Finally buying a new mac (M4 Mini)

[roxics]

Rather than comparing Apple's upgrade prices to the base model, just price the model with the features you want. Storage, RAM, etc. Then ask yourself if that price has value to you. You know you're not going to buy a base model machine, so there's no point in comparing that price to what you'll buy. You only need to worry about whether the machine you want is at a price you agree with, not the price of a different machine, that a person with different needs, is going to buy.

Good luck with your new Mini, I hope it all works out well and it's a great machine for you!

Thanks I think it should work. If it doesn't, it was pretty inexpensive.

Not everything in macOS works if you boot off an external SSD. That may or may not matter to you though.

Wow you replied fast. I just finished editing my last reply to you. Lol!
Yeah I'm vaguely aware of that. I think I heard Apple Intelligence doesn't work. I've never used it so I don't really care about that. I was on Mojave up until 2024. My Macbook Pro is still on Monterey right now and only because I've actively decided to finally try out Big Sur and then six months later Monterey. Because some app I was trying out needed it. An app I didn't even end up liking/using. I completely skipped Catalina. So I'm not the type to stay up on the times with this stuff.
Maybe there is more it can't do that way, I don't know yet. But so far so good.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I don't edit off internal memory, I edit off 3.5" external hard drives.

The issue is that with just 16 GB RAM the Mac OS and its Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) will be swapping to SSD a lot. Even fast SSDs are at best ~1/8 as fast as RAM and have really awful latency (milliseconds rather than nanoseconds); slower SSDs are even worse, and overfilled SSDs can be a disaster.

UMA is one of the reasons Apple's SoC performs so well. At the same time, suboptimal RAM can quickly impact performance.

 

[roxics]

The issue is that with just 16 GB RAM the Mac OS and its Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) will be swapping to SSD a lot. Even fast SSDs are at best ~1/8 as fast as RAM and have really awful latency (milliseconds rather than nanoseconds); slower SSDs are even worse, and overfilled SSDs can be a disaster.

UMA is one of the reasons Apple's SoC performs so well. At the same time, suboptimal RAM can quickly impact performance.

Well we'll see how it goes but I've been fine with 16GBs for all these years and nothing has really changed.

 

[phrekaru]

Actually you can activate Apple Intelligence from an external drive, but it creates a lot of "mini drives" for ml languages....

 

[Zdigital2015]

The point is not so much that commenters like me "think everyone is editing 8K multicam," but rather that we are advising what our experience suggests that a new box intended to "last me at least 11 years" doing "professional video editing" should consist of for the coming 11 years.

We all agree that M4 chips even at base level will show a perceived speed bump to most folks accustomed to older Intel Mac minis when performing identical work today. But today is not what a new box is bought for, a new box is bought intending a configuration that "will last me at least 11 years like my last one did."

I recommend against anyone intending a professional Resolve workflow choosing Apple's lowest-end Mac with 16 GB RAM when configuring a new box. Of course the work can be performed, but it will already be sub-optimal on the very first day the box is used. That is not the right way to configure a new box for any kind of professional usage.

Each of us should read up on Apple's Unified Memory Architecture, and grok how RAM is used for everything; also the much faster speed and hugely reduced latency when using RAM. Although never editing 8K video means missing one RAM hog, all kinds of things use RAM in an upcoming 11-year Resolve workflow.

Most professional users would also want to use other apps concurrent with usage of Resolve. Constantly opening and closing apps to cope with insufficient memory is hella inefficient in any professional workflow.

Edit: Note that I reference 11 years only because the OP did so. Personally I consider 5-7 years to be my personal rational planning horizon but recognize that some others prefer 3-5 years, or 10-12 like the OP. Any planning horizon is OK: what is important is that we acknowledge that the planning horizon exists.

Changing the planning horizon to 5-7 years would not change my recommendations. However I have recently learned that M2 chips may not support the AV1 video codec that might be relevant to the OP's work, so I retract my earlier suggestion to seek an M2 Studio.

I’ll refer and defer to Larry Jordan’s recommendations for configuring an M4 mini for video editing - https://larryjordan.com/articles/configuring-an-m4-mac-for-video-editing/ - and for the OP’s usage the 16/256 will be sufficient, even though I wouldn’t recommend that storage for any video professional.

My point being that what is insufficient for one might not be for another and that it’s really subjective. I wouldn’t want to edit on a 16GB/256GB myself, but I’m fine on my 24GB/1TB. I expect it will last me another 3-5 years or longer depending on where I go. I don’t expect any Mac to last 10 years just due to tech churn and I don’t buy for that length of time anyways. Most people shouldn’t.

 

[Analog Kid]

I'm considering just going base with an external SSD and starting fresh with macOS and installing all my big apps externally.

I'll let everyone else argue about storage size, but I will say you want the apps on your internal drive and your big projects on an external SSD. Pick a good fast external drive and you won't notice much of a difference relative to the internal storage even if you were accustomed to more modern hardware.

You'll want your apps and system files on the internal drive though, that's what will make the machine feel more responsive.

 

[roxics]

I'll let everyone else argue about storage size, but I will say you want the apps on your internal drive and your big projects on an external SSD. Pick a good fast external drive and you won't notice much of a difference relative to the internal storage even if you were accustomed to more modern hardware.

You'll want your apps and system files on the internal drive though, that's what will make the machine feel more responsive.

There is no more argument, I already bought the machine yesterday and installed the OS on the external SSD. No plans to send Apple any more money for overpriced storage or ram for at least a few years.

 

[raythompsontn]

People get this weird idea in their head that all video editing needs super resource intensive computers. It doesn't

That is very true, sacrilege for some.

Yes, video can be edited on the base level machines of all models in the Apple system. Most likely quite nicely. My consideration is that if doing so is the person's profession, where they make money, then don't do so on the cheap. If a video can be rendered in 5 minutes versus 7 minutes that is not much in the scheme of things. When doing so professionally, time is money. Dozens of videos, saving two minutes each time, adds up to people time. That people time is expensive.

For the occasional video editing, home users, the hobbyist, the base model of the Mini, the Air, iMac, and MBP would do just fine. Even putting the resource files on an external drive is not an issue. The working professional, yes, it is an issue in my opinion.

I already bought the machine yesterday and installed the OS on the external SSD

Storage may not be an issue, but RAM may become an issue at some point. That cannot be externalized. Personally I think the OS is smart enough to properly allocate and manage the base memory.

There are people on here that think systems have to be maxed out, 16 Gig is joke, etc. Those people are really good at telling other people how to spend someone else's money when in reality, they are clueless. They most likely don't work in the real world and have nothing to back up their claims other than benchmarks which are far from real world working performance.

Using swap is no big deal as that solid state drive is fast. Long gone are the days of waiting on spinning rust. Swap files may get large, but swapping does not take place that often and is not really a bottleneck.

In the days of big iron where a couple hundred users were using the mainframe, swapping was a real performance issue. Multiple jobs, dozens maybe, were being run at the same time. On a Mac (or PC) there may be dozens of applications open at the same time, but generally only one is being actively used. Swapping the idle apps to disk is trivial and is only done when switching apps. Something that is much faster than the user. The only exception in my use has been using Lightroom, importing, or exporting images. Swapping is not a problem, the CPU is the bottleneck.

But you know what? If you are happy, if it works for you, then good for you. Enjoy your system and ignore the naysayers. There are no incorrect decisions as everyone's needs, wants, and cash, are different.

 

[roxics]

My consideration is that if doing so is the person's profession, where they make money, then don't do so on the cheap.

See I think the difference here is that I'm not looking at in in terms of cost, I'm looking at performance.
Let's forget for a moment that I spent $449 on this machine.
The question is, is it more powerful than my 2017 MBP that I'm perfectly happy editing on? Yes. Even that computer can handle more than I'm giving it. In fact I expect I'll continue to use that machine for the next 3-5 years as well. Really this mac mini is just insurance in case that one breaks. Plus a little bit of me just wanting to try the new Apple silicon macs to see what all the hype is about.

If a video can be rendered in 5 minutes versus 7 minutes that is not much in the scheme of things. When doing so professionally, time is money. Dozens of videos, saving two minutes each time, adds up to people time. That people time is expensive.

For the occasional video editing, home users, the hobbyist, the base model of the Mini, the Air, iMac, and MBP would do just fine. Even putting the resource files on an external drive is not an issue. The working professional, yes, it is an issue in my opinion.

I think a lot of people are hung up on the word "professional" and seem to think that means I'm constantly banging out videos all day long. If that was the case, I agree. In fact we wouldn't be having this conversion because I'd be loaded with cash and have a Mac Pro sitting on my desk or probably a Mac Studio these days. But even then I would have probably bought those just because I had all that cash laying around. My increase in project frequency would not necessarily mean an increase in project complexity. It would just mean I'm sitting at my computer editing more often than I am, as the work would be more consistent. A nice problem to have.

The video I rendered last night completed in 37 seconds on my 2017 Macbook Pro editing off footage on an external spinning hard drive. That's typical of the kind of videos I produce. Once I make the full switch to my new mini (waiting on a new TB4 enclosure today to migrate) then I expect similar results. If it does the same, awesome! If it performs better, even better. If it's worse, it depends how much worse and I assess it from there. But if the hype is real it should handle more than my 2017 MBP does. I'll let you all know.

Storage may not be an issue, but RAM may become an issue at some point. That cannot be externalized. Personally I think the OS is smart enough to properly allocate and manage the base memory.

There are people on here that think systems have to be maxed out, 16 Gig is joke, etc. Those people are really good at telling other people how to spend someone else's money when in reality, they are clueless. They most likely don't work in the real world and have nothing to back up their claims other than benchmarks which are far from real world working performance.

Using swap is no big deal as that solid state drive is fast. Long gone are the days of waiting on spinning rust. Swap files may get large, but swapping does not take place that often and is not really a bottleneck.

In the days of big iron where a couple hundred users were using the mainframe, swapping was a real performance issue. Multiple jobs, dozens maybe, were being run at the same time. On a Mac (or PC) there may be dozens of applications open at the same time, but generally only one is being actively used. Swapping the idle apps to disk is trivial and is only done when switching apps. Something that is much faster than the user. The only exception in my use has been using Lightroom, importing, or exporting images. Swapping is not a problem, the CPU is the bottleneck.

But you know what? If you are happy, if it works for you, then good for you. Enjoy your system and ignore the naysayers. There are no incorrect decisions as everyone's needs, wants, and cash, are different.

I agree that if there is one thing I might have upgraded it would be ram. That has been a bottleneck for me at times. But only because I'll have 200+ chrome tabs open and my Plex server running off the machine at the same time I'm trying to edit. If I close chrome, the issue goes away. But even then it's not always an issue. If I've only got 50-100 tabs open it's fine usually. So the question is, do I want to pay Apple $200 more for the luxury of not needing to close a bunch of Chrome tabs when I edit? I'm thinking no. But then part of my problem is I'm looking over at my girlfriend who is a PC gamer and she can go out and buy 32GBs of ram for less than $80 and pop it in her machine. And she can do that upgrade whenever she wants. But Apple wants me to pay $200 for 8GBs of ram when I first buy the machine. As a mac user you have to just ignore the existence of PCs but it's hard to do when I have 2012 era PC on my desk next to my macs and my girlfriend has a 2023 era PC in our bedroom that I helped her build. It makes it really hard on me psychologically to give Apple that tax. If only I hadn't been so spoiled by MacOS. But the silver lining is that Apple does make hardware that usually last a long time and their support is the best I've seen. So that needs to be accounted for as well.

 

[Edouard Perreault]

First new mac since 2017. Even then I was using my 2012 Mac Mini until Feb 2024 when a power surge fried it. Been on my 2017 MacBook Pro i7 for everything since then.
I do professional video editing. Recently moved from Premiere Pro to Resolve. Now it's time to get a second mac again and I'm planning to pick up a 16/256 Mini.

Best decision of your life to buy a 16/256GB mini M4, the performance/price ratio is just incredible!
With this mini M4 in its base configuration, I have no memory issues with Resolve, while editing in 4K. Of course, with only 256GB internal storage, it's wise/essential to invest in external SSDs. As I did myself. Very satisfied with the speed of my heavy apps installed on my 2TB Sandisk Extreme.

 

[ultratiem]

OP wrote:
"I do professional video editing. Recently moved from Premiere Pro to Resolve. Now it's time to get a second mac again and I'm planning to pick up a 16/256 Mini."

Gonna tell you boldly right off:
Get the above configuration, and you're going to be very unhappy, very soon.

"Professional" video editing?
Then I reckon you'll want AT LEAST 32gb of RAM (probaby more) and AT LEAST a 1tb SSD.

Consider yourself as having been duly warned in advance by reading this post.

People who say stacking RAM on a SoC have a totally fundamentally misunderstanding of how a system on a chip system really works. RAM is al,ost truly ir

Well we'll see how it goes but I've been fine with 16GBs for all these years and nothing has really changed.

you can go ahead and ignore anyone that tells you 16GB of RAM is not enough and that the system will basically live in swap. That is not at all how a SoC works and it’s cute people still compare it 1:1 with x86-64.

RAM is largely irrelevant when it comes to Apple silicon. Apple only pumps it up because of their insane margins. They can triple the cost of a system for next to nothing offering RAM upgrades.

When it comes to raw, true, real world performance, the size of the RAM is irrelevant.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

That is very true, sacrilege for some.

Yes, video can be edited on the base level machines of all models in the Apple system. Most likely quite nicely. My consideration is that if doing so is the person's profession, where they make money, then don't do so on the cheap. If a video can be rendered in 5 minutes versus 7 minutes that is not much in the scheme of things. When doing so professionally, time is money. Dozens of videos, saving two minutes each time, adds up to people time. That people time is expensive.

For the occasional video editing, home users, the hobbyist, the base model of the Mini, the Air, iMac, and MBP would do just fine. Even putting the resource files on an external drive is not an issue. The working professional, yes, it is an issue in my opinion.

Storage may not be an issue, but RAM may become an issue at some point. That cannot be externalized. Personally I think the OS is smart enough to properly allocate and manage the base memory.

There are people on here that think systems have to be maxed out, 16 Gig is joke, etc. Those people are really good at telling other people how to spend someone else's money when in reality, they are clueless. They most likely don't work in the real world and have nothing to back up their claims other than benchmarks which are far from real world working performance.

Using swap is no big deal as that solid state drive is fast. Long gone are the days of waiting on spinning rust. Swap files may get large, but swapping does not take place that often and is not really a bottleneck.

In the days of big iron where a couple hundred users were using the mainframe, swapping was a real performance issue. Multiple jobs, dozens maybe, were being run at the same time. On a Mac (or PC) there may be dozens of applications open at the same time, but generally only one is being actively used. Swapping the idle apps to disk is trivial and is only done when switching apps. Something that is much faster than the user. The only exception in my use has been using Lightroom, importing, or exporting images. Swapping is not a problem, the CPU is the bottleneck.

But you know what? If you are happy, if it works for you, then good for you. Enjoy your system and ignore the naysayers. There are no incorrect decisions as everyone's needs, wants, and cash, are different.

Wow. You say
"There are people on here that think systems have to be maxed out, 16 Gig is joke, etc. Those people are really good at telling other people how to spend someone else's money when in reality, they are clueless. They most likely don't work in the real world and have nothing to back up their claims other than benchmarks which are far from real world working performance."

I am one of those "people on here" and FYI when I bought an M2 MBP I paid for max RAM and not with "someone else's money." Seven years previous I had purchased a 2026 MBP also with max RAM (16 GB at that time), and after 4-5 years that MBP rammed out for my workflow. I coped with the lame 16 GB RAM for a long time, because like I said, I do not have "someone else's money." The 16 GB RAM 2016 box still works fine for simple tasks like Office, Mail and Safari.

My commentary has never referenced "benchmarks;" my RAM comments are based on decades of personal real-world usage, largely with images apps. Those of us who used Photoshop for decades lived and breathed RAM constraints. Do not take my experience-based word for it, you should perhaps do some simple homework and look at the history of RAM usage on Macs. Why anyone thinks the 40-year steady increase in apps/OS RAM demands has suddenly magically ceased makes zero sense to me.

Plus of course anyone could read up on Apple's Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) and think about the likely impact UMA will have on RAM demands during the life cycle of any new box. Or observe what is happening with AI and think about the likely impact on RAM demands during the life cycle of any new box as apps and the OS continually integrate AI more and more into routine operations.

 

[G5isAlive]

See I think the difference here is that I'm not looking at in in terms of cost, I'm looking at performance.

Oh really, it's not about cost?

It makes it really hard on me psychologically to give Apple that tax.

But because adding 256 to the internal storage is going to cost me more than half the price of a base mini itself

when I talk to the PC guys. They're all like "you need [insert newest powerful GPU that's at least $500] if you're going to edit video."

So the question is, do I want to pay Apple $200 more for the luxury of not needing to close a bunch of Chrome tabs

Let's forget for a moment that I spent $449 on this machine.

For something that's not about cost, you spent a lot of time talking about cost. Just saying. There is nothing wrong with being frugal, used to be a virtue even. Be proud! And the thing is, you are right, for you, because as you say nothing will change and you won't notice a difference. But in some ways it's like buying a diamond, you never notice how dull and lifeless a cheap diamond is until you compare it to a better one. You won't miss the enhancements of more memory you never own. You got a lot of great advice and reasons in this thread about how technology has changed in the 11 years you have stuck with 16gb, so thanks for the thread. I learned a lot.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

What is with all the RAM threads lately? It is clear there are two camps at this point. Those, like me, that figure I’ll buy at the cost point (16GB) and worst case upgrade a year or two early if it becomes a problem in the future. I do moderately heavy tasks (including small LLMs and python) and 16GB on the M4 Mini has been absolutely enough.

And the other camp that is wrong. (I kid, I kid!) No this camp needs more RAM. I think it is mostly psychological, but there are probably 5 to 10 percent of folks that actually need 32/64/128 GB of RAM for what they do. Either way, buy more RAM, go nuts!

I feel like at this point all of these threads devolve into foolish craziness where both these sides get so dug in and extreme that it gets so pointless and no one is convincing anyone anymore. Ah well.

Edited to add: I made the “other camp” sound way more frivolous than I meant. I legitimately think there are people that really need the RAM. And most people are not them.

 

[roxics]

Oh really, it's not about cost?







For something that's not about cost, you spent a lot of time talking about cost. Just saying. There is nothing wrong with being frugal, used to be a virtue even. Be proud! And the thing is, you are right, for you, because as you say nothing will change and you won't notice a difference. But in some ways it's like buying a diamond, you never notice how dull and lifeless a cheap diamond is until you compare it to a better one. You won't miss the enhancements of more memory you never own. You got a lot of great advice and reasons in this thread about how technology has changed in the 11 years you have stuck with 16gb, so thanks for the thread. I learned a lot

Out of context. Go back and reread that particular section of that post and the quote I referenced. I'm referring to the fact that the base Mini's low price does not negate its performance improvements for me in comparison to my old machines. It's still an upgrade in CPU/GPU and other factors. Ram and storage aside.

Yes off course overall cost is a factor, which is why I bought the base model. My initial concerns with the 16/256 configuration were real, as that is not an upgrade and in fact a downgrade in terms of storage compared to the 512 I've been using. However I've solved that by adding an external 1TB SSD as my boot drive, which means I've doubled my OS storage compared to what I had. Even doing that, I've come in at less money than most people pay for the base mini. I paid $560 for the mini, 1TB SSD, and Thunderbolt 4 enclosure combined. So the only physical thing that didn't get upgraded was my ram, which stays the same. Which is fine, because 16GBs does work for me. However if cost wasn't a factor, I would have upgraded that just to be safe.

But I also would not have bought the base model if it did not suite and exceed my needs. I could easily go out to the store this afternoon and buy a Mac Studio. But there is no need to spend all that money when my needs are met with this machine and an external SSD. If it was not an upgrade over what I currently have in terms of CPU/GPU performance, an additional USB port, ethernet port, built in HDMI port, newer OS, etc. I would not have bought it. Well, maybe, just to have a spare mac. But my overall point is, I was looking at performance first to find what I needed and then examining cost closely because I don't want to give Apple more money than I need to.

 

[roxics]

So just and update.
I got my new external thunderbolt 4 enclosure on Sunday and migrated my old MBP to the new machine. Something I wasn't sure I was going to do, but glad I did. took a little longer than expected with a thunderbolt cable connected between both machines. I thought I would be getting GB/s of transfer speed or maybe even hundred of MB/s at worst. Turns out I was getting maybe 40-50MBs at best. I had forgotten that lots of small files really slow down transfers.

The new SSD is working great. It's a Crucial P3 Plus 1TB m.2 drive in an Acasis TB3/4 enclosure. I'm getting and average of 2.2-2.5GB/s speeds Which is slightly faster than the built in storage of my 2017 MBP. Much faster than the 600-800MB/s I was getting with the last two enclosures I tried. The speed is fast enough for me and according ti4eh Blackmagic Disk speed tests it green checkmarks every video resolution up to 12K60p which is far beyond what I edit. Most of my timelines are 1080/24p with the occasional 4K/24p footage. All other tasks seem to be performance as I hoped they would.

I must admit, for the first few days after buying this machine last Thursday I did have some hesitation about whether I bought the right spec and was going in the right direction. I'm still within my return window, but at this point it doesn't matter because this is going to work out just fine and I'm happy I went with the external OS on SSD route. I think that at this point even if I were to go out and but a high spec'd machine I would just move this SSD to that machine and continue to use it that way ignoring the internal storage. But there is no need. I would just be wasting my money I think. This is working out great.

Altogether I paid $560 plus tax for the mac mini and external SSD and enclosure. Less than most pay for the mii straight from Apple. That would not have been possible without the current sale going on a Microcenter where the base mini is $449 right now. But even not on sale they go for $499 there. Is there a reason everybody doesn't buy their macs from Microcenter?

Anyway, I didn't expect this many replies to this thread. So I'd like to thank all of you for your replies. Whether you agree or disagree with the direction I've gone, it's nice to have the discussion and see the various opinions.

Should anything change, I'll upgrade again. But I hope everything works out well. And I hope you have a wonderful day and year ahead.

 

[mapleleafer]

What is with all the RAM threads lately? It is clear there are two camps at this point.

I think there are three camps: those, like me, that do not need more ram, those that do need more ram, and those that want but do not need more ram. The last camp are those who keep applications and browser tabs open but rarely use them. My right index finger saves me a lot of money.

 

[drrich2]

So I ended up with a USB 3.2 enclosure and ten bought one of those mac min hubs that have the ports and SSD enclosure all-in-one.

However I've solved that by adding an external 1TB SSD as my boot drive, which means I've doubled my OS storage compared to what I had. Even doing that, I've come in at less money than most people pay for the base mini. I paid $560 for the mini, 1TB SSD, and Thunderbolt 4 enclosure combined.

I got my new external thunderbolt 4 enclosure on Sunday and migrated my old MBP to the new machine.

Lots covered in other posts, and I don't know whether you still have the USB 3.2 enclosure. If so, it can still be quite useful for backup. Backups don't need to be fast, SSDs are silent (though enclosures with fans may not be), and a USB 3.2 enclosure likely won't generate the heat some external Thunderbolt SSD enclosures are associated with.

As for using an external SSD over an internal, and what it may not do, from what I've seen and read there are 3 main scenarios:

1.) Keep the internal SSD as your boot drive and for app.s, but put really large app.s, large files and libraries (e.g.: for Photos) on the external drive.

2.) Put something called the 'Home Folder' (IIRC) on the external drive.

3.) Make the external SSD the Startup' (i.e.: Boot) disc and ignore the internal SSD entirely.

This has been discussed in some (at times confusing) detail in other threads. Sounds like you're going for 3.), which is what I'd do, especially with a desktop Mac where disconnecting for travel like with a MacBook Air or Pro isn't common.

 

[M4th]

Is there a reason everybody doesn't buy their macs from Microcenter?

Well, it's a bit of a walk...

 

[roxics]

Sounds like you're going for 3.), which is what I'd do, especially with a desktop Mac where disconnecting for travel like with a MacBook Air or Pro isn't common.

Yup, and so far the only issue I've discovered is that I can't seem to boot into the internal drive anymore. I just tried for the first time today and it's just not working. Even when I try from the boot menu after holding down the power button for a while. I'm not sure why. I could probably repair it with my MacOS USB flash drive (I haven't tried).
The only reason I wanted to do so was to test the internal drive speed. So, hmm.
Hooking up the external everything works fine.

Side note: I'm curious, does anyone else have a memory leak with facebook and chrome when keeping facebook reels open? I came back to my mac today and discovered it had run out of memory and wanted me to close apps. Turns out chrome was using 62GBs of memory. This has happened on my other macs, so it's not new. It's related to facebook and leaving tabs open with facebook reels in them. Apparently facebook just keeps loading data into those tabs if you leave them open in the background. When the reels (videos) are not even playing. I've not experienced it with other browsers though. It's been going on for years now. So far that's the only ram issue I've run across. And again, it's not unique to this new mini.

 

[roxics]

Well, it's a bit of a walk...

Lol! Yeah that would be a journey. I thought they offered the same deals for shipping though. Maybe not though. I've not checked.

 

[roxics]

Update: Just over two weeks in.
Not loving the performance. It either performs as well as my old 2017 i7 Macbook Pro or worse. I'm not sure why this is. Back when the M1 came out I thought about buying a machine then and everyone was talking about how those machines screamed compared to the Intel stuff. So I figured by the forth gen M4 I would see a monumental upgrade for me in terms of speed/performance over the i7. I mean if the M1 was touted as so amazing, then the M4 had to be even moreso right? But I'm just not seeing it. I've had finder windows spinning to load up my drives, just now i tried playing a 4K iPhone video in the finder via quicklook and it was stuttering all over the place. Which is worse than I remember on the MBP. I don't know if it's because I'm running all these files off external hard drives or that I'm running the system OS off an external SSD (which I clocked as faster than my internal MBP memory) or that I migrated my machine from the old MBP instead of starting fresh (what a time consuming headache that would be) or what.

Are the gains people are seeing in these M1-4 machines due to running everything off the internal storage? Is that the trick? I mean I would expect some slow downs as a result of running off spinning hard drives for sure, but I was using these same drives on the MBP with less issues. Granted my performance is not terrible by comparison, but like I said it's either the same or worse at times when I expected it to be markedly improved.

So I'm not sure what's up. But I'm still mostly happy with my purchase given the price I paid and just having a second mac around again that can be a desktop. But I'm far from amazed like I thought I was supposed to be, and slightly disappointed. But it could very well just be me having done things wrong.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@roxics ”I don't know if it's because I'm running all these files off external hard drives…”

Hard drives? You’re throttling performance to about 1/20 the speeds of the internal SSD, so it’s not surprising your experience is different to everyone else.

 

[roxics]

I'm running my boot drive off a thunderbolt 4 enclosure. According to the Blackmagic speed test, my performance is capable of up to 12K/60p video. Like I said I clocked it faster than my internal SSD on my 2017 MBP. I realize spinning hard drives are a lot slower, but as I mentioned, I was getting better performance with them when they were hooked up to my older MBP.
That's the part that shocked me. I figured at least the same (which most of the time it is) or better due to the faster processing in the M4.

Are most people just running everything off the internal SSD in their macs and that's what all the hype is about? I can't imagine doing that considering the terabytes upon terabytes of external storage I have. Plus I learned decades ago (admittedly as a Windows user) that you should never be storing anything on your boot drive since it can crash and require a reinstall of the OS. While I've had much better luck with MacOS and have slacked in the years on that philosophy, storing some smaller stuff on the boot drive, I still keep all my video and image files and stuff external.

 

[PaulD-UK]

I guess the problem with stuttering 4K HEVC video in Finder’s Quicklook is that the M4 is coded to buffer the video faster than a HD can deliver it.
So it has to wait…

As to booting off the internal SSD, I think you have to select the internal Macintosh HD in System Settings>General>Startup Disk, and have your external TB4 drive disconnected.
Even then it might take holding the startup button to Option boot.