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Hackintosh vs Mini 2012 vs Mini 2014

M

MrX8503

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 19, 2010
2,297
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Like many of you, I'm quite disappointed with the 2014 Mac Mini. My plan was to get the 2014 Mac Mini to replace my WHS. What have you guys/girls out there done with your Mac Mini as a server? The important thing to me is a thunderbolt network bridge because Gigabit is still way too slow.

Should I go Hackintosh, 2012, or 2014?
 
As far as Hackintoshes, my only advice is, it's not as easy as it looks. I have tried it twice and it was an immense timesink, and both times, I just gave up. Software updates from Apple tend to break the software (example: my kid bricked my Hackintosh notebook 2 days after I got it working, when he did an OS update without asking first). Driver availability is pretty iffy in spots. You won't be able to use handoff/continuity with iOS devices, as I understand it, because Apple only supports their own Bluetooth modems.

If you need the quad core, get 2012. If you need slightly better graphics (the Iris Pro isn't horrible, but not really all that good compared to a real PC graphics card), get the 2014. If you don't care either way, make sure you have at minimum 8GB RAM for some minimal future-proofing.
 
I just bought the Mac Mini 2012 Quad core i7 and will retire my old 2009 Mac Mini to the living room as a media server.

I have a PC for gaming. The Mac is for work.
 
Agent-J said:
As far as Hackintoshes, my only advice is, it's not as easy as it looks. I have tried it twice and it was an immense timesink, and both times, I just gave up. Software updates from Apple tend to break the software (example: my kid bricked my Hackintosh notebook 2 days after I got it working, when he did an OS update without asking first). Driver availability is pretty iffy in spots. You won't be able to use handoff/continuity with iOS devices, as I understand it, because Apple only supports their own Bluetooth modems.

If you need the quad core, get 2012. If you need slightly better graphics (the Iris Pro isn't horrible, but not really all that good compared to a real PC graphics card), get the 2014. If you don't care either way, make sure you have at minimum 8GB RAM for some minimal future-proofing.
Click to expand...

I have not built my own Hackintosh yet but from what I understand it's much harder on a laptop than to build using a configuration from Tonymacx86.

Did you try to build a desktop as well?
 
Agent-J said:
As far as Hackintoshes, my only advice is, it's not as easy as it looks. I have tried it twice and it was an immense timesink, and both times, I just gave up. Software updates from Apple tend to break the software (example: my kid bricked my Hackintosh notebook 2 days after I got it working, when he did an OS update without asking first). Driver availability is pretty iffy in spots. You won't be able to use handoff/continuity with iOS devices, as I understand it, because Apple only supports their own Bluetooth modems.

If you need the quad core, get 2012. If you need slightly better graphics (the Iris Pro isn't horrible, but not really all that good compared to a real PC graphics card), get the 2014. If you don't care either way, make sure you have at minimum 8GB RAM for some minimal future-proofing.
Click to expand...

The experience is related to the hardware you use. If you try to use 'unsupported' hardware and try to make it work, it will probably be hell. If you buy hardware that match the recommended build, it will probably be straight forward.

My board was not recommended but was supported. Flashing a new bios made it work with no hack from within OSX. It was a one-time trick and after that, it was straight forward. OSX Updates didn't break anything but for safety, I was re-installing the drivers recommended for my setup.

I had an Asus board + i7 cpu and NVidia 680 GPU with 32gb ram and onboard NIC. I had a four drives setup.

1x SDD for Windows (boot and programs drive)
1x SSD for OSX (boot and programs drive)
1x 1TB for Windows (Data drive)
1x 1TB for OSX (Data drive)

When I turned on the machine I simply pressed F8 if I wanted to boot with OSX. I didn't have to mess with boot loaders.
 
ELMI0001 said:
I have not built my own Hackintosh yet but from what I understand it's much harder on a laptop than to build using a configuration from Tonymacx86.

Did you try to build a desktop as well?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we did, about 5 months ago. Got a graphics card for which there was supposedly a driver but the driver didn't actually work. Used the Intel graphics for a few days and it was such a dog we punted and installed Windows.

The laptop was a few years ago, an MSI Wind, and there was some weird Wi-Fi issue that took me maybe 15 hours to figure out. Finally got it working, and was happy--a new toy! Then my son wanted to try it out, and he bricked it in about 15 minutes by doing an Apple update. I was never able to reproduce the keyboard fu that made it work the first time.
 
MrX8503 said:
Like many of you, I'm quite disappointed with the 2014 Mac Mini. My plan was to get the 2014 Mac Mini to replace my WHS. What have you guys/girls out there done with your Mac Mini as a server? The important thing to me is a thunderbolt network bridge because Gigabit is still way too slow.

Should I go Hackintosh, 2012, or 2014?
Click to expand...

I built a hackintosh about 10 months ago using TonyMac recommended hardware. The thing is by far my fastest but also my least stable "Mac" in my house. Little things like not being able to utilize sleep (won't wake up properly), the ethernet will occassionally just go haywire, and oh yeah figuring out what Kexts actually work with my hardware is frustrating (I have to use an older version of my ethernet Kext in order to do large file transfers without them failing).

Sure it's a beast, but I only turn it on when I am going to use it. I would NEVER use it as a server. Just can't trust it.

Now my question, if you are planning to replace a WHS server, why would the 2014's be a disappointment to you? Seriously aren't most WHS servers run off of old dual core intel atom processors or single core AMD Semprons?

What are you doing with your WHS server that more than a dual core processor is needed? Don't forget the new Mini's have Thunderbolt 2 which is twice as fast as previous Mini's with Thunderbolt.
 
"Hackintoshes" generally work very well provided you buy the recommended hardware. With the recommended hardware, bios settings, and drivers, you can avoid issues like problems with waking from sleep.

The main problem with "Hackintoshes" is that they do not offer a "setup and forget it" installation. Once you've got a Hackintosh setup with the right hardware it works great...until Apple releases a patch. Apple Updater may replace files which your Hackintosh needs to function optimally. There are Hackintosh utilities that attempt to simplify the process of "patching the patch," but it's still a pain to have to update your machine so it works properly after every Apple patch.
 
KenAFSPC said:
"Hackintoshes" generally work very well provided you buy the recommended hardware. With the recommended hardware, bios settings, and drivers, you can avoid issues like problems with waking from sleep.

The main problem with "Hackintoshes" is that they do not offer a "setup and forget it" installation. Once you've got a Hackintosh setup with the right hardware it works great...until Apple releases a patch. Apple Updater may replace files which your Hackintosh needs to function optimally. There are Hackintosh utilities that attempt to simplify the process of "patching the patch," but it's still a pain to have to update your machine so it works properly after every Apple patch.
Click to expand...

This is the best way to describe it. I have built PCs and used macs for 30 years and I am still hesitating to do a Hackintosh because of the way Apple has been intentionally trying to Fubar hacks and jailbreaks.
It can feel like your coke dealer kicking you in the crotch because you can only afford crack at that moment :( They will both get you there, but one comes with more bumps, bruises and group therapy.
 
I've been using a Hackintosh for about a year. I absolutely cannot stand the overall experience. When it works you'd be hard pressed to tell it from any other Mac running OS X. But there is always one issue or another that I am battling. Currently it's iMessage no longer works, it's a known issue without an easy solution. That's a recurring theme with a Hackintosh, something breaks, spend forever researching how to fix it, and then eventually something else breaks. It's to the point that I stopped updating mine at 10.9.1 out of fear that I wouldn't have a functioning machine, which has happened on more than one occasion.

The day after the Mac Mini "refresh" I stumbled on an absolutely unreal deal on the previous generation Mini server for $499. I couldn't whip my Amex out fast enough. I haven't hooked it up yet, but I can't wait to be able to update my computer and actually have everything work.
 
MrX8503 said:
[...]My plan was to get the 2014 Mac Mini to replace my WHS.
[...] The important thing to me is a thunderbolt network bridge because Gigabit is still way too slow.

Should I go Hackintosh, 2012, or 2014?
Click to expand...

Could you please explain why you think wired Gigabit ethernet is "way too slow" for a home server? If you are going to spend the $$$$ for a server-level Thunderbolt storage solution, you might as well get a Mac Pro...
 
Thanks for the tips. I think I'm gonna avoid hackintosh, I can't take that kind of risk.

germinator said:
Could you please explain why you think wired Gigabit ethernet is "way too slow" for a home server? If you are going to spend the $$$$ for a server-level Thunderbolt storage solution, you might as well get a Mac Pro...
Click to expand...

Backups are way too slow for Gigabit, especially with tons of tiny files. I'm not getting thunderbolt storage I'm going to use thunderbolt network bridge. It's crazy fast and I think an underutilized function of thunderbolt.

paulrbeers said:
I built a hackintosh about 10 months ago using TonyMac recommended hardware. The thing is by far my fastest but also my least stable "Mac" in my house. Little things like not being able to utilize sleep (won't wake up properly), the ethernet will occassionally just go haywire, and oh yeah figuring out what Kexts actually work with my hardware is frustrating (I have to use an older version of my ethernet Kext in order to do large file transfers without them failing).

Sure it's a beast, but I only turn it on when I am going to use it. I would NEVER use it as a server. Just can't trust it.

Now my question, if you are planning to replace a WHS server, why would the 2014's be a disappointment to you? Seriously aren't most WHS servers run off of old dual core intel atom processors or single core AMD Semprons?

What are you doing with your WHS server that more than a dual core processor is needed? Don't forget the new Mini's have Thunderbolt 2 which is twice as fast as previous Mini's with Thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

It's a disappointment because it's not upgrade friendly. TB2 is a plus though.
 
MrX8503 said:
Backups are way too slow for Gigabit, especially with tons of tiny files. I'm not getting thunderbolt storage I'm going to use thunderbolt network bridge. It's crazy fast and I think an underutilized function of thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

So you are going to use a TB to Ethernet dongle and think that this will give you faster network performance?
 
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