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Mac Mini's 2014

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Kimbermatic3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 5, 2014
1
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My last Mac Mini was the original intel one and it is still running.

This is a comparison of the two 2014 models, $699 and $999. The difference in the models 2.6 versus 2.8 for the CPU and the drives, 5400 RPM versus Fusion at 1 TB.

This comparison was particular to my needs.

  • Run Final Cut Pro "Rendering" undisturbed, in other words free up my laptop
  • Use it with Parallels for work
  • Photo Editing Light Room
  • Web Browsing
  • Basic Documents

I went with the $699 Model. What I found

  • Slow and laggy using Parallels and other basic functions.
  • Running IStats found that the CPU was taking some hit, but memory was running higher than my 2013 MBP.
  • I felt the memory was running high due a bottleneck with the slower hard drive.
  • Boot time was slow. Remember I have been strictly using Flash drives for the past two years

Needless to say I returned the $699 model and forked over for the $999 model at the store.

All my annoyances went away and the new machine is running as I would expect.

Bottom line this is the first time I have used a fusion drive and I love it. The performance is good and comparable to my 13" MBP.

I would recommend the Mac Mini with the fusion drive. Without the fusion drive I would not even consider the Mac Mini from my experiences.

I will leave the core debate on the 2014 models alone.
 
This is a general issue with 2014 Mac Mini lineup. Only the highest-end or BTO comes with SSD/Fusion drive. Even the low end MBA will give more enjoyable experience simply because of the SSD.
 
Kimbermatic3 said:
My last Mac Mini was the original intel one and it is still running.

This is a comparison of the two 2014 models, $699 and $999. The difference in the models 2.6 versus 2.8 for the CPU and the drives, 5400 RPM versus Fusion at 1 TB.

This comparison was particular to my needs.

  • Run Final Cut Pro "Rendering" undisturbed, in other words free up my laptop
  • Use it with Parallels for work
  • Photo Editing Light Room
  • Web Browsing
  • Basic Documents

I went with the $699 Model. What I found

  • Slow and laggy using Parallels and other basic functions.
  • Running IStats found that the CPU was taking some hit, but memory was running higher than my 2013 MBP.
  • I felt the memory was running high due a bottleneck with the slower hard drive.
  • Boot time was slow. Remember I have been strictly using Flash drives for the past two years

Needless to say I returned the $699 model and forked over for the $999 model at the store.

All my annoyances went away and the new machine is running as I would expect.

Bottom line this is the first time I have used a fusion drive and I love it. The performance is good and comparable to my 13" MBP.

I would recommend the Mac Mini with the fusion drive. Without the fusion drive I would not even consider the Mac Mini from my experiences.

I will leave the core debate on the 2014 models alone.
Click to expand...

I would say that anything less than an SSD for an OS drive is just unacceptable in 2014. I would rather have seen them start all the Mini's at 599 and 799 and gone with a 1TB fusion across the board or make the Fusion upgrade only $100. $200 for a lousy 128GB of SSD is a little ridiculous.

You probably could have gotten away with the Mid-Mini and just put an SATA III SSD into it (swapped out the mechanical drive or went the external SSD route).
 
im deciding which 2014 to get the mid range model with either the 16gb ram upgrade or the fusion drive which you recommend ?. I only web browse music video and downloads etc. no games .
 
paulrbeers said:
I would say that anything less than an SSD for an OS drive is just unacceptable in 2014. I would rather have seen them start all the Mini's at 599 and 799 and gone with a 1TB fusion across the board or make the Fusion upgrade only $100. $200 for a lousy 128GB of SSD is a little ridiculous.

You probably could have gotten away with the Mid-Mini and just put an SATA III SSD into it (swapped out the mechanical drive or went the external SSD route).
Click to expand...

I agree completely, when I bought my Macbook Pro in 2009 I forked over a pretty penny for an internal SSD and have never looked back. It's the only way to go for the boot/applications drive.
 
newellj said:
I agree. He's unlikely to benefit from the extra 8gb RAM, but he's going to notice the SSD every time he turns the machine on. It's shocking how easily and fast you get completely spoiled by SSD speeds. :eek:
Click to expand...
The fusion is the best option then or 256ssd and store everything on external both the same price in upgrading ?.
 
adamcarvell said:
The fusion is the best option then or 256ssd and store everything on external both the same price in upgrading ?.
Click to expand...

It's really your choice which one you choose. Either way SSD is the way to go which they both are. One is just a small (128gb) SSD mixed with a decent size mechanical or you go with a larger SSD only if external is your thing. I guess it depends if 1TB is enough storage then go fusion, but if you can't fit all your media in 1TB and will need to go external anyway (and apps and OS can fit in 256GB) then go 256GB SSD...
 
paulrbeers said:
It's really your choice which one you choose. Either way SSD is the way to go which they both are. One is just a small (128gb) SSD mixed with a decent size mechanical or you go with a larger SSD only if external is your thing. I guess it depends if 1TB is enough storage then go fusion, but if you can't fit all your media in 1TB and will need to go external anyway (and apps and OS can fit in 256GB) then go 256GB SSD...
Click to expand...

ive decided the fusion drive not sure which to get the top model which has the fusion or upgrade the mid range to the fusion £70 difference.
 
adamcarvell said:
ive decided the fusion drive not sure which to get the top model which has the fusion or upgrade the mid range to the fusion £70 difference.
Click to expand...

.2 ghz hardly seems with it to me. The only justification for going the top model is that it will probably ship quicker and you might be able to find it slightly cheaper thru a reseller....
 
paulrbeers said:
.2 ghz hardly seems with it to me. The only justification for going the top model is that it will probably ship quicker and you might be able to find it slightly cheaper thru a reseller....
Click to expand...

Mid range then seems best option just undecided wether to get fusion or ssd and store on an external . fusion has 128gb ssd + 872 h/d the apple advisor told me today not sure which will be the quickest and ladt the longest ?. Is a fusion one drive or two seperate ones should it fail.
 
adamcarvell said:
Mid range then seems best option just undecided wether to get fusion or ssd and store on an external . fusion has 128gb ssd + 872 h/d the apple advisor told me today not sure which will be the quickest and ladt the longest ?. Is a fusion one drive or two seperate ones should it fail.
Click to expand...

Actually the fusion drive is 1.1TB. They just list it as 1TB. It's 1TB+ 128GB. No such thing as a 872GB HD.
 
Unless you need the upgraded graphics performance, I don't know why anyone would get the 2014 models.

Sorry.
 
adamcarvell said:
The fusion is for me then the os tuns on the ssd drive and you save all your files on the 1tb hdd.
Click to expand...

The OS takes care of all of that. It just appears as a 1.1TB drive. The SSD is filled first then data blocks that aren't accessed regularly are moved to the mechanical drive. Just fyi. You don't choose where to store files.
 
So if i was to download film for example i wouldnt get the option to save on the 1tb drive like uttorent lets you save to any drive you want ?. Will the os let you see both drives ?.
 
This Question Again

adamcarvell said:
... the apple advisor told me today not sure which will be the quickest and ladt the longest ?. Is a fusion one drive or two seperate ones should it fail.
Click to expand...

Paulrbeers cleared up the HDD size confusion but the other part of this question caught my eye. An SSD may be somewhat faster than a Fusion Drive at times but it would be difficult for an Apple advisor to predict which would last the longest.

The Fusion Drive (FD) is two separate drives physically but it appears as only one logical volume to the operating system. If either drive fails you only have to replace that one drive but you loose all of the data on the logical volume.

Of course with Time Machine available and utilized, a drive failure in a Fusion Drive should not cause any significant data loss. My FD setup has some of the best data protection I have ever experienced. This is because of the seamless automation of Time Machine and the availability of inexpensive large hard disk drives. My previous backup solutions required more interaction and the attached storage media tended to be relatively expensive and clunky.
 
OP wrote above:
[[ I went with the $699 Model. What I found
Slow and laggy using Parallels and other basic functions.
Running IStats found that the CPU was taking some hit, but memory was running higher than my 2013 MBP.
I felt the memory was running high due a bottleneck with the slower hard drive.
Boot time was slow. Remember I have been strictly using Flash drives for the past two years
Needless to say I returned the $699 model and forked over for the $999 model at the store. ]]

What "made the difference" between the two models was the difference in DRIVES between the two above models, NOT the "difference in CPU speed".

This is because Apple's latest two OS's -- Mavericks and Yosemite -- both can run markedly slow on Macs equipped with only platter-based hard disk drives.

I'm not saying they "won't run" -- of course they will -- but it looks like Mavericks and Yosemite (which both employ a paradigm of RAM-handling completely different from all previous iterations of OS X) were designed from the ground up to run on Macs with either standalone SSD's, or with fusion drives. HDD's seem to have been an afterthought.

Actually, Yosemite seems to be a definite improvement over Mavericks speed-wise on an older HDD (the different appearance notwithstanding).

But running it on an SSD or fusion drive makes all the difference in the world!
 
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