Mac mini M4 (2024): docks, stands and other accessories

[EugW]

From reply 447 above:
"Having a limited budget and wanting the best value I have naturally wanted to buy the base model but I am not at all keen on the very restrictive storage of it."

If you buy only "the base model", you may find yourself unhappy with it before too long.

I'd suggest the m4 Mini, 32gb of RAM, and a 1tb SSD.
That should remain competitive for 5-7 years ahead -- it has "room to grow" that will fit the growing demands of the OS.

To save money, IF you have the ability to buy from Apple's online refurbished page, get it from there.

You could get away with 32gb/512gb, with an external SSD.
But you want to be able to BOOT and RUN from the internal SSD.

I went from a 1 TB M1 Mac mini to a 512 GB M4 Mac mini. I still have 335 GB free. I keep my big Photos Library on an external USB 4 / Thunderbolt SSD.

I found 1 TB was either too little or too big. With the Photos Library on it, it was way too cramped. With the Photos Library moved to an external drive, the 1 TB internal SSD was huge overkill. 512 GB internal SSD with an additional external SSD is by far the best solution in my situation.

 

[M4th]

@Ishimura I'd stick with a refurb 16/512 (or 24/512 if you can swing it) and 2tb (or 4tb, check the couch for spare change) for the external in whatever brand suits your budget/style. WD has worked for me in that regard.

 

[HuskerHarley]

Note: Apple's education discount, refurb store and 3rd party vendor sales should not be ignored. I'm seeing some nice stuff of the refurb. store right now.

There’s also a 10% military discount for active and Veterans.

 

[Fishrrman]

Husker wrote:
"There’s also a 10% military discount for active and Veterans."

I bought a refurbished m4 Mini (32gb/1tb) through the Apple refurbished store.

First you sign into the veterans discount "page" (requires a registration with ID.me), and from there you are sent to Apple's "regular" order page (with prices reflecting the discount).

However, at the bottom you can still click on "refurbished" and then will be taken to that section. In addition to the veterans discount, the savings for refurbished will be "piggybacked" onto that as well.

When it tallies up, I got just shy of a 25% discount on the Mini above.

Veteran's discount page:

Veterans and Military Store

Veterans and Military personnel receive a 10% discount on Apple products. You may also purchase for immediate family who live in the same household.

www.apple.com

 

[mjcharlton71]

That's a £1400 machine, full price.

I said I was on a budget and that I was looking at the £600 model, which can now be had for around £500. I'm not sure why you're suggesting a spec that costs more than double what I said I was looking at.

With EDU discount, I paid £589 for the base M4 mini with 3 years AC+

Base model more than enough for my needs, as I’ve also a M3 Pro MBP that doesn’t get canned hard enough!

External U4 NVMe for Logic Pro library and Cubase components. Works fine for what I need and even though I could have went spec crazy, the additional 5-600 quid to match the M3 Pro spec was better off being burned for holiday funds.

 

[HuskerHarley]

Husker wrote:
"There’s also a 10% military discount for active and Veterans."

I bought a refurbished m4 Mini (32gb/1tb) through the Apple refurbished store.

First you sign into the veterans discount "page" (requires a registration with ID.me), and from there you are sent to Apple's "regular" order page (with prices reflecting the discount).

However, at the bottom you can still click on "refurbished" and then will be taken to that section. In addition to the veterans discount, the savings for refurbished will be "piggybacked" onto that as well.

When it tallies up, I got just shy of a 25% discount on the Mini above.

Veteran's discount page:

Veterans and Military Store

Veterans and Military personnel receive a 10% discount on Apple products. You may also purchase for immediate family who live in the same household.

www.apple.com

Thanks for the tip; I didn't know I could PB the Vet 10% on refurbs.

 

[bapegg]

The downside to the veteran discount is that you can't get the 12 or 18 month same as cash - zero interest. At least that is how it is if you use the Apple Card. It was one or the other, I could not get the same as cash AND use my discount.

 

[HuskerHarley]

15% Refurb, 10% Veteran, and 3% using Apple Credit Card. It is not the greatest, but better than nothing.

 

[Cave Man]

Hey guys. I’m in the market for a M4 Mini but have been agonising over the spec for months.

So, five months after launch and with all the things collectively learned since then by users of the M4 Mini, what is the optimal external SSD solution to cope with how small the base storage is?

Until you tell us how much you have to spend, we cannot give you good suggestions. Do you value capacity or speed?

 

[drrich2]

I’m in the market for a M4 Mini but have been agonising over the spec for months.

Having a limited budget and wanting the best value I have naturally wanted to buy the base model but I am not at all keen on the very restrictive storage of it.

So, five months after launch and with all the things collectively learned since then by users of the M4 Mini, what is the optimal external SSD solution to cope with how small the base storage is?

If it's the base M4, not M4Pro, then you have Thunderbolt 4 ports, not TB5. With money tight, you're probably looking at getting a Thunderbolt 3 external SSD.

You'll notice most stand alone external SSDs are TB3, not 4. I watched a video describing the practical differences in detail, and now...I still don't get it. They have the same max. theoretical speed. I got the impression Thunderbolt 4 has advantages over TB3 for docks and hubs, but for external SSDs TB3 is the way to go.

From there, you have 2 broad category choices. You can either buy a ready made, plug & play product where there's already an SSD in the enclosure, or you can buy an employ enclosure and buy an internal SSD separately to put in it. I've been told the latter route is cheaper, and some of these are pretty easy to open up. That said, you'll read of people using 3rd party heat pads and such aiming to cool things down more.

The issue is that external Thunderbolt SSD devices can sometimes get pretty hot. Therefore, you'll face the option of housings with or without a built-in fan.

There's an ongoing, presently 84 page thread from back in 2017 getting into these: Thunderbolt 3 M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosures

I don't know how much content you have and expect to generate over time. Internal SSD prices vs. capacity you can study for a name brand on Amazon, etc... I think you'll be picking between 2 and 4 terabyte internal SSDs.

 

[Ishimura]

Until you tell us how much you have to spend, we cannot give you good suggestions. Do you value capacity or speed?

Hi. Well, it really depends on what it costs to get the absolute best external SSD performance and capacity.

Performance is more important in the sense that I want it to match the internal speed as much as possible. I don’t need loads of TB. Frankly 1TB be fine but let’s say 1-2TB.

I don’t want to spend a fortune on this external SSD as then the much vaunted value of the base Mac Mini is lost.

I wouldn’t want to spend much more than say £200 ($265) on the SSD and the enclosure but if you told me the absolute best, seamless, smoothest external setup was a bit more then I might stretch to that.

I’m still not convinced by the external SSD route. What I don’t what is any problems, having to fiddle with settings too much constantly moving things around, worrying about updates.

What’s the solution that give somebody the closest experience to using the internal storage?

 

[drrich2]

Hi. Well, it really depends on what it costs to get the absolute best external SSD performance and capacity.

For performance, that will be Thunderbolt 5 and an M4 Pro. Now the question becomes to what extent can one tell the difference from using a TB 4 SSD instead. Benchmarks are one thing, but how much can you perceive the difference?

 

[Ishimura]

For performance, that will be Thunderbolt 5 and an M4 Pro. Now the question becomes to what extent can one tell the difference from using a TB 4 SSD instead. Benchmarks are one thing, but how much can you perceive the difference?

Thanks for the reply.

Getting the optimal external SSD setup is in the context of getting a base M4, because that is a low priced and the best value.

If it's not a perceivable difference, then it doesn't matter. What are most people here - a lot of Mac veterans - mostly going for?

 

[Che Castro]

UGREEN Mac mini M4 Dock & Stand with NVMe SSD Enclosure, 3 USB A 10Gbps, USB C Data Port, SD Card Reader for Mac mini M4/ M4 Pro

UGREEN Mac Mini M4 Dock & Stand with NVMe SSD Enclosure, M4 Mac Mini Hub with 3 USB A 10Gbps, USB C Data Port, SD Card Reader for Mac Mini M4, Mac Mini M4 Pro

www.amazon.com

Did anybody here get this one from ugreen?
This has everything I need , 3 usb A ports in the back , 2 usb c ports in the back , 2 usb A ports in the front , sd card readerb
Plus external power port
And nvme enclosure
The 10gbps and not thunderbolt doesn’t bother me


I like that it has lots of ports A & C in the back , I wish the Satechi hub was like this

 

[EugW]

UGREEN Mac mini M4 Dock & Stand with NVMe SSD Enclosure, 3 USB A 10Gbps, USB C Data Port, SD Card Reader for Mac mini M4/ M4 Pro

UGREEN Mac Mini M4 Dock & Stand with NVMe SSD Enclosure, M4 Mac Mini Hub with 3 USB A 10Gbps, USB C Data Port, SD Card Reader for Mac Mini M4, Mac Mini M4 Pro

www.amazon.com

Did anybody here get this one from ugreen?
This has everything I need , 3 usb A ports in the back , 2 usb c ports in the back , 2 usb A ports in the front , sd card readerb
Plus external power port
And nvme enclosure
The 10gbps and not thunderbolt doesn’t bother me


I like that it has lots of ports A & C in the back , I wish the Satechi hub was like this

10 Mbps USB 3 sometimes has disconnect issues at sleep/wake for storage drives. IMO, that’s much worse than the slower speed is, compared to USB 4 / Thunderbolt.

What happens is that drives occasionally improperly disconnect at sleep and then automatically reconnect at wake. This is still OK for most software, but macOS throws up an error message at wake, and this behavior can wreak havoc on specific software like Apple Photos.

 

[theluggage]

I watched a video describing the practical differences in detail, and now...I still don't get it. They have the same max. theoretical speed. I got the impression Thunderbolt 4 has advantages over TB3 for docks and hubs, but for external SSDs TB3 is the way to go.

Roughly speaking, I think the progression is:

TB3: Carries multiple PCIe and DisplayPort signals over a single link. "Daisy chain" architecture - hubs/docks can only have one TB3 "out" port - but can have multiple internal PCIe devices - NVME SSDs, PCIe-to-USB3/Ethernet/SATA/whatever. Intel opened the protocol to the USB-IF who produced...

USB4: Basically TB3 by another name, but with added support for carrying multiple USB3.2 signals alongside the PCIe and DP & support for hubs with multiple downstream USB4 connections - basically making it more USB-like. However, lots of features - including some Thunderbolt 1/2/3 backwards compatibility and multi-display support - became optional extras.

TB4: No longer its own thing - "Thunderbolt" becomes an Intel certification and branding scheme for USB4. Many of the "optional" USB4 features are required for TB4, but it is still basically TB3 plus USB4's new USB-centric features for hubs and USB-over-Thunderbolt. Incidentally - as far as I can tell. the only reason the"TB3/USB4" ports on M1/M2/M3 MacBooks aren't branded as TB4 is that they don't meet the "at least 2 displays via Thunderbolt" part of the TB4 spec.

USB4v2: Adds new 80Gbps speeds and PCIe V4 support to USB4.

TB5: As with TB4 - an Intel branded/certified version of USB4v2 with stricter minimum specs - which is potentially faster than TB3/4.

The TB3 vs. TB4 debate boils down to the fact that TB4 doesn't offer any speed advantages for PCIe-based peripherals (like NVME SSDs, mechanical HDs or PCIe expansion boxes) andUSB4/TB4 peripheral chips (at least the first wave) were aimed at the new-style USB4/TB4 hubs, which were all about offering multiple downstream USB4/TB4 ports and "tunnelling" USB 3.x from the host's USB controllers (at the cost of using up PCIe lanes). So there was certainly a point where TB3 was actually better for PCIe-based peripherals like NVME drives which could use all 4 potentially available PCIe lanes. If you have a call for an external SSD plus multiple downstream TB4 ports then maybe... but if you're losing sleep over how much bandwidth your SSD is getting then you don't want it sharing a TB controller with a hub offering 3 downstream TB ports...

TB5 offers PCIe4 support and (consequently) faster speeds for everything - but check that whatever SSD drive is inside can actually use that bandwidth...

 

[Chancha]

What’s the Difference Between Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4?

Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 feature different chipset designs aimed at different purposes. Here's what you need to know to pick the best Thunderbolt peripheral for your needs.

www.owc.com

OWC has this page that detailed the bottlenecking issue when TB4 was new.

The most obvious example of this issue is how an internal 10GbE port is only present on TB3 docks, then now TB5 docks, skipping the TB4 gen altogether.

 

[Fishrrman]

Thanks for the info in reply 466, luggage.

Just a thought, nothing more, probably wrong:
It looks like that -- in time -- USB will continue to evolve as a technology to the point where it will render "thunderbolt" essentially... irrelevant.

Kind of like firewire before it...

 

[EugW]

Thanks for the info in reply 466, luggage.

Just a thought, nothing more, probably wrong:
It looks like that -- in time -- USB will continue to evolve as a technology to the point where it will render "thunderbolt" essentially... irrelevant.

Kind of like firewire before it...

Not quite. Thunderbolt is essentially part of USB now.

One way to think of it is Thunderbolt is USB with all the bells and whistles, fully certified.

 

[theluggage]

It looks like that -- in time -- USB will continue to evolve as a technology to the point where it will render "thunderbolt" essentially... irrelevant.

Not really because, now, TB4 and USB4 (and continuing with TB5 and USB4v2) are - under the hood - exactly the same "technology stack". TB is just USB4 with a bunch of "optional feature" boxes ticked. TB3 always relied on USB3.X and USB-C-related protocols for lower-speed connections and power delivery, while USB4 took its 20Gbps tech directly from Thunderbolt. One or the other may win the naming war - but that's just names.

So if you want to use a FireWire analogy, it's more FireWire vs. iLink vs. IEE 1394!

The original developers of Thunderbolt - Intel and Apple - are major participants in the USB Implementer's forum (and, I get the impression, do the lion's share of USB R&D) so there hasn't been a huge change there, either.

TB can't do anything that USB4 can't do if the USB4 device supports the required options. The "advantage" of TB at the moment is that it has stricter feature requirements.

 

[EugW]

Weirdly enough, for my USB 4 / TB 4 SSDs, when I plug them directly into my M4 Mac mini, they are identified as USB 4 drives, but when I run them through my USB 4 / TB 4 hubs, they are identified as Thunderbolt drives and use less power.

Otherwise performance and behaviour in macOS are similar.

 

[weckart]

TB can't do anything that USB4 can't do if the USB4 device supports the required options. The "advantage" of TB at the moment is that it has stricter feature requirements.

I always understood TB as being a conduit to the PCIE bus, so that adapters could be made for other protocols like Firewire etc and should operate at full potential speed, whereas going over USB meant being limited to USB rather than PCIE speeds. Is that wrong or did it change?

 

[theluggage]

I always understood TB as being a conduit to the PCIE bus, so that adapters could be made for other protocols like Firewire etc and should operate at full potential speed, whereas going over USB meant being limited to USB rather than PCIE speeds. Is that wrong or did it change?

Pretty much - it was always a conduit for PCIe (to the PCIe bus) & DisplayPort (to teh GPU) & could carry a mix of PCIe and DP streams down a single cable. All that has changed in that respect is that it can now be a conduit for USB 2/3.x (to the host's USB controllers) in the same way. The PCIe side hasn't gone away - it was just that USB features and support for multi-downstream-port hubs were the big new feature of USB4/TB4 - which didn't really offer anything new on the PCIe side. The PCIe features get a big boost with USB4v2/TB5.

 

[EugW]

Yup. USB 4 is a really big deal IMO. I don’t really like USB 3 much, but I am a fan of USB 4, because Thunderbolt is now a part of it. It is a big improvement on Macs for reliability and compatibility.

 

[theluggage]

Yup. USB 4 is a really big deal IMO. I don’t really like USB 3 much, but I am a fan of USB 4, because Thunderbolt is now a part of it. It is a big improvement on Macs for reliability and compatibility.

Well, we'll see. The big problem is the price premium for USB4/TB4 (let alone USB4v2/TB5) peripherals vs. the "good enough for many people" performance of USB 3.

At the moment, we have seen cheaper hubs/docks - but the way USB4/TB4 implements this, using "tunnelled" USB 3 from the host controllers vs. the "old way" of having PCIe-to-whatever controllers is - shall we say "swings and roundabouts". USB4/TB4 devices tend to be making more use of the USB 3.x protocols internally rather than PCIe - which often means that what you effectively have is a load of peripherals plugged into a USB 3 hub running off the Mac's internal USB3 controllers.

I'd say that a rough rule of thumb for hubs seems to be that, unless you are connecting displays or other "full" TB4 peripherals to the hub, you can save $$ and get the same performance from an old USB3 hub (there are a few USB-C based ones around now). The advantage only comes when you're also running TB4 and DP streams alongside the USB.

One thing to look for is whether USB4 SSDs (same as TB4 for most practical purposes) start displacing the current crop of USB3.2 ones at comparable prices. There are a couple - but they seem to be going at a premium over 3.2, although it is tricky to compare since you need a fairly high-end SSD in there for the difference to matter. Then we've got TB5/USB4v2 which should be a huge difference for PCIe-based devices.