Upgrading late 2012

[notned]

I recently did a software upgrade from Mavericks to High Sierra. Now we see 10 minute boot times. I've studied and am comfortable with my ability to upgrade the ram. Would that help in this case? I've seen the benefit of SSD drives but that seems much more difficult. Your thoughts? Thank you for your time.

 

[a2jack]

Reset your PRAM. Go Google for steps. Takes 2 Minutes. a2

 

[mikehalloran]

Your post is not clear. You installed Mojave but are you still running a spinning HDD in a 2012 Mini?

If so, make the move to an SSD. A good unit like the Crucial MX500 is $250 for 2TB on Amazon (less for 1TB). No bracket or temp sensor needed on a Mini.

This is an easy DIY if you watch the videos and take your time.

My 2010, a slower machine than yours, took 20 minutes to boot and log into 150 web sites before. After I installed an SSD, that same task takes 90 seconds on a slow day. Mine has an SATA II bus while yours is SATA III.

 

[treekram]

I would agree with post #2 that it's most likely using the HDD vs. a SSD that is the issue. Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM as suggested in post #2 is easy to do.

I recently tried running High Sierra on an external HDD on my 2012 Mini and it wasn't usable. It was a clone so the Spotlight indexing should have been up to date. But it didn't take 10 minutes to boot. If you don't want to use a SSD internally, you can run and boot from it externally. Crucial also sells a $22 120GB SSD or a $30 240GB SSD (this is the BX500 series with no DRAM, so it will be slow relative to their MX500 but still much faster than an aging HDD). Crucial is a top-tier brand that cost a bit less than Samsung. But unlike Samsung, they have a variety of SSD's at lower price points with different characteristics so if there's a certain price point you have, we can suggest one or two SSD's.

 

[notned]

Reset your PRAM. Go Google for steps. Takes 2 Minutes. a2

Installed high Sierra. Spinning HHD with 4gig of ram

 

[treekram]

I'm looking at my 2012 Mini (16GB RAM) running High Sierra and right after logging in it says it's using under 3GB RAM with 3.4GB cached but the way that Apple explains the use of the cached files, I don't think it would have cached the memory on your system with 4GB. I'm looking at the Activity Monitor app which you can use to see what your memory usage is.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201464

4GB is on the low end but if you don't have 3rd-party programs which start in the background, your Mini should be able to start without DRAM being a problem with High Sierra. So I don't think that would be the cause of your slow startup. If you are using significantly more than the 3GB right after startup that I see on my Mini (which is pretty much free of 3rd-party background programs), then it's probably some background program - it could also be iCloud stuff doing it's thing.

If you're looking to keep the 2012 Mini for awhile longer, you should look into RAM and SSD upgrades. The DRAM marketplace was in oversupply - I don't know what the current situation is. And as mentioned in my previous post, SSD prices are pretty affordable.

 

[mikehalloran]

Not only are SSDs very affordable, but easy to install. Look at the many videos. If, however, you don't want to do it yourself, it's easy for any tech.

4GB RAM is not enough for any Mac that accesses the internet. Fortunately, you remove the RAM while changing the hard drive out.

Installed high Sierra. Spinning HHD with 4gig of ram

Not only are SSDs very affordable, but easy to install. Look at the many videos. If, however, you don't want to do it yourself, it's easy for any tech.

4GB RAM is not enough for any Mac that accesses the internet. Fortunately, you remove the RAM while changing the hard drive out.

You have two real choices: upgrade the Mini or wonder about some magic fix that doesn't exist.

These SSDs are excellent and have a 5 year warranty $49–$249
https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-NAND-SATA-Internal/dp/B078C515QL/ref=sxin_1_ac_d_pm?keywords=crucial+mx500&pd_rd_i=B078C515QL&pd_rd_r=e1f7b98f-4787-4e4f-9da6-3454ecab06ef&pd_rd_w=mPGRa&pd_rd_wg=Hl0QW&pf_rd_p=eadd3af5-2f5b-4e14-9c3d-ff9268352f18&pf_rd_r=E9RTA4RXPRNQ3H4937MC&qid=1555013069&s=gateway&th=1

OWC RAM upgrades $23–$83
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple/Mac_mini/DDR3_1600

 

[iluvmacs99]

I recently did a software upgrade from Mavericks to High Sierra. Now we see 10 minute boot times. I've studied and am comfortable with my ability to upgrade the ram. Would that help in this case? I've seen the benefit of SSD drives but that seems much more difficult. Your thoughts? Thank you for your time.

1, Have you done Disk Utility First Aid on your boot drive? You might have some corrupt files that may need fixing with Disk Utility

2, Do you have slower USB devices attached?

3, How old is your hard drive? Sometimes old and near failing drives will take a LONG time booting into the desktop especially after Mavericks. El-Capitan and up will delay bootup to desktop if there is any issues with the drive. That happened to my 2 dead SSD drives as it took longer and longer until it couldn't boot into the desktop.

4Gb of ram shouldn't be an issue booting into the desktop. Even an internal HD drive shouldn't take 10 mins to boot into the desktop either as I have a Mac Mini 2011 with an older 160Gb stock HD when placed inside the computer and it booted in like 1 mins. Recently, I replaced the temporary 160Gb HD I had in my Mini with a cheapo no-DRAM SSD, and it only took less than 20secs to desktop. When I had the Corsair Professional model, it was faster than the cheapo no-DRAM SSD. But 10mins is too long and I think something is wrong with your hard drive.

 

[notned]

update - Did the software tweaks suggested and it booted in a minute. I'll keep the hardware advice in mind.

 

[Fishrrman]

Upgrading RAM will do little (probably NOTHING) for the "boot times".

Upgrading to an SSD will TRANSFORM the performance of the Mini -- particularly for boot times.

If you don't feel comfortable opening the Mini to install an SSD, there's a faster, easier, safer way:
Buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, plug it in, and set it up to be the boot drive.

I ran my 2012 Mini for more than SIX YEARS this way, from the very day I took it out of the box in January 2013 until I retired it last week.

It ALWAYS booted quickly and ran great that way.

 

[dandeco]

Yeah, I put a 2012 SSD into my Mac Mini and it really cut the booting time in half. More than half even! Combining that with the 16 GB of RAM and of course the 2.3 GHz i7 quad-core processor, this is a really speedy and powerful computer.