Got a 2.3 i5 not much ram 2 gig. Going to buy 8 or 16 .
Are these good and is it better with a Ssd and more ram
Help me build this
Are these good and is it better with a Ssd and more ram
Help me build this
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Bought mid 2011 .tell me your thought
- Thread starter muttleymac
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I have this model too. Got it July 2011. Upgraded the RAM to Crucial 8GB within a week or two. Very easy to do and yes it really helped performance. A few months later the Mini started hanging and crashing. Took it to my local Apple store and they diagnosed one of the RAM modules was bad. Crucial sent me a new one and it's worked fine since then.
I also eventually had to take it back to Apple earlier this year for hard drive problems. Genius bar said my HDD was going bad. A little premature in my opinion. So, I sprung for a 256 GB SSD and put it in myself after reading/watching tutorials online and buying the torx screw drivers. Took about an hour of being really careful but it works great now. I do experience some lag at times when working on photos/videos in Lightroom 5 but everything else runs fine.
I am considering a 2014 or possibly a 2012. I was all set to buy a 2014 quad core but alas as everyone knows Apple dropped them.
Good luck...it's a great little machine...very quiet and uses very little energy. I do hear the fan go on at times when I'm doing processor intensive stuff but it's not for long.
I also eventually had to take it back to Apple earlier this year for hard drive problems. Genius bar said my HDD was going bad. A little premature in my opinion. So, I sprung for a 256 GB SSD and put it in myself after reading/watching tutorials online and buying the torx screw drivers. Took about an hour of being really careful but it works great now. I do experience some lag at times when working on photos/videos in Lightroom 5 but everything else runs fine.
I am considering a 2014 or possibly a 2012. I was all set to buy a 2014 quad core but alas as everyone knows Apple dropped them.
Good luck...it's a great little machine...very quiet and uses very little energy. I do hear the fan go on at times when I'm doing processor intensive stuff but it's not for long.Mac Mini's are great. That's what I think of them!
Regarding the memory, I would think 8G would be enough, but I guess it depends on how many applications you're running. My system has 4G, but all I do is web browsing, news checking with video with Safari, mail, just typical stuff. I don't do anything like advanced video or mass photo editing that's notorious for eating memory.
Regarding the SSD, you might find the following post interesting:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20130380#post20130380
I think the OP had sort of a one-off problem, but problems do happen with them. If you scroll down in that post another guy using ID FrtzPeter talks about a new high speed drive from Hitachi. I went out and bought one after seeing that because it was only about 60 bucks locally. It's fast. It's not SSD fast, but it makes old drives look like molasses.
I had an SSD in my system but got one with 128G, and it was too small. If you're running Mavericks or Yosemite, it really isn't enough. My base folder isn't that big, but I ended up continually needing to off load stuff to a backup drive. It reminded me more of the old days when people had to keep backing up stuff to floppies to manage a small drive and even though an SSD is fast, if it isn't big enough, you'll suffer. It was annoying. The bare minimum size for an SSD using Mavericks or Yosemite is, in my opinion, 256G or bigger.
With SSDs I'd steer clear of Crucial. They seem to have a history of problems higher than anyone else. I'd use the same brands Apple uses, not a one-off brand.
If you go the SSD route, make sure you keep and maintain backups to an old style HD for safety. Some SSDs have been known to just lose all information for some reason. I know that was a common problem some time ago, but backups ought to be maintained anyway.
Everything I'm saying is opinion, so take it accordingly, and congratulations on your purchase. I think you'll be quite happy.
Regarding the memory, I would think 8G would be enough, but I guess it depends on how many applications you're running. My system has 4G, but all I do is web browsing, news checking with video with Safari, mail, just typical stuff. I don't do anything like advanced video or mass photo editing that's notorious for eating memory.
Regarding the SSD, you might find the following post interesting:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20130380#post20130380
I think the OP had sort of a one-off problem, but problems do happen with them. If you scroll down in that post another guy using ID FrtzPeter talks about a new high speed drive from Hitachi. I went out and bought one after seeing that because it was only about 60 bucks locally. It's fast. It's not SSD fast, but it makes old drives look like molasses.
I had an SSD in my system but got one with 128G, and it was too small. If you're running Mavericks or Yosemite, it really isn't enough. My base folder isn't that big, but I ended up continually needing to off load stuff to a backup drive. It reminded me more of the old days when people had to keep backing up stuff to floppies to manage a small drive and even though an SSD is fast, if it isn't big enough, you'll suffer. It was annoying. The bare minimum size for an SSD using Mavericks or Yosemite is, in my opinion, 256G or bigger.
With SSDs I'd steer clear of Crucial. They seem to have a history of problems higher than anyone else. I'd use the same brands Apple uses, not a one-off brand.
If you go the SSD route, make sure you keep and maintain backups to an old style HD for safety. Some SSDs have been known to just lose all information for some reason. I know that was a common problem some time ago, but backups ought to be maintained anyway.
Everything I'm saying is opinion, so take it accordingly, and congratulations on your purchase. I think you'll be quite happy.