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New entry level Mac Mini - performance is very poor..

Meister said:
For an average customer, there is no noticable performance difference between a 5400rpm and 7200rpm hdd. Ssds are faster by a factor of 1000!
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I have to agree entirely with this. Hard drives are hard drives. With the exception of the hybrid (SSD/HDD) models, the end result is still very slow (by SSD standards) seek times. This is what makes an SSD feel 1000x faster than a spinning hard drive. Even a low end SSD will crush a hard drive for OS uses. There is no way that even a 7200rpm hard drive with it's 10ms seek time will feel as responsive as an SSD with <1ms seek time.

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Altis said:
Not entirely true. Yosemite is a memory hog that can use ~4GB at fresh idle. So the base model with only 4GB total ends up doing a lot of memory paging to the slow hard drive. With 8GB on the mid-range, at least it isn't making constant trips to the hard drive when just doing general tasks (as OP describes).

Ultimately both should have an SSD, but you have to spend nearly double the price of the base model to have it configured with one as it isn't available on the base unit.

PCIe SSD doesn't make that much of a difference.
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Old school thought process..... Both Windows and OSX automatically loads everything into RAM anymore. "Free" memory is wasted memory.
 
Meister said:
Your link shows a windows PC with a sata3 hdd inside ...
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That's strange ... the link sends me to: "Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)" which is todays ShellShocker deal for $209 ... perhaps you have to be on a mail list to see it?
 
hfg said:
That's strange ... the link sends me to: "Intel 730 Series SSDSC2BP480G4R5 2.5" 480GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)" which is todays ShellShocker deal for $209 ... perhaps you have to be on a mail list to see it?
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When he posted it, the shell shocker deal was a Windows Combo Desktop computer. As with all Shell Shockers, there are 3-5 items per day and at various points they move on to the next Shell Shocker deal. If you look at the top of the page, you can see what was offered earlier in the day (which again was a cheap windows desktop combo).
 
paulrbeers said:
When he posted it, the shell shocker deal was a Windows Combo Desktop computer. As with all Shell Shockers, there are 3-5 items per day and at various points they move on to the next Shell Shocker deal. If you look at the top of the page, you can see what was offered earlier in the day (which again was a cheap windows desktop combo).
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Exactly. The Dell Zeon workstation was quite a good deal. It was kind of like this;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...l_zeon_workstation-_-9SIA4GH24N2931-_-Product

but had a 3.45 hex and 16GB RAM, not as cool as a mini but definitely a machine that can get some real work done.
 
paulrbeers said:
When he posted it, the shell shocker deal was a Windows Combo Desktop computer. As with all Shell Shockers, there are 3-5 items per day and at various points they move on to the next Shell Shocker deal. If you look at the top of the page, you can see what was offered earlier in the day (which again was a cheap windows desktop combo).
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Ahhh ... yes, I forgot that ShellShocker deals were a timed-offer, not a all-day thing.

Although ... the bargain SSD probably makes more sense for the OP to upgrade a Mini rather than to buy a cheap PC instead. :rolleyes:
 
For anyone on the fence about the base model 2014 mini, I wanted to share my experience. I just finished setting up my mini last night.

I have a late 2007 iMac which I had upgraded to an SSD years ago. It runs great on Snow Leopard, but is really sluggish on anything above 10.6. I finally decided to stop fighting the future, but didn't want to spend much. The new base mini was the only model within my budget.

I knew the spinning drive would be a dog, so I bought a $15 UASP USB3 enclosure for a 128GB Samsung 840 SSD that I already owned.
When I first booted the mini (from the HD), I thought I'd made a huge mistake. It seemed to crawl at every pace and was chugging harder than my 8 year old iMac. However, once I cloned the drive to my external SSD and rebooted... it was smooth as butter. I'm now really happy with the mini.

Now I'm deciding if I want to create a DIY fusion or manually manage storage between the SSD and internal HD.
 
superspartan said:
Now I'm deciding if I want to create a DIY fusion or manually manage storage between the SSD and internal HD.
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If you decide to fuse, would you mind doing a write up?

There aren't many external SSD/internal HDD Fusion guides on the net. My memory of doing this is sketchy at best. My strongest recollection is having a devil of a time creating the boot drive on a USB key so I could format and fuse the two drives.

It would be a real public service if you would document your steps.
 
superspartan said:
For anyone on the fence about the base model 2014 mini, I wanted to share my experience. I just finished setting up my mini last night.

I have a late 2007 iMac which I had upgraded to an SSD years ago. It runs great on Snow Leopard, but is really sluggish on anything above 10.6. I finally decided to stop fighting the future, but didn't want to spend much. The new base mini was the only model within my budget.

I knew the spinning drive would be a dog, so I bought a $15 UASP USB3 enclosure for a 128GB Samsung 840 SSD that I already owned.
When I first booted the mini (from the HD), I thought I'd made a huge mistake. It seemed to crawl at every pace and was chugging harder than my 8 year old iMac. However, once I cloned the drive to my external SSD and rebooted... it was smooth as butter. I'm now really happy with the mini.

Now I'm deciding if I want to create a DIY fusion or manually manage storage between the SSD and internal HD.
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That was exactly my experience as well. I wonder if the SSD will ever slow down for whatever reason?
 
Altis said:
Not entirely true. Yosemite is a memory hog that can use ~4GB at fresh idle. So the base model with only 4GB total ends up doing a lot of memory paging to the slow hard drive. With 8GB on the mid-range, at least it isn't making constant trips to the hard drive when just doing general tasks (as OP describes).
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That's not true.
 
Do the SSD upgrade on 2014 Base Mini !!! Worth it

I bought a 2014 Base Mini. I just wanted to walk into an Apple store, hand them $500 and walk out.

What a SLUG !!!!

Beachballs aplenty.

But then I put an SSD inside. Wasn't easy, the T6 Security bits being toughest part. Many of the sales on Amazon are incorrectly labeled and you get a regular T6.

But once you get moved over to SSD, the machine is completely different. Don't be fooled by the 1.4 Ghz rating, Intel has used this "Turbo Boost" business to differentiate, the machine is plenty fast.

I have been playing Far Cry 4 via a Titan X eGPU in Windows 8. The Titan X gets hot, the Mini stays cool.

It can't be emphasized enough how different the machine is with an SSD.
 
GilesM said:
I recently purchased a new mini, base level 2014 model.
I think performance is very poor. If you want to do one thing at a time, it is just OK, try and do more than one thing at a time, massive delays, loads of the old beach all spinning away.
I am doing nothing more than itunes, email (via the mail client) and web browsing, but even with these basic activities the machine struggles, how I wish I had not purchased the entry level unit.
A warning to all, if you buy a mini, please spend a little more and get one better specified than the entry level unit.

Frankly I am surprised Apple released it like this, and even more surprised they got away with it.
This is not what I expected from Apple.:):apple:
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I own a Mac mini 2012 basic model and I think it's quite nice. It has taken almost everything I've thrown at it and hasn't shown any signs of lag or crashes. The only exception is that I design a lot of graphics in the gimp and it can get slow when working with projects in excess of 1 GB in size. I do think performance would improve if I were to add more RAM and swap the HD for an SSD, but that is outside of a typical use case.

I wonder if adding RAM and swapping the HD for an SSD would increase performance for you.
 
ardchoille50 said:
I own a Mac mini 2012 basic model and I think it's quite nice. It has taken almost everything I've thrown at it and hasn't shown any signs of lag or crashes. The only exception is that I design a lot of graphics in the gimp and it can get slow when working with projects in excess of 1 GB in size. I do think performance would improve if I were to add more RAM and swap the HD for an SSD, but that is outside of a typical use case.

I wonder if adding RAM and swapping the HD for an SSD would increase performance for you.
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You only read the first post in this thread, didn't you.
 
Meister said:
You only read the first post in this thread, didn't you.
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Well, I do the same things that were listed in the OP and I see no lag or beachballs at all.. that is until I start large projects in gimp. I'm wondering if the OP has a defective unit.
 
ardchoille50 said:
Well, I do the same things that were listed in the OP and I see no lag or beachballs at all.. that is until I start large projects in gimp. I'm wondering if the OP has a defective unit.
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He already put an ssd in. And with his usage more ram won't make a difference.
 
yjchua95 said:
Only if you don't TRIM it, it'll slow down over time, but your mileage may vary. Some people have been running SSDs over USB sans TRIM without issues.
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If I wanted to enable TRIM on an external SSD, how would I go about it? Can it even be done on an external drive?
 
GilesM said:
If I wanted to enable TRIM on an external SSD, how would I go about it? Can it even be done on an external drive?
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I'm running a 2014 iMac booted from an SSD in a Lacie Rugged thunderbolt ext drive. I installed Trim Enabler, ran it & then restarted. Trim is enabled now on the Ext drive.

To check if its worked - hold down the option key while clicking on the / System information. In the window that opens - click on Sata/Sata Express - highlight the SSD in the top right window and then look for Trim Support in the bottom right window.
 
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yjchua95 said:
You can't if it's USB. It's only possible over Thunderbolt.
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Ah, so then I need to ensure the drive I have used is one of the ones that do not need TRIM but has GC built in... Like Crucial.
Not sure if the drive I have used is Crucial or one of the others.
May have to swap it for a Crucial drive then, no big deal.

Thanks
 
ricede said:
Sorry about that - i didn't know that it was not possible with USB3.
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That's OK. Both of my external SSD's (one from Crucial one from OCZ) support "idle time garbage collection". As they are both attached via USB 3 then that is all I can do. So, I will just leave it alone and not worry about it!
 
I bought the 2011 mini that came with 2GB of RAM and it was basically unbearable. I was shocked that apple would bother selling something so slow and laggy.

It was just as atrocious experience all around.
 
EightyTwenty said:
I bought the 2011 mini that came with 2GB of RAM and it was basically unbearable. I was shocked that apple would bother selling something so slow and laggy.

It was just as atrocious experience all around.
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I liked using the 2.5 2011 mini the one with the 6630m graphics card. Matter of fact still enjoy using it. I guess though 4 gig should have been standard across both the 2011 models then and it should be 8 gig should be now. I bet they get a core M into the next model and hopefully then they will go with the 8 across the board. And hopefully also they'll have a couple of models including one with more oomph. :)
 
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