MacMini 2012 vs 2014

[Giuanniello]

I am looking to buy an used Mini which would mainly serve to host my photography archive, at this moment in time I am using a late 2011 MBPro with 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM, it does well for my needs, if it had a better graphic card I would dare resurrect my old passion for flight simulation but for sure I won't want to step backwards.

Question: which Mini would better suit me?

I know the 2012 has upgradable RAM (8GB would do fine, 16 better but not indispensable) whilst the 2014 isn't, I could look for a 2014 model with at least 8GB if graphic card and processor speed helps but I am not very fond on Minis so I'd rather hear from those who have experience on these machines.

I'd upgrade the eventual spinning disk with an SSD (either the 1TB off of my MBPro or a 500GB I have floating around home) and max the RAM, I already did surgery to my old 2007 Mini and it was not very complicated so not afraid of tearing it apart, mainly I need to know if, say, a 2012 or 2014 i5 does as well as my old i7 or should I look at an i7.

Thank you

Giovanni

 

[Boyd01]

Well, it really depends on which models you're looking at. I have had a 2012 i5 base Mini and 2014 base Mini. The 2012 was clearly a better machine there, if for no other reason than I was able to easily upgrade it to 16gb RAM. As you noted, the 2014 mini doesn't have upgradeable RAM - but I'm confused, since you later said you would upgrade the RAM. To be clear - you CANNOT upgrade the RAM on the 2014 Mini.

Anyway, IMO, the base 1.4ghz 4gb Mini is all but worthless. Mine is sitting in a closet, where it will probably stay until I eventiually discard it. These machines are unbelievably slow, one of the most dramatic examples of this is clicking on System Preferences, which usually took about 45 seconds for me.

Now I have a 2014 2.8ghz Mini with 8gb RAM and a Fusion drive. I split the 128gb SSD from the Fusion Drive (which was easy) and use that as my startup disk. This machine feels very responsive, although I only use it as an iTunes server. But it's a decent model, if you can get one at a good price (here in the US, B&H Photo was blowing these out new for $500 a couple months ago, and I couldn't resist).

But my 2012 i7 Mini is my favorite, with a 2.6ghz quad core CPU, 16gb RAM and an original Apple 256gb internal SSD.This machine is almost twice as fast as my 2014 2.8ghz Mini and I use it exclusive for audio and video editing and software development. I'm sure it will continue to meet my own modest needs for another year or more.

The SSD interface is faster on the 2014 Mini though (~700MB/sec vs ~500MB/sec on the 2012), it has much faster wifi and 2 thunderbolt 2 ports (the 2012 Mini has one thunderbolt 1 port and one firewire 800 port). The graphics chip in the 2014 Mini is also much better than the HD 4000 in the 2012 Mini (my 2.8ghz 2014 Mini has the iris chip, the lower 2014 models have the HD 5000 IIRC). Not sure how much this would help for your needs, but the HD4000 is definitely showing its age.

 

[Fishrrman]

2014 will have slightly better graphics.
Just be sure to get a 2014 that has enough RAM in it (since that can't be changed).
8gb minimum.
16gb might be better (but probably hard to find).