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M2 Mac Mini Monitor Recommendation (Basic)

JohnMaldaner

JohnMaldaner

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 19, 2016
95
34
Kentucky
I hope not to spend north of $600. I am replacing a 2012 iMac. Casual web surfing. Picture storage. I use the computer to back up all our mobile devices. No video editing or picture editing beyond occasional for personal use. No video gaming. Heck, I'm too old for gaming! My current old iMac has a 1 TB hard drive and I back up to a 4 TB external drive. The drive in the iMac is 67% full after a decade. I'd like a screen equal to or better than what I have, but it doesn't need to be pro quality. I am thinking of the M2 Mini so it won't be obsolete any time soon. My current iMac screen is 21.5”. I don’t need anything bigger than 24” or maybe 27” at most. I’ve looked at monitor specs to the point that I don’t know how to make a decision! I want something that will pair easily with the Mac Mini, not induce eye strain when I read documents on it and won’t break the bank. Hope this helps anyone who will be kind enough to offer advice. Thanks!!
 
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JohnMaldaner said:
I hope not to spend north of $600. I am replacing a 2012 iMac. Casual web surfing. Picture storage. I use the computer to back up all our mobile devices. No video editing or picture editing beyond occasional for personal use. No video gaming. Heck, I'm too old for gaming! My current old iMac has a 1 TB hard drive and I back up to a 4 TB external drive. The drive in the iMac is 67% full after a decade. I'd like a screen equal to or better than what I have, but it doesn't need to be pro quality. I am thinking of the M2 Mini so it won't be obsolete any time soon. My current iMac screen is 21.5”. I don’t need anything bigger than 24” or maybe 27” at most. I’ve looked at monitor specs to the point that I don’t know how to make a decision! I want something that will pair easily with the Mac Mini, not induce eye strain when I read documents on it and won’t break the bank. Hope this helps anyone who will be kind enough to offer advice. Thanks!!
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I was in a similar situation as yourself. I am coming from two iMac’s (2009,2014-21.5”) just got the Mac mini m2 16/512. For a monitor I got BenQ ew2880u which is a 4k 28” monitor. It paired up with the Mac mini via hdmi with no problems. I’m very happy with it so far. There are so many options and it gets confusing. I would definitely shoot for a27” 4k monitor. You can get a decent one for under $400. I was also concerned 27” might be too big but now I could not go back to anything smaller. Hope this helps a bit. Also watch the prices they fluctuate almost on a daily basis.
 
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middleagedad said:
I was in a similar situation as yourself. I am coming from two iMac’s (2009,2014-21.5”) just got the Mac mini m2 16/512. For a monitor I got BenQ ew2880u which is a 4k 28” monitor. It paired up with the Mac mini via hdmi with no problems. I’m very happy with it so far. There are so many options and it gets confusing. I would definitely shoot for a27” 4k monitor. You can get a decent one for under $400. I was also concerned 27” might be too big but now I could not go back to anything smaller. Hope this helps a bit. Also watch the prices they fluctuate almost on a daily basis.
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Thank you! If I find a decent monitor under $400 I could opt for more RAM and a bigger HD in the Mini!
 
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Thanks for the advice. After much deliberation, I ordered the M2 Mac Mini with the 512 Gb HD. Right now it is $100 off on Amazon. I also ordered the LG UltraFine 4K Monitor 27UN850-W at under $400. I plan on using my existing Bluetooth Mac keyboard and mouse. Some day I may upgrade to the keyboard with Touch ID.

Not sure how I’m going to get documents, pictures and such from my current iMac to the new system, but I’m confident this will become apparent. Fingers crossed this all goes well.
 
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JohnMaldaner said:
Not sure how I’m going to get documents, pictures and such from my current iMac to the new system, but I’m confident this will become apparent. Fingers crossed this all goes well.
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The new Mac will give you the option to restore from a Time Machine backup. It will automatically pull all the user data and settings from the latest TM backup.

The other method is to connect both the old and new Macs to your network and use finder to drag and drop your files to the new Mac.
 
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ChrisA said:
The new Mac will give you the option to restore from a Time Machine backup. It will automatically pull all the user data and settings from the latest TM backup.

The other method is to connect both the old and new Macs to your network and use finder to drag and drop your files to the new Mac.
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I’ve been using Carbon Copy Cloner and an external HD to backup my iMac. I’m hoping I can use that external drive to transfer files. I just get nervous with stuff like this!
 
JohnMaldaner said:
I’ve been using Carbon Copy Cloner and an external HD to backup my iMac. I’m hoping I can use that external drive to transfer files. I just get nervous with stuff like this!
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Yes, you should be nervous. Make a Time Machine backup and use that. And in the future use TM. Apple makes it so easy and foolproof to transfer data to a new Mac if you have been using TM.

If not TM. Then just use the network.

If you have to buy a disk for TM get one that is at least twice the size of the data you have that needs to be backed up. Bigger is better. Actually the ideal TM disk is network attached so i does not need to be anyplace close to your computer.
 
ChrisA said:
Yes, you should be nervous. Make a Time Machine backup and use that. And in the future use TM. Apple makes it so easy and foolproof to transfer data to a new Mac if you have been using TM.

If not TM. Then just use the network.

If you have to buy a disk for TM get one that is at least twice the size of the data you have that needs to be backed up. Bigger is better. Actually the ideal TM disk is network attached so i does not need to be anyplace close to your computer.
Click to expand...
Well actually the same is true for Carbon Copy Cloner, and Super Duper. They also make backing up your user data very easy. I also don't recommend one be totally dependent on just one utility as it is always a good idea to use more than one to backup you data in case one fails for some reason.
 
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zer0ed said:
Well actually the same is true for Carbon Copy Cloner, and Super Duper. They also make backing up your user data very easy. I also don't recommend one be totally dependent on just one utility as it is always a good idea to use more than one to backup you data in case one fails for some reason.
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No. A cloned drive is a poor backup. The scenario is that you are working on a document, and you make a backup by cloning the drive.

Then, unknown to you, the file is corrupted. Then you make another backup. Now you have two copies of a bad file.

A better solution is incremental backups, where the old copies are NEVER overwritten. If your backup system make incremental copies and saves all the old versions of the files, then you are OK. If it does not do this, then you are only fooled into thinking your data is backup up.
 
ChrisA said:
No. A cloned drive is a poor backup. The scenario is that you are working on a document, and you make a backup by cloning the drive.

Then, unknown to you, the file is corrupted. Then you make another backup. Now you have two copies of a bad file.

A better solution is incremental backups, where the old copies are NEVER overwritten. If your backup system make incremental copies and saves all the old versions of the files, then you are OK. If it does not do this, then you are only fooled into thinking your data is backup up.
Click to expand...
And depending when you started your TM backups that same corrupt file scenario could happen with it. I disagree that a cloned drive is a poor backup. A poor backup is no backup at all! BTW, CCC can do incremental backups.
 
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Thanks for you advice. I am in the process now of pruning files from my iMac that are no longer needed. This is housekeeping that I should have done long ago. I've got a few days before the new system arrives. Might as well slim down now. No need to map over bloat!
 
I've got more questions regarding mapping over data to the new system. But, since that is no longer on the original topic for this post, I will start a new thread. Thanks to you all for your advice!

EDIT: I created this post to discuss migration questions. If you would take a look and give feedback, I'd sure appreciate it! Thanks!
 
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