New member TODAY. Fun site. If I could pick your large humming brains. Maybe someone has written about this subject. When does one replace a computer? Have a mid 2010 mac mini. Does everything I need. Have backup/time machine. I guess I should wait. New M1 looks nice. Not a good time to buy ($). I saw a video, some clever fellas replacing old HD with 2TB SSD & 16 GB. Don't need a performance upgrade, but it might extend the life (presuming HD is the weak link). Also could upgrade from El Capitan. Thanks. OK to curse in response.
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Old Mini Works Fine
- Thread starter FlipPhoneAndy
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If your current mini does all you need right now, keep using it. I see no reason to get the M1 just so you can say you got the M1. Keep saving.
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I also have an "old" Mac mini, a 2011 that has an SSD and 8GB of RAM. I used it just the other day. It's fairly quick, and not bad for general computing.
I also have a brand new M1 Mac mini. Now that is really fast!
If you don't need to drive a 4K display, and you're OK with slower USB speeds, then yes - an older (upgraded) mini can do just fine for most people.
I also have an "old" Mac mini, a 2011 that has an SSD and 8GB of RAM. I used it just the other day. It's fairly quick, and not bad for general computing.
I also have a brand new M1 Mac mini. Now that is really fast!
If you don't need to drive a 4K display, and you're OK with slower USB speeds, then yes - an older (upgraded) mini can do just fine for most people.
I went ahead and traded in my 2018 mini, not so much because I needed to, but the trade-in value was pretty decent so I figured I would take advantage of that while I could. The M1 mini is a nice machine, but macOS Big Sur is the biggest piece of **** I’ve seen come out of Apple in quite a while, so you aren’t missing anything there.
I have a 2010 Mini, too! It's still in good condition (I garage it), runs great, gets good mileage and even works to tote my kayak. Plus, it's an absolute blast to drive!
Wait... am I in the right thread?
Wait... am I in the right thread?
I agree with you...Big Sur fixes everything NOT broken and gives us the pleasure of on screen notification when we get an email to buy gold and silver and iTunes has been replaced....not broken but someone need to justify their paycheck............I am sending back my MacMin m1 to apple.
Thanks, everybody. I guess I'm just spooked it will fail. It works fine. HD is quiet. I was wondering if a new SSD might help it live an unnaturally long life, presuming it's the HD goes first or second. I guess any part could break, at any time.
Agree. I returned my M1 Mini because my use case changed recently and I now need the ability to virtualize x86 so I picked up a 16" MacBook Pro on Swappa. It came with Bug Sur on it and since I had some experience with Big Sur on the M1 Mini I kept it at first. I was not thrilled with the experience of Big Sur on my MacBook Pro. It was having issues coming out of sleep constantly. Working on installing Catalina and all my apps on it now. Maybe I will take a look at Big Sur in 6 months. I have not had all of the issues with Catalina that I hear others complain about.
Get into the habit of doing backups of your hard drive, and your data should outlast your hardware. If you copy your data to an SSD and swap the drives, your old hard drive could even act as a backup itself
I recently upgraded my in laws 2010 Mac which is still going strong as they were worried about the machine dying (I had forgotten how old the machine was). However, it still worked fine. One thing I love about the older Macs is that you could give them a boost mid life with HDD and RAM upgrade, sadly not possible nowadays.
Like the postings said, if you keep regular backups then you are good.
I did upgrade a 2018 Mac Mini to M1 as like a posting above, the resale value made it very compelling. I'm still stunned at home Macs keep their value (though if you have a good number of years life left why not !).
Like the postings said, if you keep regular backups then you are good.
I did upgrade a 2018 Mac Mini to M1 as like a posting above, the resale value made it very compelling. I'm still stunned at home Macs keep their value (though if you have a good number of years life left why not !).
I didn't know Macs had a trade in value. What avenues are available for getting something out of an old Mac?
Apple has a trade-in program, you will only get pennies on the dollar however. 
Apple Trade In
Trade in your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, or any other device for credit toward a new one, or recycle it responsibly for free with Apple Trade In.
www.apple.com
As long as you're backing up through time machine or whatever, it's unlikely that you will lose your data. A Ram upgrade (depending on how much you have in there now) would likely help performance & should be an easy upgrade (I didn't have a 2010 mini, but IIRC those were still easy to upgrade. The hard drive is likely the thing that is going to fail first, so I'd be careful with that and just make sure that you continue to keep it backed up. If you feel comfortable with the work after watching some YouTube videos, you might want to swap out the hard drive for an SSD, that would have the benefit of negating the possibility of the HD Dying on you, with the added benefit of making the computer faster & also possibly increasing your storage space, depending on the size of the SSD that you choose.
I just checked my 2011 Mac Mini and its value was 'ready to be recycled' haha.Apple has a trade-in program, you will only get pennies on the dollar however.
Apple Trade In
Trade in your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, or any other device for credit toward a new one, or recycle it responsibly for free with Apple Trade In.www.apple.com
I just bought an early 2015 MacBook Air to replace my 2019 dell laptop because I cannot stand windows at all, and windows 10 constant updates were giving me panic attacks, not really actual panic attacks but surely caused me to have fits with it, especially being forced to tolerate working from home due to the current situation.... I convinced my boyfriend to convert to Apple and he just got the latest MacBook Air with the m1 chip. Although my MacBook Air is more than fast enough and does everything I want it to do and does it unbelievably well, if we get the $2,000 stimulus payment our new president has promised.... although I do not need the new air, I likely will buy it. All I can say about his new m1 MacBook Air is wow. it is like pure lightning.
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