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Mac Mini Quad-Core question

jamesryanbell

jamesryanbell

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 17, 2009
2,171
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What do you think about this configuration?

- Mac Mini Server (2.0 Ghz i7 Quad Core)

- 8GB of RAM

- order stock HD config (dual 500GB HD); replace boot drive with this: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Electra_6G/

Can the Mac Mini support SATA-6, or does it only do SATA-3?

Just curious to your thoughts in general. No need for an iMac because I already have a 27" ACD (non-Thunderbolt).
 
I'm pretty sure it does support SATA-6. That is the exact config i'm looking into getting btw.
 
The OWC SSDs are great and slowly getting cheaper.
Not sure about Trim on them but OWC site says they have something like that built into them...? Anyone tried the Trim enabler on these?
 
ryanide said:
The OWC SSDs are great and slowly getting cheaper.
Not sure about Trim on them but OWC site says they have something like that built into them...? Anyone tried the Trim enabler on these?
Click to expand...

I'd love to know that too.
 
ryanide said:
The OWC SSDs are great and slowly getting cheaper.
Not sure about Trim on them but OWC site says they have something like that built into them...? Anyone tried the Trim enabler on these?
Click to expand...

Don't enable trim. OWC says not to, http://blog.macsales.com/11051-to-trim-or-not-to-trim-owc-has-the-answer.

I have almost this same config. I got the extreme over the electra though for the SSD. So far so good. It just came in last night. So I haven't done much testing yet. Been reinstalling and configuring everything. I decided to not do a migration and set everything up new, so it's taking awhile. :)
 
for those wondering what speeds are like with RAID-0 striped 1TB HDD, this is what i get with the i7 mini server:
tazTu.png


i'm sure SSD is still 2-3x faster, but raid0 is a good compromise if you don't have the bucks to spend on SSD.
 
jamesryanbell said:
Wonder how the Quad Core i7 2.0Ghz compares with the iMac Quad-Cores?
Click to expand...

According to geekbench scores, it's the third most powerful option if you put all the minis up against all the imacs. Only the imac i7s outperform it for CPU related tasks.

Geekbench likes lots of cores/threads though. I've read that Lightroom loves cores/threads as well. Some other real world applications, like handbrake, may prefer a different balance of core/threads and clock speed; something the base i5 iMac, for example, may be able to better provide for that singular purpose.

Regardless, even in the areas where it would be outperformed, the mini's 2.0 i7 is still likely to be competitive for the vast majority of tasks and tests.
 
Last edited:
gooberlx said:
According to geekbench scores, it's the third most powerful option if you put all the minis up against all the imacs. Only the imac i7s outperform it for CPU related tasks.

Geekbench likes lots of cores/threads though. I've read that Lightroom loves cores/threads as well. Some other real world applications, like handbrake, may prefer a different balance of core/threads and clock speed; something the base i5 iMac, for example, may be able to better provide for that singular purpose.

Regardless, even in the areas where it would be outperformed, the mini's 2.0 i7 is still likely to be competitive for the vast majority of tasks and tests.
Click to expand...

the quad mini smokes all other minis for handbrake it can do a 1080p on big buck bunny in 7 minutes the base 2011 takes 13 to 14 mins the 799 mini does it in 11 or 12 the i7 mini does it in 9 or 10. the server rocks for cpu use like hand brake. my mac pro hex 3.2 does it in 5 min so spend 3k for 5 minutes or 1 k for 7 minutes.. if you do a lot of hand brake the server with 8gb ram is the way to go.
 
philipma1957 said:
the quad mini smokes all other minis for handbrake it can do a 1080p on big buck bunny in 7 minutes the base 2011 takes 13 to 14 mins the 799 mini does it in 11 or 12 the i7 mini does it in 9 or 10. the server rocks for cpu use like hand brake. my mac pro hex 3.2 does it in 5 min so spend 3k for 5 minutes or 1 k for 7 minutes.. if you do a lot of hand brake the server with 8gb ram is the way to go.
Click to expand...

No doubt it smokes the other minis.

Jamesryanbell was wondering about comparison to iMac CPUs though. Someone else here has compared his 2011 mini server to others' base i5 iMac and got something like 30 seconds slower encodes on the bunny/handbrake benchmark. Interestingly, his 15" MBP, with the same 2.0 i7 also encoded slightly faster than the mini server.

But yeah, I think the mini server is a helluva lotta bang for the buck, in such a small package.
 
jamesryanbell said:
What do you think about this configuration?

- Mac Mini Server (2.0 Ghz i7 Quad Core)

- 8GB of RAM

- order stock HD config (dual 500GB HD); replace boot drive with this: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Electra_6G/

Can the Mac Mini support SATA-6, or does it only do SATA-3?

Just curious to your thoughts in general. No need for an iMac because I already have a 27" ACD (non-Thunderbolt).
Click to expand...

If I was buying a Mini Server, I wouldn't be upgrading a thing but the RAM.

Dual 7200rpm HDDs are fast enough for almost any task. It will seem SSDs will only ounce them in tasks that involve frequently moving or reading/writing large amounts of data.

Plus SSDs are expensive.
 
jamesryanbell said:
Wonder how the Quad Core i7 2.0Ghz compares with the iMac Quad-Cores?
Click to expand...
in terms of cpu power, the mini i7 with hyperthreading is faster than the imac i5 without HT. but the i7 in the high end imac is still fastest.

in terms of raw processing power per $, here's a good breakdown:
http://developingperspective.tumblr.com/post/8093168321/mac-value-analysis

handbrake 0.9.5 on appletv2 preset to encode big_Buck_Bunny_1080p_surround_FrostWire.com.avi :
6m 35s - all 4 cores and 8 threads utilized
 
Adamantoise said:
If I was buying a Mini Server, I wouldn't be upgrading a thing but the RAM.

Dual 7200rpm HDDs are fast enough for almost any task. It will seem SSDs will only ounce them in tasks that involve frequently moving or reading/writing large amounts of data.

Plus SSDs are expensive.
Click to expand...

Have to agree. leave the server alone except for 8gb ram. the money saved could be used with a promise t-bolt or a lacie t-bolt.
 
indg, thanks for sharing your disk speed test. I'm definitely going with a raid0 configuration when I get my Mini in about 8 or 9 days!

Especially considering my MacBook Air with Toshiba SSD reaches 190 write and 209 read.
 
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I opted for the 256GB ssd + 7200rpm 750Gb in my mini server, upgraded to 8GB ram myself. Mostly because day in and day out I can be flipping 16 or 20GB of files on and off the main drive. It takes seconds instead of minutes. Trying to quit smoking, and that 10 minute wait would kill me lol.

Plus, ssd to thunderbolt>hdd to thunderbolt in the future. As far as performance, my geekbench is top mini score I have seen, 9640 in 64 bit. Vast difference between single thread and multi threaded performance there. Xbench is higher than average but some other 2011 server minis reportedly even top mine. I am sooo glad that I'm not viewing things on a 27" glossy display with risk of yellow tint issues.

I'll be bumping ram to 16Gb in the future and probably get six or seven years of service from this Mac. If you are confident and competent to replace the hdd with ssd, I say go for it, especially if you can save a few (hundred) bucks!:)
 
jamesryanbell said:
Isn't reliability a factor too though with SSDs?
Click to expand...

some ssd's have been good. intel were good although the new ones may need a firmware update. samsungs are reliable along with toshiba. I would not mind owc's elite pro mini with t-bolt and a pair of samsungs sitting on my new mini. with my esata hack they were impressive. owc's has a single esata so the raid0 goes to 250MB/s or so these are nice cases. sonnet tech has a very similar model for t-bolt due in sept. these would stack nice on a new mini or behind an iMac
 

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I'll have to check out that sonnet tech thing. Haven't heard of that one before.
 
indg said:
for those wondering what speeds are like with RAID-0 striped 1TB HDD, this is what i get with the i7 mini server:
Image

i'm sure SSD is still 2-3x faster, but raid0 is a good compromise if you don't have the bucks to spend on SSD.
Click to expand...


Hey indg,

Can you create a bootcamp partition on raid 0 striped configuration?

Many thanks.
 
j46g629h said:
Can you create a bootcamp partition on raid 0 striped configuration?
Click to expand...
simple answer: no boot camp if you do raid 0. at least using apple's tools you can't.

if you know how to hack the efi partition, it's probably not impossible to set up a windows partition on one of the drives. as far as i can tell, the raid slices don't have to be identical in size. so if you had 2x500GB drives, you could theoretically do something like 100GB windows partition on one of the drives, and 400GB + 500GB raid striped for 900GB (less any space for EFI and boot partitions). but all of this is way over my head.
 
indg said:
simple answer: no boot camp if you do raid 0. at least using apple's tools you can't.

if you know how to hack the efi partition, it's probably not impossible to set up a windows partition on one of the drives. as far as i can tell, the raid slices don't have to be identical in size. so if you had 2x500GB drives, you could theoretically do something like 100GB windows partition on one of the drives, and 400GB + 500GB raid striped for 900GB (less any space for EFI and boot partitions). but all of this is way over my head.
Click to expand...


Thanks fort the quick reply:). That helps a lot.
If I boot it from recovery HD and use Disk Utility, do you think it is possible to remove 2011 mini server raid 0 configuration to two separated disks?
 
Will an external Thunderbolt drive like the Little Big Disk actually have more bandwidth then the internal drives?
 
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