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Early 2009 Mac mini any good for iTunes and browsing?

E

Eheim

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 3, 2014
3
0
Hi,

My windows laptop is failing as I write and i have the chance to get an early 2009 mini Mac (2GBram,120GB hard drive). Would this mac be sufficient to run itunes, bbc iplayer and browse the internet?

I can get the Mac for £230 uk pounds and wondered if this mini would be better than a cheap laptop. Budget is limited currently.

Any advice would be appreciated.

:)
 
I have a early 2006 with similar spec and it's more than good enough. I would question price though
 
I have a couple of late 2009 base minis and they are fine for this and more. An early 2009 mini is about 10% slower -- not perceptibly slower. You probably should add RAM to bring it up to 4GB as 2GB is really tight. If it has the original Leopard OS you will want to update it.
 
The mini is coming with Mavericks apparently, will that slow the unit?
 
With 4GB ram, and Snow Leopard, that Mini would be more than fine for your needs - Mavericks will choke it.

I also question the price, though.
 
I have an early 2009 mini and it is fine for what you want.

I have mine on 24/7 running iTunes, Elgato TV system.

It is running 10.8.5 perfectly fine, however has been upgraded to 8Gb RAM and SSD. SSD is 60Gb as all the iTunes/Elgato library is on external DroboPro.

Price seems a little high though.
 
I have Yosemite beta on my early 2009 and it runs great. I upgraded to 4gb ram and a crucial mx100 SSD. It runs really smoothly hooked up to my TV. It surfs the web great and I played a couple movies on it last night 720p and it was pretty smooth.
 
talmy said:
Yep, you won't be happy with Mavericks and only 2GB of memory.
Click to expand...

Will snow leopard leave the Mac vunerable? I have heard that Apple no longer provide support for anything older than Mavericks.. If I'm browsing And purchasing online is that safe anymore?
 
I have 2...

I have 2 early 2009 MM's and both with maxed out RAM (8). I also have replaced hd's with SSD 120G and SSD 500g respectivly.
Both have Mavericks latest and are perfect for what I need.

One of them resides in the lounge near TV with a 4TB NAS drive connected with my entire music collection on it (smaller SSD 120 installed).
I use iTunes to play the music etc as it's the simplest method as I don't have time to pfaff about with alternatives which may be better but iTunes does what I need.

The beauty is that none of my music is loaded onto the Mac just the symbolic link/pathway to the external drive as others on this forum have (drobo etc).
It works a treat and is very snappy with no lag.
My other MM contains all my sensitive information and is kept in a safe place and used when banking etc etc.

What I can say is that last week I replaced the small batteries in both MM's as they only have a life of 5 years max and should be changed.
I used Varta CR2032. (I also took the opportunity to vacuum the interior which was quite dusty. Also used pressurised air can.)
I tested the old ones to see how much power was left in them with an all singing and dancing voltmeter, and it showed that there was 3% in one and 5.2% the other. New cells showed 99.2% in each.
Suggest you do the same.
Just to add that Mavericks does work a treat and know that Yosemite will work as I have it on a separate partition.
Cheers
 
Eheim said:
Will snow leopard leave the Mac vunerable? I have heard that Apple no longer provide support for anything older than Mavericks.. If I'm browsing And purchasing online is that safe anymore?
Click to expand...

That's the risk. And they are still providing support for Mountain Lion and I believe Lion as well.
 
I have an early 2009 mini that's been running as a media server almost constantly for three years. I upgraded it to 6GB or RAM and an SSD (media is stored in external drives), and it is running Mavericks without any issue. It should serve you well for your intended use without any problems, and a RAM/SSD upgrade will make it even better. As others mentioned, I would definitely add more RAM if you plan on using Mavericks.
 
Eheim said:
Will snow leopard leave the Mac vunerable? I have heard that Apple no longer provide support for anything older than Mavericks.. If I'm browsing And purchasing online is that safe anymore?
Click to expand...

Yes. There are many unpatched vulnerabilities that will never get fixed because Snow Leopard is no longer supported by Apple. You should run Mountain Lion or later.
 
My early 2009 Mini has been upgraded to 8GB ram & is running Mavericks. It's connected to a AVR that then goes to a LED TV. It's our iTunes server, runs XBMC for all our movies, I back up my MBA to it & surf the web. It does everything I need it to very well.
 
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