How to keep my Mac mini 2012 alive

[dazey]

t doesn't seem like current prices are out of line (from Apple's point of view)

Mac Prices UK (United Kingdom) - Mac Original Prices: EveryMac.com

The original price in the UK (United Kingdom) for many PowerPC and Intel Apple Macs with specs a click away. EveryMac.com Global Mac Pricing.

everymac.com

I was in the UK at the time so aparantly I paid £629 for my quad 2.3 i7
ac mini "Core i7" 2.3 (Late 2012) £679 1 Mac mini "Core i7" 2.6 (Late 2012) £759
If I remember correctly it came with a 1TB hard drive. SSDs were not cheaply available at the time in large sizes (was the time of small SSD boot drives, fusion drives etc). I would have run it with the SSD boot drive that I took out of a G5 at the time (with the HDD for storage). To me a 2012 with HDD compares to a 2022 with a SSD from a pricing perspective. Most of the issue is apples pricing on SSD and RAM, which in the past you could circumvent not only by going 3rd party, but also by time-shifting (i.e. today a 1TB might be OK, tomorrow might upgrade to a 2TB that is now cheap). Over its life my 2012 has seen many drives. With no expansion you have to over spec today or be faced with a 'mini' with lots of drives hanging off it after a year or two

The base prices have remained very similar but now I am pushed to more than double the price of the machine just to get a moderate level of storage and RAM which I can buy third party for an order of magnitude less. (nearly 1k for a 2TB that costs 200 retail)

 

[Boyd01]

Well, all I can conclude is that "it is what it is". I don't see Apple returning to user-upgradeable SSD's and RAM in the Mini. At least you could add your own memory to the 2018 model.

 

[Memolomazo]

well, you can see videos of people using Macs from 20 years ago.
I have a coworker with a MacBook from 2011 and still working perfectly.
As long as you get checked your machine every 2 years, you will be ok.
Anyway, I would go for a Mac mini m1, and have the old Mac mini in case of emergency

 

[MajorFubar]

2010 Mac Mini owner here.
A few years ago I completely revitalised this ageing workhorse by substituting the spinning plates of rust with a 512GB SSD. Other than the fact it's 'frozen' on High Sierra, it's still a great machine for light duties, including streaming TV from online channels.

 

[MBAir2010]

My 2012 mini is a workhorse, but the macbook air 2010 spun non stop for the first time since 2019
then i realized i was using terminal, music playing and exporting 37 videos in PHOTOs to a hard drive.
was only supposed to be 10!
works fine now!