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2014 Mac Mini as family desktop in 2017
- Thread starter ohmbaz
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"just 10 tabs". Honestly, the way people write web pages these days, they expect you to only open one page, their own. They then try to consume all the resources on your machine with that one page...And yeah, this what any prospective customer needs to know! For anyone still reading this thread who doesn't already know, this machine only has 4GB of RAM, which (after loading macOS) only leaves you with a grand total of 2GB of RAM. And you can never change this. If you can fit your applications into this space, you'll do fine. If you can't...
What is your problem, man?
I'm sorry if I came off a bit harsh, but I have a problem with being accused of "badmouthing". Micky Do's post, once again, calls those who disagree with him "superior minded geeks" who are "showing off their superiority". I count myself among those dissenting voices (who he also regularly dismisses as "dilettantes") so let's get into perspective who is "badmouthing" who here.
On topic, the OP asked "whether the Mac Mini would be a good purchase given what we will use it to do" - namely, "internet browsing, light word processing, and storing photos" and he mentions using Pages or Word, Photos and Apple Music (via iTunes). With this in mind, my opinion stands: no, the base model Mini is NOT suitable for these tasks, no matter how basic.
There's simply not enough RAM and too slow a hard drive to cope with even light multitasking (e.g. browsing a few tabs in Safari while using the bloatfest that is iTunes for Apple Music). Word will take an age to open (it's hardly lightweight, even with an SSD) although Pages may help here. There are just so many compromises with this computer, not least how it's going to cope in a few years with such lowly specs.
Worst of all? It now costs £479 ($601) in the UK! To get an acceptable configuration (mid-tier model with 8Gb and SSD) is a mind-boggling £859 ($1079).
I'm not a "geek" or a "dilettante" - I just refuse to accept these price points for a 3 year old computer with a dual-core Haswell processor, crap graphics (no 4k display for you!) and soldered RAM. The Mini used to be a terrific device. It breaks my heart that Apple is now putting out such rotten desktops and pouring all their efforts into iDevices.
I agree with your assessment of the base mini, but to be fair, the OP framed the question by saying
"I saw that at least one major electronics retailer has discounted the 2014 Mac Mini base 1.4GHz by $100 - now available for $399."
I think it's a reasonable question in that context, because any kind of new Mac for $400 is going to catch your attention. Even at that price, I would still not recommend it for all the reasons already covered. But you might look at it a little more closely than you would if it cost $600.
The low end bottom tier 2014 Mac Mini would be fine for:
Home file server
Check email
Word processing (once the app finally launches)
Internet browsing with Safari only using one tab.
But it's such a crippled device that very soon anyone will get sick of it & end up buying something better. So in the end, it's an extremely expensive Mac Mini because you'll end up buying another one… after learning the Apple Lesson.
Back in the Snow Leopard days, 4gb of ram was more than enough and a spinning HD was the norm. But the current MacOS has gotten so bloated and disk intensive that those specs don't cut it anymore.
Home file server
Check email
Word processing (once the app finally launches)
Internet browsing with Safari only using one tab.
But it's such a crippled device that very soon anyone will get sick of it & end up buying something better. So in the end, it's an extremely expensive Mac Mini because you'll end up buying another one… after learning the Apple Lesson.
Back in the Snow Leopard days, 4gb of ram was more than enough and a spinning HD was the norm. But the current MacOS has gotten so bloated and disk intensive that those specs don't cut it anymore.
Back in the Snow Leopard days, at least for me, the maximum amount of RAM my Mini could handle was 3 GB. And man, I could really have used memory compression back then...
At least you could still replace that 2.5" spinner with a decent SSD. Granted, you now have to unscrew the base plate instead of simply turning it open, but it's still relatively easy to do.
"the" refresh? Did I miss any rumors about an incoming refresh? At this point I would be really surprised if either Mac mini or Mac Pro would get another refresh at all, no matter how minor.
I strongly recommend against that! I tried that on my Late 2012 mini. In the beginning everything was fine and dandy, but after a couple of months the system became extremely sluggish, up to the point where it took a minute to even register a mouse click, with the drive LED blinking constantly. AFAIK OSX does not support TRIM on external USB drives (Thunderbolt is okay) and after a while it really shows. If external SSD as boot drive, only via Thunderbolt.
Interesting. My experience is completely different (see above). What OS are you using? I'm running ElCap with OSX server app. Or perhaps you are using a SSD with good internal cleanup routines, like a Samsung (mine is a Sandisk SSD Plus).
With the OP's comments I'm not sure they'd be comfortable doing that, it's quite a lengthy process: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+Mini+Late+2014+Hard+Drive+Replacement/32815
But yes, running externally through USB SSD would vastly improve performance.
Surprised at some of the comments here about 'people showing their superiority' when it comes to the base Mac Mini. The processor is fine, as is the amount of RAM. It's just that 5400RPM drive that is way too slow. That's the only bottleneck. For a family machine, which means using it day in day out, it'll be an intolerably slow experience and will just get slower over time as newer macOS versions are even less optimised for spinners.
Even a 32GB SSD on the mainboard, set up as Fusion, would make the world of difference. It's a fine machine other than for that drive.
Neodym wrote:
"I strongly recommend against that! I tried that on my Late 2012 mini. In the beginning everything was fine and dandy, but after a couple of months the system became extremely sluggish, up to the point where it took a minute to even register a mouse click"
No. Whatever problems you might have had, were due to something else, and NOT due to the fact you were using "an external booter".
I have a late-2012 Mac Mini i7 quad that I bought in January of 2013.
Since "day one", it has been booting and running from an SSD sitting in a USB3/SATA dock.
FOUR YEARS, going on five.
It runs as well today, as when I first booted it up.
Drive speeds REMAIN EXACTLY THE SAME as from day #1.
I can fairly say that I've been booting and running this way as long or longer than anyone else on this forum, with the most experience from having done so.
I also have a friend with the same Mini following the same procedures, and he reports no problems, either.
"I strongly recommend against that! I tried that on my Late 2012 mini. In the beginning everything was fine and dandy, but after a couple of months the system became extremely sluggish, up to the point where it took a minute to even register a mouse click"
No. Whatever problems you might have had, were due to something else, and NOT due to the fact you were using "an external booter".
I have a late-2012 Mac Mini i7 quad that I bought in January of 2013.
Since "day one", it has been booting and running from an SSD sitting in a USB3/SATA dock.
FOUR YEARS, going on five.
It runs as well today, as when I first booted it up.
Drive speeds REMAIN EXACTLY THE SAME as from day #1.
I can fairly say that I've been booting and running this way as long or longer than anyone else on this forum, with the most experience from having done so.
I also have a friend with the same Mini following the same procedures, and he reports no problems, either.
Well, whatever caused the problem on my side, they are there. It may depend on the USB dock / housing, the SSD used, the Software combination or a melange of all those.
So while my experience is only anecdotal, yours is as well. Means that OP should be prepared to _possibly_ run into problems. Especially as chances are that he probably would opt for inexpensive hardware, which increases the _possibility_ of experiencing problems.
Thus the best improvement solutions would be (ordered by probability of problems):
So while my experience is only anecdotal, yours is as well. Means that OP should be prepared to _possibly_ run into problems. Especially as chances are that he probably would opt for inexpensive hardware, which increases the _possibility_ of experiencing problems.
Thus the best improvement solutions would be (ordered by probability of problems):
- Swap internal drive with SSD.
- Use external SSD with Thunderbolt (TRIM available).
- Use external SSD with USB3 (TRIM not available, good garbage collection routines recommended, e.g. Samsung SSD).
- Use external SSD with USB2 (see 3.).
- Use 1.-4. with a (faster, i.e. 7.200 rpm) spinning drive or hybrid drive.
I think we are over-analyzing this. The OP asked something very simple that can be answered with "yes" or "no":
"my question is whether the Mac Mini would be a good purchase given what we will use it to do"
And he also stated
"we are not tech savvy and we just want something easy to use/update"
This does not sound like someone who wants to setup an external drive for booting and certainly not someone who would open up the Mini and install a SSD.
I don't understand this point. Why would anyone connect a 400MB/sec SSD to a USB2 port that can only deliver 30MB/sec, and how would that be an "improvement"?
"my question is whether the Mac Mini would be a good purchase given what we will use it to do"
And he also stated
"we are not tech savvy and we just want something easy to use/update"
This does not sound like someone who wants to setup an external drive for booting and certainly not someone who would open up the Mini and install a SSD.
I don't understand this point. Why would anyone connect a 400MB/sec SSD to a USB2 port that can only deliver 30MB/sec, and how would that be an "improvement"?
I just entered 4. for kicks
Even with USB2 a SSD is still faster than a spinner in access times, so with many small files being accessed (which is somewhat typical for a system drive), it may come close or even outrun the internal 5.400 spinner in certain situations (though probably not). Purely a game of thought.And I agree with what you said: We're overdoing this and for the OP the base 2014 mini is probably not a good purchase, despite the interesting price.
The hard drive in my 2014 base mini clocks at 100MB/sec, which is the same as the hard drive in my base 2012 mini. However, the 2014 seems more sluggish. For example, if a time machine backup starts, everything feels like slow motion.