activities like Video rendering you're going to see a significant jump.
 
VitoBotta said:
What sort of performance difference will I see jumping from the regular M1 to the M2 Pro (10 cores)? I am upgrading to have more ram for virtual machines, but I am hoping to see a nice speed boost too. Has anyone done the same upgrade and can share experiences?
Click to expand...
I have an M1 mini and a 14" M2 Pro MacBook Pro. In day to day use, there is absolutely no difference in how fast one feels. Processor intensive tasks can be a bit faster with the M2 Pro but I'm not generally working either one very hard so the difference is negligible.
 
chrfr said:
I have an M1 mini and a 14" M2 Pro MacBook Pro. In day to day use, there is absolutely no difference in how fast one feels. Processor intensive tasks can be a bit faster with the M2 Pro but I'm not generally working either one very hard so the difference is negligible.
Click to expand...
What kind of use?
 
Hi OP, I actually just picked up a 12 core 14" MBP and have been using it for about a week now. I also have a 2020 Mac Mini w/16GB RAM at home that I use as well.

I do a fair amount of virtualization on the Mac Mini with an Ubuntu Server ARM VM and a smorgasbord of Docker containers. With how I'm using the machines, virtualization is definitely snappier on the M2 Pro.

But! I'd wager this has more to do with the differences in the storage. The 1TB storage on the 14" is significantly faster than the M1's storage, and I definitely feel that difference spinning up containers.

The M2P is measurably faster in single-core perf, but in my experience not noticeably so. I think the big difference for us is the extra cores on the M2P just allow for more stuff to run at once. Not necessarily faster per se, but certainly more capacity. The M2P Mac Mini should be a great upgrade for you though with the additional capacity over the M1. Just my $.02!
 
Crow47 said:
Hi OP, I actually just picked up a 12 core 14" MBP and have been using it for about a week now. I also have a 2020 Mac Mini w/16GB RAM at home that I use as well.

I do a fair amount of virtualization on the Mac Mini with an Ubuntu Server ARM VM and a smorgasbord of Docker containers. With how I'm using the machines, virtualization is definitely snappier on the M2 Pro.

But! I'd wager this has more to do with the differences in the storage. The 1TB storage on the 14" is significantly faster than the M1's storage, and I definitely feel that difference spinning up containers.

The M2P is measurably faster in single-core perf, but in my experience not noticeably so. I think the big difference for us is the extra cores on the M2P just allow for more stuff to run at once. Not necessarily faster per se, but certainly more capacity. The M2P Mac Mini should be a great upgrade for you though with the additional capacity over the M1. Just my $.02!
Click to expand...

From what I read and watched on YT my understanding is that the internal SSD on the M2 macs is actually slower than the M1's. Is that not the case for you?
 
You're correct, but only when speaking of the base models. Indeed, base M2 models can have slower disks than base M1s, accounting for model type. Apple has opted to use fewer NAND chips on the base M2's, which means less data can be written in parallel, so these are slower as a result.

Regarding the 2020 M1 Mac Mini specifically, while I haven't measured the disk speeds on my specific system, this article from Tom's Hardware has this to say about the '20 Mac Mini with 256GB SSD:

The 2020 Mac mini (M1, 256GB) uses two 128GB NAND chips in parallel and achieves 2733 MBps write and 2854 MBps read with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test...
Click to expand...

My 14" has the 1TB drive, which has 4 NAND chips instead of 2 on the 512GB models. I benched it out of the box at around 6000/5000 read/write via BlackMagic. It's an absolutely speed demon by comparison! Feels much more comparable to the Gen 4 nVME drives I have in my x86 systems.
 
Crow47 said:
You're correct, but only when speaking of the base models. Indeed, base M2 models can have slower disks than base M1s, accounting for model type. Apple has opted to use fewer NAND chips on the base M2's, which means less data can be written in parallel, so these are slower as a result.

Regarding the 2020 M1 Mac Mini specifically, while I haven't measured the disk speeds on my specific system, this article from Tom's Hardware has this to say about the '20 Mac Mini with 256GB SSD:



My 14" has the 1TB drive, which has 4 NAND chips instead of 2 on the 512GB models. I benched it out of the box at around 6000/5000 read/write via BlackMagic. It's an absolutely speed demon by comparison! Feels much more comparable to the Gen 4 nVME drives I have in my x86 systems.
Click to expand...
My M2 Pro 14" has 512GB storage, so it's "slow" but it's still very slightly faster than my 1TB M1 Mini's storage.
 
A month ago I bought an m2 Pro 32gb/1tb Mini to replace my m1 16/512 Mini. Everything is faster and better.

It's most obvious in my Premiere Pro and Topaz Video AI tasks--twice as fast, sometimes three times as fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Corso99 and Jumpthesnark
colinsky said:
A month ago I bought an m2 Pro 32gb/1tb Mini to replace my m1 16/512 Mini. Everything is faster and better.

It's most obvious in my Premiere Pro and Topaz Video AI tasks--twice as fast, sometimes three times as fast.
Click to expand...
That's great, I'm considering an M2 Pro Mini with the same specs. Do you also work with Lightroom or Photoshop by any chance? Thanks!
 
Jumpthesnark said:
That's great, I'm considering an M2 Pro Mini with the same specs. Do you also work with Lightroom or Photoshop by any chance? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Photoshop, yes, and InDesign. I love it that I can work on all this stuff and watch a Dodger game in Firefox and browse in Safari and listen to Amazon Music and write in Word, all at the same time and nowhere near the yellow in Memory Pressure.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Jumpthesnark
colinsky said:
Photoshop, yes, and InDesign. I love it that I can work on all this stuff and watch a Dodger game in Firefox and browse in Safari and listen to Amazon Music and write in Word, all at the same time and nowhere near the yellow in Memory Pressure.
Click to expand...
Thanks fantastic. Thanks!
 
colinsky said:
A month ago I bought an m2 Pro 32gb/1tb Mini to replace my m1 16/512 Mini. Everything is faster and better.

It's most obvious in my Premiere Pro and Topaz Video AI tasks--twice as fast, sometimes three times as fast.
Click to expand...

You have done the exact same upgrade and this is what I like to hear :D
 
colinsky said:
Photoshop, yes, and InDesign. I love it that I can work on all this stuff and watch a Dodger game in Firefox and browse in Safari and listen to Amazon Music and write in Word, all at the same time and nowhere near the yellow in Memory Pressure.
Click to expand...
I can do that now on my Haswell intel CPU, this is nothing new that would require such an up to date machine to do.
Glad it's working for you.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: BusanAA
Got it today, restored from TimeMachine and am up and running. It definitely feels faster than the M1 overall, and thanks to the 32GB of RAM I can keep open everything I need, including virtual machines, and stay in the green for the memory pressure. The internal SSD is a monster as you anticipated... around 6500 MB/sec both reads and writes, and despite a lot of stuff is running and spotlight is still indexing the drive :D
 
VitoBotta said:
Got it today, restored from TimeMachine and am up and running. It definitely feels faster than the M1 overall, and thanks to the 32GB of RAM I can keep open everything I need, including virtual machines, and stay in the green for the memory pressure. The internal SSD is a monster as you anticipated... around 6500 MB/sec both reads and writes, and despite a lot of stuff is running and spotlight is still indexing the drive :D
Click to expand...

That's awesome! I'm impressed with the drive in the Mac Mini. I bet that 32GB of RAM is pretty nice ;)
 
Crow47 said:
That's awesome! I'm impressed with the drive in the Mac Mini. I bet that 32GB of RAM is pretty nice ;)
Click to expand...
Finally always in the green with the memory. I am preparing for a certification in offensive security/hacking so I need to keep some VMs running, and before with just 16GB I had to shut them down every time I had to run some stuff for work and had always to be careful what I kept open at any time. No more :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: colinsky and Crow47
opeter said:
Why didn't you at least wait for M3 (Pro), if you already got/had an M1?
Click to expand...
Two years ago I didn't wait for a 27" m1 iMac, and bought an m1 Mini and a 27" 5K Ultrafine, even though I could only get 16gb of memory with it. Now I have an m2 Mini with 32gb, and the iMac is still limited to m1. Not even an m1 Pro.

How long can you wait, when Apple intentionally gives us zero roadmap to the future? I'm still waiting for the G5 Macbook.
 
  • Like
Reactions: opeter
VitoBotta said:
Are you asking me why I didn't wait .. one year? I was having constant memory pressure and swapping issues with the 16GB M1 mini, so it's a need that I had to address now
Click to expand...
OK, thanks for explanation. Then it was a good move to upgrade to M2 (Pro).
 
colinsky said:
How long can you wait, when Apple intentionally gives us zero roadmap to the future? I'm still waiting for the G5 Macbook.
Click to expand...
Well, I can wait (still on Intel Mac from 2017) and to be honest, I'm not really dependent of Apple. Anyway, I would wait for another or two iterations of Apple's silicons, so that they get a bit more mature.

But, that is just my opinion. I never buy anything known to be from first or second generation. Hell, I even don't buy that many new stuff, rather I buy used or refurbished things (computer, car etc.). Why? Because they have already been tested and may have received upgrade or have already been corrected/repaired etc. So you know roughly what you can expect and what could possibly go wrong.
 
  • Love
Reactions: BusanAA
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