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Buying a Mac Mini 2014

True, but i believe that nobody buys an mac mini to play metro or battlefield tbh :) in casual gaming it will make a difference and the ideea here is that why should someone buy an 1.5years old hardware? in 7 months we will have broadwell ffs :)

btw, what would you keep? hackintosh or the mac mini ? :) (just curious)
 
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gcwebbyuk said:
I am in the same boat - looking to buy a Mac Mini but not sure whether to hold off or not.

The suspected release date seems to continually change.

I would be using the Mac mainly for web development, and possibly photo editing.

I currently use an i7 overclocked PC as my main workstation. However, I need to start using Macs more often as I have IT support clients that use them and I need to get to know OS X like the back of my hand.

I have been using a Mavericks virtual machine on my PC for the mean time.

Do Mac prices usually drop just before a new model is about to be released - or will the 2012 model still be the same price?

Can a second hard drive be added internally to the Mini? I have a spare SSD drive that I could use in there, and re-use the hard drive as a data disk - or will this have to be external?
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Prices will remain the same most likely, it will just switch to the new model for sale but you may pick up the older model in the clearance section of the Apple store.
You can add a second drive internally, there are lots of guides on how to do this but you will need to get a second sata cable when adding a second internal drive as opposed to replacing the existing one. These are available on eBay and iFixit as well as others.
If you have concerns over a pending refresh of the mini, I would suggest going second hand and picking up a cheaper model that way. If the mini is refreshed and you want to upgrade, you will lost little to no money by buying second hand at the moment then selling to upgrade later.
 
If Apple doesn't release a new Haswell Mini soon, my guess is that they've decided that the Haswell chip isn't a "big enough" jump forward, and are going to wait for the Broadwell chip instead.

I don't foresee a radical case redesign, largely because there's barely enough room on the back of the case NOW, for all the connection ports required. Make it "smaller", and they'll have to start "dropping ports".

Although -- does anyone remember a lone post, must have been back around December, by someone claiming to be an Apple employee (who was banned from the site almost immediately afterwards), who claimed that the Mini was end-of-lifed with the 2012 models?
 
gcwebbyuk said:
I Do Mac prices usually drop just before a new model is about to be released - or will the 2012 model still be the same price?
Click to expand...

Apple has very strict price controls. If the new model goes up in price, the old model holds the old price. If the new model goes down in price, the old model may follow. Usually there is no change and apple just dumps surplus product onto schools, so your best option in such a case would be 3rd party retailers.
 
If the lack of a machine is preventing you from earning money right now then get the current one, otherwise wait a bit. I bought the same spec mini as you have configured a couple of months back and have no regrets at all - only a mini with far superior graphics will make me change.
 
Thank you for all the replies :)

I've finally bought a mac but since I wasn't sure about the mac mini I decided to look for some of Apple's laptops. I ended up buying a MacBook Pro retina 13" (8 GB RAM, 256 GB PCIe-based flash-storage about 700 MB read/write and 2.4 GHz dual-core i5). That will give me both the required power and speed for programming tasks and portability.

I must say I'm impressed. The machine runs smoothly and the 2560 x 1600 display looks amazing. I will probably soon buy a monitor for better comfort while programming :)
 
^ i guess that's what apple wants :), congrats for the buy, 1400$ one ?

Damn, now you have put me on thoughts if to buy an macbook pro or an mac mini...i'm in the same spot like you, programming stuff, do you get enough screen estate in xcode?
 
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robE89 said:
^ i guess that's what apple wants :), congrats for the buy, 1400$ one ?

Damn, now you have put me on thoughts if to buy an macbook pro or an mac mini...i'm in the same spot like you, programming stuff, do you get enough screen estate in xcode?
Click to expand...


I've heard many people saying that the 15" is optimal for programming but so far I haven't had any problems with fitting the things on the screen (I don't know about building iPad Gui, since I haven't tried that yet) :O However if I can find an affordable monitor with 2560 x 1600 resolution I will probably buy it ;)
 
Here is the macmini, can't you see it ? :) ... Or is it a picture from last year ?
WWDC-2014-Mac-mini-predictions-and-iOS-8.jpg
 
If the new Mac Mini 2014 doesn't officially support memory upgrades to at least 16 GB RAM, then I ain't buying it. 32 GB is also nice, but that's overkill.
 
pentool said:
Get the basic mini with the 1TB drive and 4G RAM. You can up the processor if you want to. I popped in 8G RAm and a 128G SSD 6G for boot drive and use the 1TB for data. Disabled the fusion mode. Flies like a charm.
Click to expand...

How do you disable fusion mode?

Because I would also like to drop an SSD (128 GB) into my used Mac mini (arriving next week) but I did read, that most if you install an SSD and already have there an HDD, that MacOS X install will want to make a Fusion drive.
 
opeter said:
How do you disable fusion mode?

Because I would also like to drop an SSD (128 GB) into my used Mac mini (arriving next week) but I did read, that most if you install an SSD and already have there an HDD, that MacOS X install will want to make a Fusion drive.
Click to expand...

Somewhere out there on the Internets is information on how to replace the mini's version of Disk Utility with one from a non-mini. Apparently that prevents the mini from attempting to make a fusion drive.

As I recall it was as simple as moving and renaming the current one (for future use) and dragging in the non-mini version.

One of these days I am going to replace the 1TB OEM drive that Windows 8.1 is installed on with another M500 960TB. At that point I will also be searching for the same info!
 
Anything without an SSD is, well, slow and lame.

Use a mini with that super lame 5400 spinner in it then then use a friends with a nice 512GB SSD and see for yourself.
 
opeter wrote above:
[[ How do you disable fusion mode?
Because I would also like to drop an SSD (128 GB) into my used Mac mini (arriving next week) but I did read, that most if you install an SSD and already have there an HDD, that MacOS X install will want to make a Fusion drive. ]]

You are correct -- if you put the SSD into a Mac that already has an HDD installed, and boot up from the recovery partition and launch Disk Utility, in many cases it will -automatically- try to re-create the fusion drive.

I don't believe DU will try to do this if you boot from the HDD, however. The reason is DU can't "construct" the fusion drive if the Mac is booted from the HDD, because that would require modifying the HDD directory (which can't be done when you're booted up from it).

Here's a way that should prevent the "auto fusion creation" in ALL cases:
1. Get a USB3/SATA docking station (also known as a "caddy")
2. When you get the SSD, put it into the caddy and connect to the Mini
3. Boot from the internal HDD and launch Disk Utility
4. Initialize the SSD, and set up as required (you could clone the contents of the HDD to the SSD using CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper)
5. Do a "test boot" from the SSD to see that all is well (reboot and hold down the option key until the startup manager appears)
6. If the boot is good and everything looks the way you want, NOW it's time to open the Mini and install the SSD.

Aside -- if you get the right USB3/SATA dock (one that has "UASP" support), you may find that the SSD can boot and run the Mini "good enough" from the dock. You won't have to install it internally. I get read speeds of about 432mbps and writes around 276mbps from my dock. That's good enough for me!
 
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