New Mac mini setup with small SSD

[ftaok]

OK. We got a new Mac mini for my wife to replace/supplement her current MBA (2014-retina). Being as we wanted to keep the budget reasonable, we got the 256GB version and opted to get a 4TB SSD a uGreen 10-1 dock.

So here's the issue/question. Her MBA has been upgraded with a 2TB drive, so it's not as easy as doing a straight migration since the 256 is smaller than her MBA.

So what would be the best procedure? I'm looking to keep it simple and keep her home folder on the 256 and put her Photos, Music, Videos onto the 4TB. She's got tons of photos and looking to take many many more.

Should I set up the Mac with her iCloud login and then copy over her Photos Library and iTunes Library first, and then point to them in the app settings? Or should I let Photos and iTunes set up a fresh library, move it to the 4TB drive, then replace her actual libraries?

I think I'm ok with the apps as I'll just redownload them.

Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

You're not going to like this reply.

You've been "penny-wise but pound foolish".
The money for the dock and external SSD should have been "put into the Mini" from the outset.

I'm going to speculate that very few users have had a satisfying experience by attempting to "upgrade" from a 2tb internal drive to a 256gb drive.

At the very least, the Mini should have had a 1tb internal SSD.

Put the photos and music libraries on the external -- it's easy enough to designate them as "the primary libraries" for their respective apps to use.

Re-install apps as needed.

My best recommendation would be to return the Mini (if it's still within the return period) for another that is more "fully configured"...

Sorry to be contrary, but that's the way I see things and I'm stickin' to it...

 

[ftaok]

You're not going to like this reply.

You've been "penny-wise but pound foolish".
The money for the dock and external SSD should have been "put into the Mini" from the outset.

I'm going to speculate that very few users have had a satisfying experience by attempting to "upgrade" from a 2tb internal drive to a 256gb drive.

At the very least, the Mini should have had a 1tb internal SSD.

Put the photos and music libraries on the external -- it's easy enough to designate them as "the primary libraries" for their respective apps to use.

Re-install apps as needed.

My best recommendation would be to return the Mini (if it's still within the return period) for another that is more "fully configured"...

Sorry to be contrary, but that's the way I see things and I'm stickin' to it...

I respect your opinion, but I don't think the higher end mini would have worked for our budget. My wife's workflow is to not use any cloud services and she's stubborn, so it's all local storage. Her current 2TB MBA is getting closed to being full, so a 1TB mini would still have these issues. A 2TB mini is way out of the price range. Right now, I'm not interested in doing the DIY swap with a 3rd party SSD, mainly because we don't have another Apple Silicon Mac to use for setup.

If the 256 drive becomes too restrictive, I'll look into selling it and buying a new one ... maybe an M5 by then. At least I can re-use the new monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[!!!]

Plug the ext SSD into the MBA, move the photos and whatever else so that what's left is less than 256GB. Then, run the migration to the mini. Then you can set up the mini and link up the photos library and all that.

 

[chrfr]

Right now, I'm not interested in doing the DIY swap with a 3rd party SSD, mainly because we don't have another Apple Silicon Mac to use for setup.

I agree with your reasoning, but I just wanted to mention you don't need another Apple Silicon Mac to set up the mini after a disk upgrade. You just need a Mac new enough to run a fairly new version of Apple Configurator.

 

[DDeanG]

Just did the 2TB SSD swap on my M4 Mini, and have had no issues. The install process was straight-forward (thanks iFixIt!). Used my 2018 I7 Mini to start DTFU on the M4 Mini

 

[ignatius345]

You're not going to like this reply.

You've been "penny-wise but pound foolish".
The money for the dock and external SSD should have been "put into the Mini" from the outset.

I'm going to speculate that very few users have had a satisfying experience by attempting to "upgrade" from a 2tb internal drive to a 256gb drive.

At the very least, the Mini should have had a 1tb internal SSD.

Put the photos and music libraries on the external -- it's easy enough to designate them as "the primary libraries" for their respective apps to use.

Re-install apps as needed.

My best recommendation would be to return the Mini (if it's still within the return period) for another that is more "fully configured"...

Sorry to be contrary, but that's the way I see things and I'm stickin' to it...

I'm inclined to agree, having dealt with a 256 GB Air for a while. The OS gobbles up a big chunk of that right off the bat, and then you're looking at putting nearly everything onto an external drive. And if you're coming off using a 2TB internal drive, you now have an internal drive 1/8 that size to work with.

The good news is, it's a lot less painful on a desktop. You can get away with attaching a fast, large-capacity (but small size) external drive and relocating your media files (TV, Music, Photos) over to that, plus the bulk of everything else you've got -- leaving the internal SSD for applications and I guess anything big or resource intensive you're actively working on.

You do need to make sure that the external drive gets backed up along with the internal drive, though. Leave that out of your backup scheme and you're just asking for trouble if/when the external fails.

 

[Thirio2]

Just be sure to include the external drive in your Time Machine backup.

 

[CharlesShaw]

To those suggesting the need for 2TB internal storage, note that the 2TB MBA is already nearly full. I'm guessing that there will be more of whatever files are filling it up in the future, so even if the M4 mini had 2TB internal, there would likely be the need for an external drive in the future anyhow.

Agree that the external drive needs to be backed up going forward.

 

[ftaok]

I agree with your reasoning, but I just wanted to mention you don't need another Apple Silicon Mac to set up the mini after a disk upgrade. You just need a Mac new enough to run a fairly new version of Apple Configura

The newest Mac we have in the household is the 2014 MBP13 that my wife is using. Pretty sure it cant run the configurator. Thanks for the additional info.

 

[ftaok]

The good news is, it's a lot less painful on a desktop. You can get away with attaching a fast, large-capacity (but small size) external drive and relocating your media files (TV, Music, Photos) over to that, plus the bulk of everything else you've got -- leaving the internal SSD for applications and I guess anything big or resource intensive you're actively working on.

You do need to make sure that the external drive gets backed up along with the internal drive, though. Leave that out of your backup scheme and you're just asking for trouble if/when the external fails.

Yeah, my wife has no plans on moving the mini around. We built her a desk nook where she can keep all of her gear, so the mini is going to sit in its spot forever.

The backup system is in place. Currently have an external 5TB USB drive that she backs up her MBP to. All of the most important stuff, meaning her photos are backed up on my MBA and two separate USB drives. If she misses a back-up of her Photos Library, the most she'll lose are her edits and albums. Annoying, but not earth shattering. Going forward, I'm in the process of getting a 4-bay NAS that I hope to get her to run Time Capsule on, but she's had a bad experience with Time Machine over the network and prefers backing up via USB. Might look into an 8TB HDD for backups when the prices come down a bit.

 

[ftaok]

Plug the ext SSD into the MBA, move the photos and whatever else so that what's left is less than 256GB. Then, run the migration to the mini. Then you can set up the mini and link up the photos library and all that.

This is a great plan. I was planning on copying the files over the network, but that would have taken forever. I do have an M.2 Nvme enclosure that I can use to connect the 4TB to her MBP. Thanks for the idea.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

You could also consider making the 4TB SSD your boot drive.

 

[kenta_]

I don’t know what external SSD you bought, but get the best (fastest) external TB SSD and just live/boot off that. You life will be much easier. Consider the internal 256gb collateral waste.

 

[ftaok]

You could also consider making the 4TB SSD your boot drive.

I don’t know what external SSD you bought, but get the best (fastest) external TB SSD and just live/boot off that. You life will be much easier. Consider the internal 256gb collateral waste.

I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 Evo Pro and the dock is a TB4 dock.

I've thought about doing that, but I didn't want to lose the ability to use Apple Intelligence.

 

[Bigwaff]

Agree w/ @Apple Fan 2008 and @kenta_ , use the external as the boot drive, then everything stays on the same drive. But note, you will initially have to boot from the internal drive in order to set up the LocalPolicy (which allows external drive boot). Recommend you keep macOS installed on internal drive for troubleshooting/maintenance purposes rather than reformatting it. Also, you may want to consider renaming the internal drive to eliminate user confusion, as the internal drive will mount automatically. Even more, there are numerous threads covering M4 Mac mini USB power issues w/ external USB drives; random drive ejects, etc. I recommend a real Thunderbolt 3/4 external drive, as TB seems to have more stable power delivery, but YMMV.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

As someone with a kind of weird config (256/32), if you do plan on using the 256GB as your boot drive, prepare to offload all your major apps and games to an external SSD and maybe turn off iCloud Drive (it took up like 90GB of my local storage before I nuked it) Idk how often you use Apple Intelligence but I personally actually turned it off since I never used it for anything. (Xcode's tools don't even require it to be installed)

 

[JamesMay82]

For iTunes if it’s your own ripped CDs make sure you copy over the artwork folder as well that’s hidden in the library folder. If you don’t don’t you risk losing artwork.. unless of course you ve bought everything from iTunes then it doesn’t matter.

We are in same boat as you but I bought the 2 TB version but only because I grew tired of 256GB and keeping everything on external drives… plus then needing a back up of the external…

I was just running a Samsung 1 TB t7 for photos and thr same again for videos and then a LaCie 2 big as Time Machine to back all that up.

 

[kenta_]

I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 Evo Pro and the dock is a TB4 dock.

I've thought about doing that, but I didn't want to lose the ability to use Apple Intelligence.

Peraonally, I would gladly forfeit Apple Intelligence. FYI, there were patches to get Apple Intelligence to work on external boot drives with Sequoia.

 

[MarineBand5524]

OK. We got a new Mac mini for my wife to replace/supplement her current MBA (2014-retina). Being as we wanted to keep the budget reasonable, we got the 256GB version and opted to get a 4TB SSD a uGreen 10-1 dock.

So here's the issue/question. Her MBA has been upgraded with a 2TB drive, so it's not as easy as doing a straight migration since the 256 is smaller than her MBA.

So what would be the best procedure? I'm looking to keep it simple and keep her home folder on the 256 and put her Photos, Music, Videos onto the 4TB. She's got tons of photos and looking to take many many more.

Should I set up the Mac with her iCloud login and then copy over her Photos Library and iTunes Library first, and then point to them in the app settings? Or should I let Photos and iTunes set up a fresh library, move it to the 4TB drive, then replace her actual libraries?

I think I'm ok with the apps as I'll just redownload them.

Thanks.

Best procedure,

Set up the new machine as brand new, once you log in, connect the external HD and drag everything back - files, programs etc.

 

[Hajj.david]

OK. We got a new Mac mini for my wife to replace/supplement her current MBA (2014-retina). Being as we wanted to keep the budget reasonable, we got the 256GB version and opted to get a 4TB SSD a uGreen 10-1 dock.

So here's the issue/question. Her MBA has been upgraded with a 2TB drive, so it's not as easy as doing a straight migration since the 256 is smaller than her MBA.

So what would be the best procedure? I'm looking to keep it simple and keep her home folder on the 256 and put her Photos, Music, Videos onto the 4TB. She's got tons of photos and looking to take many many more.

Should I set up the Mac with her iCloud login and then copy over her Photos Library and iTunes Library first, and then point to them in the app settings? Or should I let Photos and iTunes set up a fresh library, move it to the 4TB drive, then replace her actual libraries?

I think I'm ok with the apps as I'll just redownload them.

Thanks.

Can I suggest a much better option, just upgrade the internal storage (i have zero affiliation and there is others out there that sell these chips):

Expand Mac mini

Tired of limited Mac Mini M4 storage? Get a 2TB internal upgrade for just $259, saving you $541 versus Apple's price. Easy DIY install. Learn more!

expandmacmini.com

You can get 2 tb for like 200-300 vs 800 from apple, and it performs better then Apples own chips. This approach is much cleaner, way less headache long term.

For 4 TB configs you with the mac mini pro get this:

4TB SSD Storage For Apple Mac Mini M4 Pro

All subsequent finished small boards will be sealed with glue and will only be delivered after strict quality control. We provide a 15-day warranty for Mac Mini M4 SSD.

www.batterymall.com

 

[kenta_]

Can I suggest a much better option, just upgrade the internal storage (i have zero affiliation and there is others out there that sell these chips):

Expand Mac mini

Tired of limited Mac Mini M4 storage? Get a 2TB internal upgrade for just $259, saving you $541 versus Apple's price. Easy DIY install. Learn more!

expandmacmini.com

You can get 2 tb for like 200-300 vs 800 from apple, and it performs better then Apples own chips. This approach is much cleaner, way less headache long term.

For 4 TB configs you with the mac mini pro get this:

4TB SSD Storage For Apple Mac Mini M4 Pro

All subsequent finished small boards will be sealed with glue and will only be delivered after strict quality control. We provide a 15-day warranty for Mac Mini M4 SSD.

www.batterymall.com

If you want to void your warranty

 

[ForkHandles]

I respect your opinion, but I don't think the higher end mini would have worked for our budget. My wife's workflow is to not use any cloud services and she's stubborn, so it's all local storage. Her current 2TB MBA is getting closed to being full, so a 1TB mini would still have these issues. A 2TB mini is way out of the price range. Right now, I'm not interested in doing the DIY swap with a 3rd party SSD, mainly because we don't have another Apple Silicon Mac to use for setup.

If the 256 drive becomes too restrictive, I'll look into selling it and buying a new one ... maybe an M5 by then. At least I can re-use the new monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Thanks for the reply.

This isn’t helpful either.

If you’ve filled up 2TB the problem is the workflow!!! That’s an extraordinary amount of data. I would suggest that most of it represents and incredible amount of wasted space.

Given that this is not a point of flexibility for their needs then the answer is money. Spend the money on a solution that works. Start saving up though cause that workflow will require an 8TB solution if five years time.

 

[Unami]

If you want to void your warranty

sure, but otoh, while $200 is still pretty expensive for 2TB of SSD, Apple's $600 markup on top of that would pay for another mac mini.

 

[ftaok]

Can I suggest a much better option, just upgrade the internal storage (i have zero affiliation and there is others out there that sell these chips):

Expand Mac mini

Tired of limited Mac Mini M4 storage? Get a 2TB internal upgrade for just $259, saving you $541 versus Apple's price. Easy DIY install. Learn more!

expandmacmini.com

You can get 2 tb for like 200-300 vs 800 from apple, and it performs better then Apples own chips. This approach is much cleaner, way less headache long term.

For 4 TB configs you with the mac mini pro get this:

4TB SSD Storage For Apple Mac Mini M4 Pro

All subsequent finished small boards will be sealed with glue and will only be delivered after strict quality control. We provide a 15-day warranty for Mac Mini M4 SSD.

www.batterymall.com

I did consider this, but I don't have another Mac capable of running the setup program.