I originally purchased an M1 mini with 8GB/512GB and ended up returning it for the 16GB/2TB model. If you are doing any video editing, I believe you need the extra RAM for smooth workflow. In my case, it made a big difference. Also, ended up getting more hard drive space because external HD read speeds are substantially slower than working from the internal HD, which is blazing fast. It cost a lot but I'm happy with the investment.
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Has anyone bought a base 8GB memory Mini and wished they had upgraded?
- Thread starter jasoncarle
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Not at all. Even having a ton of things open, an active video call, doing work on Matlab all at the same time, 8gb is no issue. I sometimes touch yellow memory pressure for a moment or two, but there is no slowdown. I attribute the memory pressure concern mostly to Matlab, as it is still an Intel program and is quite heavy.
Any very serious tasks I just do on my i9 10850k desktop anyways.
I wouldn't bother buying a higher spec M1 machine (maybe 512gb storage if anything), at that price point I'd rather wait for whatever Pro's come out.
Any very serious tasks I just do on my i9 10850k desktop anyways.
I wouldn't bother buying a higher spec M1 machine (maybe 512gb storage if anything), at that price point I'd rather wait for whatever Pro's come out.
Had a 8 GB . Returned only because I've found an awesome deal on the 16 GB which ended up cheaper (had the option to buy it tax free on my company )
Leaving this here after a few days of usage, but I guess 8 GB would've been just fine for my workflow :
Leaving this here after a few days of usage, but I guess 8 GB would've been just fine for my workflow :
8 GB - not really. Based on the numbers you have shown MacOS is running happily and nice with 16GB, because it has the space available to cache files (4 GBs) in memory. However, your Mac is compressing memory, which is not an ideal situation and it shows that there isn't as much free memory as it would ideally like based on what you are doing. Only 1 GB of compressed memory does show that it's not a particularly bad situation.
In reality though you are unlikely to see the performance hit of compressing and decompressing memory, because it will be done on a free core, but with a heavy multi core workload you may. Car analogies are often not perfect, but to me, buying an expensive computer and then cheaping out on the memory ( < 16 GBs for today's general workflows, applications and operating systems) is like buying a sports car and then fitting budget tyres. It will drive perfectly fine to the shops and back and may only be 5 seconds slower around a short track, but in other situations like rain and emergency braking it will be severely compromised and hampered by the budget tyres.
Just wondering then if I've never topped 30% in pressure over a week why would it then half the memory not being enough. I mention all my work is cloud based so 99% I'm in chrome with multiple tabs.
One thing that I've tried with both, same 4K footage in Devinci Resolve ( for M1) while rendering and playing a 4K HDR video in YouTube reached yellow pressure and audio stopped on 8 GB. On the 16 GB I've opened another clip in YouTube in chrome and a third 4K video in safari and only reached half in pressure but still in green and everything was running simultaneously. So there is a sensible difference between them but personally even the 1st scenario is not something that I'll do for now but in the future who knows. Anyway, I wouldn't returned it only because it was cheaper, otherwise I would keep it and advise anyone that's not going into heavy usage or daily rendering to do so.
The biggest impact with half the memory would be the cache. This mechanism stores your most often used files in memory, which includes many of the operating system and application library files to make the entire experience of using your system feel snappier. Whilst SSDs become faster, RAM is still much faster and always will be, especially when it comes to random reads. You cannot really interpret the memory pressure bar to say, well with 16 GBs I achieved 30%, so with 8 GBs I would only get 60% pressure, so all is well. Even 30% in my view is too high. This is my typical daily use on my Intel based Mac. The OS is happily using all of the available memory to give me the best experience.
And this is my pressure history
Trying to work like I normally do on 16 GBs would not be as nice an experience as I have now and 8 GBs would be unworkable. If I wanted to wait for a computer, I would buy a cheap one.
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No. I do mostly "casual" things with a few games like World of Warcraft, browsing with Chrome/Safari, listening to music, using GIMP + Garageband + Handbrake etc. No issues at all with 8GB RAM. The only time I had problem was when Apple Music went crazy and decided to use like 60 GB of RAM and then crashed the computer.
If I did more intensive things or worked with xcode I would probably want more though
If I did more intensive things or worked with xcode I would probably want more though
Got an 8 GB Mini from work, so I didn’t have a choice to upgrade. But the machine is amazing, even with 8 GB. However, I HAVE run into memory error messages (something like “the system is out of menory”) when running Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Logic Pro simultaneously (not at all an uncommon scenario for my workflow). So, yes, I would prefer 16 GB. But still, I’m extremely surprised and impressed as to just how close the 8 GB actually comes to satisfying pro needs. I would say the memory (and not the cpu performance) is the bottleneck of this machine.
I come from a 12 core 5,1 Mac Pro, and the difference is night and day. However, I will be upgrading further from the mini to something a little more powerfull when Apple releases even more pro oriented machines later this year/next year.
I come from a 12 core 5,1 Mac Pro, and the difference is night and day. However, I will be upgrading further from the mini to something a little more powerfull when Apple releases even more pro oriented machines later this year/next year.
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It really depends on what you are doing. If you are developing my first iOS app, then even with 8 GBs Xcode will run ok. You are unlikely to see many issues with 16 GBs. What you will appreciate is that even a base model MBA can open xcode and the simulator faster with a default project than a top of the range Intel Macbook pro. Even a base model will compile, build and run basic/medium complexity ios apps without breaking a sweat. I've seen a 16 GB MBA compiling Chromium faster than an i9 32 GB 16" Macbook Pro. It was something like 27 vs 32 minutes, iirc. if portability is not a requirement, then I would go for an M1 Mini, since it's the fastest in all developer tasks.
If you have tons of other apps going at the same time, like Outlook, a web browser, Word and Excel documents for references, Teams and Slack because that one team refuses to use Teams, then you will certainly appreciate having 16 GBs at least.
real developer dont like to wait compiling. 27 minute noo way for me. i rather do other language instead.
It's a full compile of Chromium. What other language do you think can compile a project of such magnitude and complexity faster? If you want it done faster, then you need a Threadripper CPU, or similar. Compiling Chromium on a fanless entry level MBA in around 27 minutes is incredibly impressive.
Get the Code: Checkout, Build, & Run Chromium
www.chromium.org
My point is is developer don't like to wait not how many minute you compile. This is no video rendering. If we code , test compile each time waiting 27 minute totally horrible.
M1 is fast but when we do job , "use the right tool for the job" instead.
Compile time is really important for developers, though not for Chromium IMO
What is more important for me is overall system responsiveness - I hate lags, e.g waiting for open a new Safari tab with Xcode and Sketch or Affinity in background. Another case is simulator is totally unresponsive for a minute or half.
Do you notice any on Mac Mini M1 8GB on similar work conditions?
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I hear you 100% about the lag. I do not tolerate lag myself, or waiting for things to happen that I know should not take a long time. I would not get 8 GBs. 16 GBs Mini is ok, but I am still using my Mac Pro for everyday work and will probably look to switch completely once the rumoured mini pro comes out.Compile time is really important for developers, though not for Chromium IMO
What is more important for me is overall system responsiveness - I hate lags, e.g waiting for open a new Safari tab with Xcode and Sketch or Affinity in background. Another case is simulator is totally unresponsive for a minute or half.
Do you notice any on Mac Mini M1 8GB on similar work conditions?