M1 8GB RAM Experiences with Xcode and JetBrains IDEs

[OldMike]

I have read through ALL of the discussion here on MR about the 8GB vs 16GB debates. I have also watched all of the YouTube videos that I could find. I'm not interested in compilation benchmarks, as I am more concerned about responsiveness in the more heavy weight IDEs (JetBrains) during actual coding and usage.

I'm specifically looking at the Mac Mini, and I am trying to decide between 8GB or 16GB. I'm planning on probably selling it when the next Mini gets released, so I am not really concerned about long term use. I am concerned, however, about fluidity and responsiveness when using various IDEs with fairly large projects.

Besides for development tasks, I am a pretty heavy user, and typically spec machines for considerably more RAM than 8 or 16 GB, mostly due to running virtualized environments. I have so many Raspberry Pi machines, that I don't think I will need to run virtualization at all on this M1 Mac, as I always have a Pi hanging around that can be used for Linux testing.

I would love to hear from anyone who has actual hands on experience with the 8GB Mac Mini, developing in various IDEs, and multitasking on dual 4K displays - where other apps are actually running and not just minimized or in the background (thus being a great target for memory compression as opposed to actual utilized RAM).

Not trying to beat this to death, but I have run across some here who have made reference to doing development on the 8GB M1 Macs, without really getting into details, but who have alluded to the 8GB machine being a great experience. Every YouTube video I have come across that is by an actual developer or computer science student adamantly states that the 16GB M1 is an absolute requirement.

TBH, if the 16GB machine was available locally, like the 8GB Mac Minis are, I would be more tempted to go that route. I would, on the other hand, prefer to just purchase one locally this week, while also saving the $200 upgrade on the additional 8GB RAM to put towards the next version of the Mini that I most likely would upgrade to. I am also hesitant about putting any more money than necessary into this generation Mini since there seems to be other outstanding issues currently (display, bluetooth, etc) which may or may not get fixed.

Ultimately, though, I don't want to have a poor experience due to making the wrong choice.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[colintempler]

Not sure if you've seen this one

but hope it's some use for you.

 

[turbineseaplane]

TBH, if the 16GB machine was available locally, like the 8GB Mac Minis are, I would be more tempted to go that route.

So interesting you say that.

I think Apple really made a mistake not stocking 16GB options in stores and at resellers from the get go.
Your thought above that I quoted is a sentiment I share and have seen echoed elsewhere.

People can upgrade the storage with Thunderbolt 3 and get great, nearly internal native, performance.

RAM, however, you can't do a thing about once you've purchased.
Very frustrating.

Based on some of the fully base Mini M1 deals we've already seen though ($639 - even lower for open box), it could get to a low enough price where it's hard to say "no" to just rolling with 8GB RAM until the next Mini update.

 

[pldelisle]

Although I don't have an M1 Mac yet, I too am a software engineer. I already own a Late-2013 MacBook Pro 15 with 16 GB of RAM. I'm data scientist, so I had sometimes to crunch data locally. But even if I offload my workload to a server 99% of the time, I would never buy anything in 2021 without at least 16 GB of RAM. It's not rare I peak the RAM to 13-14 GB of usage. I rarely swap thought, but having less than 16 GB of RAM is barely inconceivable for me. If 32 GB would have been available, this would have likely been my choice.

I use PyCharm daily. I also have to use docker occasionally, and I can't even imagine running Docker with only 8 GB of RAM.

 

[OldMike]

Although I don't have an M1 Mac yet, I too am a software engineer. I already own a Late-2013 MacBook Pro 15 with 16 GB of RAM. I'm data scientist, so I had sometimes to crunch data locally. But even if I offload my workload to a server 99% of the time, I would never buy anything in 2021 without at least 16 GB of RAM. It's not rare I peak the RAM to 13-14 GB of usage. I rarely swap thought, but having less than 16 GB of RAM is barely inconceivable for me. If 32 GB would have been available, this would have likely been my choice.

I use PyCharm daily. I also have to use docker occasionally, and I can't even imagine running Docker with only 8 GB of RAM.

Point taken, and it is PyCharm I am mostly concerned with. This is how I am feeling also, just didn't want to have to order one. In the back of my mind, if I got the base model and it did not workout for its intended purpose, I might have used it elsewhere. But if I pay any extra, and it still does not work out due to other issues and concerns, then it would be getting returned.

 

[pldelisle]

Really, I couldn't urge you more to take 16 GB RAM. I really wish it would have straightly come out with 32 GB RAM. But since it only has 4 high performance cores, it's kinda logical to only have 16 GB. It's a low end CPU after all. M1X or M2 will likely come out with up to 8 high performance cores, so a 32/64 GB RAM option is more logical.

 

[OldMike]

The real shame is that the higher spec Mini for $899 doesn't include 16GB RAM. 8GB of RAM goes for about $25 right now, and 256GB of Nvme is less than $50, so their higher spec model that they stock in stores could have easily included the extra RAM for the $200 up-charge, and it would have made life easier for everyone.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The real shame is that the higher spec Mini for $899 doesn't include 16GB RAM. 8GB of RAM goes for about $25 right now, and 256GB of Nvme is less than $50, so their higher spec model that they stock in stores could have easily included the extra RAM for the $200 up-charge, and it would have made life easier for everyone.

Yeah - Apple would get me to buy in more on their whole "soldered down - all integrated - better for all" thing if they'd stop the outrageous gouging on things like RAM.

That $899 spec should absolutely be 512/16 and it would be a no brainer up from the base model...as is, it's an awful deal (IMO)

$200 more for 256gb extra storage and that's it?
Incredible screw job

 

[turbineseaplane]

Conversely - if you can get a good deal on it and use external storage, the Mac Mini M1 base model may be the deal of the decade in terms of value and performance per dollar.

Those B&H $639 prices, which I'm sure will come again from retailers...or even the current Amazon $669..are amazing prices for the performance one is getting.

 

[OldMike]

Conversely - if you can get a good deal on it and use external storage, the Mac Mini M1 base model may be the deal of the decade in terms of value and performance per dollar.

Those B&H $639 prices, which I'm sure will come again from retailers...or even the current Amazon $669..are amazing prices for the performance one is getting.

I was thinking the same thing. I actually already have an Akitio Thunder Quad Mini enclosure (that also happens to have a display port on it) with SSDs that I can free up and use with the M1 Mini. I might pull the trigger on the 8GB model just to give it a go. The developer in the video posted by @colintempler seemed to have a very good experience with all the development tools and IDEs that I would be using on the 8GB model.

This also wouldn't necessarily need to be my primary machine, in the event it does not work out exactly as planned.

 

[ADGrant]

I was thinking the exactly the same. I actually already have an Akitio Thunder Quad Mini enclosure (that also happens to have a display port on it) with SSDs that I can free up and use with the M1 Mini. I might pull the trigger on the 8GB model just to give it a go. The developer in the video posted by @colintempler seemed to have a very good experience with all the development tools and IDEs that I would be using on the 8GB model.

This also wouldn't necessarily need to be my primary machine, in the event it does not work out exactly as planned.

You should be aware that some people have complained about the performance of external SSDs on the M1 Macs.

 

[ADGrant]

Ultimately, though, I don't want to have a poor experience due to making the wrong choice.

If a poor experience is your ultimate concern, just get the 16GB model.

 

[OldMike]

You should be aware that some people have complained about the performance of external SSDs on the M1 Macs.

I did see that - but from what I can tell, the poor speeds were from USB or USB-C, not Thunderbolt 3 connections.

 

[pldelisle]

Experience and performance for doing my work > current deal.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I actually already have an Akitio Thunder Quad Mini enclosure

How do you like that?
Would you buy it again?

 

[OldMike]

How do you like that?
Would you buy it again?

I've been using it for at least a couple of years now. I have two Akitio Thunder3 Quads and one Akitio Quad Mini. I have had them connected to my 2013 Mac Pro via Thunderbolt 2 and currently have them connected to my 2018 Mac Mini with Thunderbolt 3.

The Quad Mini houses 4 SSDs (SATA), and I have been using one of them for a boot drive since I have owned this setup (same boot drive for the Mac Pro and then the Mac Mini). Have not had one disconnect or crash the whole time, and my machines only down time is during reboots for updates.

I believe Akitio was bought by OWC and they are selling the Quad and Quad Mini now.

I would definitely buy these again. I got these on a strange blowout deal from Provantage, so they were not so expensive when I got them. They have been great and I like the fact that they can supply power to TB3 laptops, have an extra TB3 port (for daisy chaining) and display port on the back.

What remains to be seen is if these will work well with the M1 Macs, but I have no reason to believe that they won't. I am counting on the DisplayPort on these enclosures to run one of the two 4K monitors I am intending on using.

 

[turbineseaplane]

So are you not doing any RAID or anything with any of the four drives, just all independent?

I hope those boxes work as well with the M1s - particularly on the display side of things

 

[OldMike]

So are you not doing any RAID or anything with any of the four drives, just all independent?

I hope those boxes work as well with the M1s - particularly on the display side of things

They will do RAID 0 internally, or you can use Software Raid. I prefer not to run them that way and use a combination of DriveDX for drive health monitoring, Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine to ensure everything is safe and sound. The two full size Thunder Quads are mirrors of each (using CCC not RAID 1) other except for the Time Machine disks.

 

[pldelisle]

Wow. Great storage setup ! I personally have a Synology NAS DS1513+. 3x4TB RAID 5 + SSD caching. Automatic backup pf the most important on an external USB3 drive. It also plays the role of a docker server when needed, dns caching, and vpn server. But it’s not for “live” high performance storage. I use it in 1gbps ethernet. I don’t have any use case that requires thunderbolt speed, but I like it to be accessible over VPN as a full fledged server.

 

[OldMike]

Wow. Great storage setup ! I personally have a Synology NAS DS1513+. 3x4TB RAID 5 + SSD caching. Automatic backup pf the most important on an external USB3 drive. It also plays the role of a docker server when needed, dns caching, and vpn server. But it’s not for “live” high performance storage. I use it in 1gbps ethernet. I don’t have any use case that requires thunderbolt speed, but I like it to be accessible over VPN as a full fledged server.

Many times over I have contemplated going with a similar setup to yours. Each time though, after pricing the Synology unit that I would really want, I keep going back to a Mini substituting for the Synology. Right now I have 64TB of NAS hard drives and 8TB of SSD drives in the TB3 enclosures.

In the early years it was rough with FireWire and USB, but ThunderBolt has really made the setup much nicer.

 

[colintempler]

I would like to add a counterpoint view that I've found on another forum which actually says it's not that good for JVM

I bought one last week and have used it for 7 days now. I was in an initial hype phase as well, but I am more critical now and doubting whether I should return it.

Performance of native apps is as great as everyone claims. But I think it is a bit overhyped, recent AMD APUs come close in multi-core performance. Of course, that the Air works with passive cooling is a nice bonus.

Rosetta works great with native x86_64 applications, but performance is abysmal with JIT-ing runtimes like the JVM. E.g. JetBrains currently do not have a native version of their IDEs (JVM, but I think they also use some other non-Java code) and their IDEs are barely usable due to slowness. If you rely on JetBrains IDEs, wait until they have an Apple Silicon version.
[...]
Edit: returned and ordered a ThinkPad.

 

[pldelisle]

I would like to add a counterpoint view that I've found on another forum which actually says it's not that good for JVM

They are working on a native version for ASi. I‘m not too worried. I don‘t know the date this post has been posted, but all I read recently about jetbrains IDEs on ASi is just fine.

 

[dogslobber]

That 8GB isn't 8GB for apps. It is more like 6.5GB as you have caching and display buffer so getting a 16GB provides 2.5x the memory for apps.

 

[pldelisle]

That 8GB isn't 8GB for apps. It is more like 6.5GB as you have caching and display buffer so getting a 16GB provides 2.5x the memory for apps.

And the JVM is in this 6.5 GB ... ! And JVM isn’t lightweight these days...

 

[ipponrg]

They are working on a native version for ASi. I‘m not too worried. I don‘t know the date this post has been posted, but all I read recently about jetbrains IDEs on ASi is just fine.

came out today

IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3.1 Is Out With Apple Silicon Support | The IntelliJ IDEA Blog

We are back with our first bug-fix release for IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3! The improved v2020.3.1 polishes the recently released features and supports Apple Silicon! That’s right, Apple fans, you can now wo

blog.jetbrains.com