Photographer, Current M1 MB Pro 10 CPU, 32 GPU, 64 MB RAM --> M4 Pro Mac Mini?

[emackerrow]

I am looking to upgrade a 2020 Mac Mini to a M4 Pro Mini with this configuration:

• Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 64GB unified memory
• 2TB SSD storage

I currently also have a M1 MB Pro 16 inch, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 64 MB RAM, 2TB internal SSD.

My use case is mostly Lightroom and Photoshop, but I have many photographs that I need to keep in stock for my work. The current 2020 Mac Mini is becoming too slow. I sometimes use my M1 MB pro as a "desktop" hooking into my array of external hard drives.

I am curious if upgrading to the M4 Pro Mac Mini configuration above is a smart move. Will this new Mac Mini be noticeably faster in my workflow as compared to using my M1 MB Pro laptop?

Thank you for any suggestions.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Config should be fine and probably "feel" at least a little faster than an M1.

Consider adding big fat & fast external storage in a Thunderbolt enclosure. That way you don't have to pay way above market for SSD but still end up with plenty of SSD storage.

And, of course, put a solid backup strategy in place with at least 2 drives- probably big HDDs since speed is not as important- with one stored safely offsite at all times... and regularly rotating with the onsite one (so both are relatively fresh & up to date). Built in Time Machine is good for that... or Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner. But get SOMETHING in place, as fire-flood-theft are common scenarios that can take out both a Mac and nearby backup drive at the same time.

For the photo library, if you have the ability to split it into natural splits, you might want to do that so that you have a number of libraries instead of one ever-growing single library.

 

[emackerrow]

Config should be fine and probably "feel" at least a little faster than an M1.

Consider adding big fat & fast external storage in a Thunderbolt enclosure. That way you don't have to pay way above market for SSD but still end up with plenty of SSD storage.

Thank you. Do you have recommendations for such an external storage? I need about 30-40 TB total storage. Right now I have a cluster mess of many 4TB and 5TB drives, mostly non-SSD.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If slower storage works for you, then you need a big RAID drive. If you put a solid backup strategy in place, you could maybe get a 4 bay with 20TB drives in it configured as RAID 0 for 80TB... or RAID 5 for 60TB with one of the drives acting as a RAID backup. That will be pretty fast in either RAID configuration, even though it leans on HDDs. Something like Thunderbay 4 should do the trick. That's not the only such option but just one. There's also an 8-bay version if you want to anticipate a much bigger storage future.

OR, go NAS and get maybe 8-Bay or 12-Bay Synology. They offer a unique kind of RAID that allows you to add more drives over time without having to rebuild the storage pool in the traditional way. In other words, you could create one at your 40TB to maybe 60TB (to get 20TB more now) level now and then add drives when you get close to full again. Synology is not the ONLY NAS option either but I use a 12-bay myself for about 10 years now and it works great.

NAS Bonus is that you can- optionally- set up your own "cloud" and put any photos to which you may need access while away there. Your own cloud will cost $0/month in rent. They have a solid Photo Manager app. These tools would allow you to put up to ALL photos in your own secure cloud without having to load up a laptop or separate storage to carry along.

Synology is flexible, so you might even be able to load up maybe a 12 bay with your mishmash of 4 & 5TB drives to create one bigger storage pool. And then, over time, as you need more storage, you replace smallest storage with a much bigger drive, let the system "absorb" the new storage into the pool and basically growing your storage pool. I started with a lot of 4TBs in mine long ago and have since been methodically replacing them with 14-18TB drives as storage needs grow.

Lastly, if money is too tight for either of those, I've been intrigued by hybrid enclsoures with bays for big HDDs as well as multiple slots of m.2. For example this one is 4 bays & 4 slots for under $300. You could load up 4 maybe 24 TB HDDs in that one for 96TB and/or up to 4 m.2 sticks at 8TB each for 32TB. I haven't tried that one but reviews seem generally positive. It is NOT Thunderbolt (which is a part of why it costs so much less) and some reviews reference the infamous "unexpected ejections" that plague so many drives & enclosures hooked to modern Macs running macOS newer than Big Sur. So that would give me pause. Other reviews by Mac people gush.

Bottom line (based on experience): I'd embrace the Synology option. I did just that long ago and it is great.

 

[emackerrow]

If slower storage works for you, then you need a big RAID drive. If you put a solid backup strategy in place, you could maybe get a 4 bay with 20TB drives in it configured as RAID 0 for 80TB... or RAID 5 for 60TB with one of the drives acting as a RAID backup. That will be pretty fast in either RAID configuration, even though it leans on HDDs. Something like Thunderbay 4 should do the trick. That's not the only such option but just one. There's also an 8-bay version if you want to anticipate a much bigger storage future.

OR, go NAS and get maybe 8-Bay or 12-Bay Synology. They offer a unique kind of RAID that allows you to add more drives over time without having to rebuild the storage pool in the traditional way. In other words, you could create one at your 40TB to maybe 60TB (to get 20TB more now) level now and then add drives when you get close to full again. Synology is not the ONLY NAS option either but I use a 12-bay myself for about 10 years now and it works great.

NAS Bonus is that you can- optionally- set up your own "cloud" and put any photos to which you may need access while away there. Your own cloud will cost $0/month in rent. They have a solid Photo Manager app. These tools would allow you to put up to ALL photos in your own secure cloud without having to load up a laptop or separate storage to carry along.

Synology is flexible, so you might even be able to load up maybe a 12 bay with your mishmash of 4 & 5TB drives to create one bigger storage pool. And then, over time, as you need more storage, you replace smallest storage with a much bigger drive, let the system "absorb" the new storage into the pool and basically growing your storage pool. I started with a lot of 4TBs in mine long ago and have since been methodically replacing them with 14-18TB drives as storage needs grow.

Lastly, if money is too tight for either of those, I've been intrigued by hybrid enclsoures with bays for big HDDs as well as multiple slots of m.2. For example this one is 4 bays & 4 slots for under $300. You could load up 4 maybe 24 TB HDDs in that one for 96TB and/or up to 4 m.2 sticks at 8TB each for 32TB. I haven't tried that one but reviews seem generally positive. It is NOT Thunderbolt (which is a part of why it costs so much less) and some reviews reference the infamous "unexpected ejections" that plague so many drives & enclosures hooked to modern Macs running macOS newer than Big Sur. So that would give me pause. Other reviews by Mac people gush.

Bottom line (based on experience): I'd embrace the Synology option. I did just that long ago and it is great.

Thank you for this information, much appreciated. I will check out the options you suggest.

 

[apostolosdt]

Are you a photographer? Then what you are relying on are RAM and GPU cores, and you’ve got both and better already. I wouldn’t switch if I were you. (Photographer to photographer 😉).

 

[Ray2]

Heavy user of LR & DXO, lighter user of ON1 and PS. I have an M1 Air and base (32gb) M2 Max Studio. Looking at ArtIsRight's testing with LR and PS, the M2 Max and M4 Pro are very close in performance.

I see much quicker AI routines. Frankly, everything else is about the same. External is an OWC with a 4tb WD 850. Love it, especially after 2 out of 3 Samsungs were problematic.

If you’re intent on faster, I’d wait for the new Studio. Not complaining but if you’re looking for an M1 type bump, I don’t believe you’ll see it.

 

[Alameda]

Thank you for this information, much appreciated. I will check out the options you suggest.

I am also a photographer with a Synology. Mine is a fairly basic 4-drive unit which holds about 12 TB. It’s great. There’s a YouTube channel called SpaceRex who has great setup and advice tutorials for Synology.

The only downside is that network-attached storage is never as fast as direct attached. There are Synology options which can hold an SSD as a cache and 10 gig Ethernet, which is far better than my measly 1 gig Ethernet.

For me, it’s a backup/archive. I still have 4 TB directly attached so no speed problems.

The other thing is that there are a lot of additional things you can do with Synology. It can work as a Time Machine drive. You can share it among your workgroup. You can backup your Synology to a large USB drive OR you can have it auto-backup, encrypted, to another Synology drive over the Internet. This gives you security in case of theft or fire. You can attach a UPS in case of power outage, and if it’s a long blackout, the Synology will shut down gracefully. And there’s more.

 

[Ifti]

Sounds to me the OP does NOT need network attached storage - it will just overcomplicate the setup for no reason. A simple external DAS solution would be fine.

I would (and am) wait for the Mac Studio at this point, and go for a M4 Max machine - even a base spec Studio with an external SSD drive.
The external drive depends on what your budget allows.

 

[Timpetus]

Photographer here, too. I'd say stick with what you have for now, the M4 Pro won't be a significant enough improvement over your MBP especially. We have an M2 Max Mac Studio with 64GB/1TB, a 16" MBP M1 Pro 16GB/1TB, and a 14" MBP M1 Max 64GB/2TB. The Studio does the majority of our editing, with the laptops used more for lighter work while on the couch. For storage, we have an OWC ThunderBay 8 with a 5TB RAID 0 array and a 30TB RAID 5 array. Photos being actively worked on are on the internal drives, completed work goes on the big RAID, and the smaller RAID is for TM backups. We also have a ton of external HDs for longer term backup, ranging from 2-10TB in size.

The 14" is my personal machine, and it's over-spec because I got a great deal on it and I use it for music production and other purposes while at my day job or out and about. It'll be several years before we think about upgrading any of our machines, as they are all still wonderfully fast.

 

[Alameda]

I am looking to upgrade a 2020 Mac Mini to a M4 Pro Mini with this configuration:

• Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 64GB unified memory
• 2TB SSD storage

I currently also have a M1 MB Pro 16 inch, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 64 MB RAM, 2TB internal SSD.

My use case is mostly Lightroom and Photoshop, but I have many photographs that I need to keep in stock for my work. The current 2020 Mac Mini is becoming too slow.

I am curious if upgrading to the M4 Pro Mac Mini configuration above is a smart move. Will this new Mac Mini be noticeably faster in my workflow as compared to using my M1 MB Pro laptop?

I do not think there will be a substantial difference between the M4 Pro Mini and the MacBook Pro M1.

I came very close to upgrading my similar MacBook Pro M1 to an M4 but after looking at the benchmarks again and thinking about my work, decided against it. The upcoming Studio M4 should be noticeably faster, as it will use M4 chips with many more cores. Or wait for the M5, or M6…

There are other ways to ensure optimal performance, like Quitting all other applications, especially web browsers, before editing. Don’t run DxO and Photoshop at the same time. Allocate more memory to DxO and Photoshop inside the application. Use a larger monitor… wire the Ethernet, things like that.

 

[mcnallym]

I doubt an M4 going to be a huge improvement over the M1 series unless was straining the M1 on day one.

If working fine on M1 Pro then yes and M4 Max would be an improvement.

I do video editing on my Max however what I do is have an Sonnet TB Emclosure with WD SSD for actual editing and have most storage on a Terramaster NAS.

move what editing to the TB Enclosure SSD, edit, then return to the Terramaster NAS.

When you looking at 30-40TB then you won’t be working on 30-40TB at a time, just have local Fast SSD for current active projects and a NAS/DAS for mass storage.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I am looking to upgrade a 2020 Mac Mini to a M4 Pro Mini with this configuration:

• Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 64GB unified memory
• 2TB SSD storage

I currently also have a M1 MB Pro 16 inch, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 64 MB RAM, 2TB internal SSD.

My use case is mostly Lightroom and Photoshop, but I have many photographs that I need to keep in stock for my work. The current 2020 Mac Mini is becoming too slow. I sometimes use my M1 MB pro as a "desktop" hooking into my array of external hard drives.

I am curious if upgrading to the M4 Pro Mac Mini configuration above is a smart move. Will this new Mac Mini be noticeably faster in my workflow as compared to using my M1 MB Pro laptop?

Thank you for any suggestions.

It seems to me that the primary limiting factor for your work most likely is RAM moreso than M1 series chip versus M4 series chip. IMO it would not make sense to upgrade the SoC but not increase the RAM. And to the extent the chip may be limiting, going to only a Pro (not Max) M4 chip is unwise; the differences between Pro and Max chips are huge. Nor IMO does it make a lot of sense to downgrade from an MBP to a Mac Mini.

Remember that we buy a new box for future needs, not for yesterday's needs. Anyone slowing on an M1 MBP configured as you describe should not be looking at moving downward to Apple's lower end Mac Minis [with half the memory bandwidth, for instance]. And by the time a Mac Mini is configured with Pro chip and 64 GB RAM it no longer provides the price bargain that the base Mac Minis do.

I suggest that you wait to see the next generation of Studio before making any purchases; higher end 2025 boxes will be much more competent than the low end Mac Mini for your workflow. Then buy either an M4 Studio Max with 128 GB RAM or an M4 MBP Max with 128 GB RAM. RAM demands always increase over time, especially Adobe-type apps.

Note that a 2025 Studio will likely provide better i/o than some of your current cables, etc. are capable of. So you will need to give some thought to i/o optimizing after you choose a high end 2025 box.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I am curious if upgrading to the M4 Pro Mac Mini configuration above is a smart move. Will this new Mac Mini be noticeably faster in my workflow as compared to using my M1 MB Pro laptop?

If we lean on PugetBench — includes download link and test methodology:

PugetBench for Photoshop

PugetBench for Photoshop runs on top of your installed copy of Adobe Photoshop, providing benchmark data directly from the application.

www.pugetsystems.com

And the PugetBench (user submitted) results page:

PugetBench List

Build your own computer, workstation, mini pc, or server at Puget Custom Computers.

benchmarks.pugetsystems.com

M1 Max = ~8105*
M4 Pro = ~12798*
M4 Max = ~13186* **

M4 Pro vs. M1 Max = ~58% faster
M4 Max vs. M1 Max = ~63% faster

For a little extra insight (and fun)...

iMac Pro = ~5002*

M1 Max = ~62% faster
M4 Max = ~164% faster

* Averaged score results, leaving out >25% outliers.
** Lines up fairly well with this individual benchmark:

Photoshop benchmarking the M4 Macbook Pro and a Dell tower - the last word

I recently got a M4 Max Macbook Pro with 128 GB of DRAM. It has seemed to be a peppy machine. Today I benchmarked it against my main workstation, using the Puget Systems Photoshop benchmarking tool. Spoiler: it's pretty darned fast. This isn't really a fair fight. On one hand, the Dell 64-core...

blog.kasson.com

 

[Alameda]

If we lean on PugetBench — includes download link and test methodology:

PugetBench for Photoshop

PugetBench for Photoshop runs on top of your installed copy of Adobe Photoshop, providing benchmark data directly from the application.

www.pugetsystems.com

And the PugetBench (user submitted) results page:

PugetBench List

Build your own computer, workstation, mini pc, or server at Puget Custom Computers.

benchmarks.pugetsystems.com

M1 Max = ~8105*
M4 Pro = ~12798*
M4 Max = ~13186* **

M4 Pro vs. M1 Max = ~58% faster
M4 Max vs. M1 Max = ~63% faster

For a little extra insight (and fun)...

iMac Pro = ~5002*

M1 Max = ~62% faster
M4 Max = ~164% faster

* Averaged score results, leaving out >25% outliers.
** Lines up fairly well with this individual benchmark:

Photoshop benchmarking the M4 Macbook Pro and a Dell tower - the last word

I recently got a M4 Max Macbook Pro with 128 GB of DRAM. It has seemed to be a peppy machine. Today I benchmarked it against my main workstation, using the Puget Systems Photoshop benchmarking tool. Spoiler: it's pretty darned fast. This isn't really a fair fight. On one hand, the Dell 64-core...

blog.kasson.com

Jim Kasson is a very highly respected photography expert and a retired Engineering VP.

On the other hand, 164% faster benchmark doesn’t mean the computer is 164% faster doing the tasks you need. The processor intensive work I do is RAW photo editing. With DxO PhotoLab, I can move all of the sliders in real time and see the results using an M1 MacBook Pro. When all of my edits are done and I export to JPEG, it can take about 20 seconds, but that’s a background task and I can just go to editing the next image. Should I pay $1,000 to upgrade to a box that will cut the 20 seconds of that one task down to 10? For me, the answer is no.

I am not all people. Jim Kasson shoots very high resolution medium format photos and probably puts them into 20 or 30 layers in Photoshop and figures out all sorts of processor intensive math stuff to blend the layers and all that. He’s way more technical and fancy than I’ll ever be. But my point is that I’m not trying to say that what’s best for me is best for everybody; you need to try to understand where your bottlenecks are and whether it’s a faster CPU, more cores, more memory, or something else that will help… if it’s anything at all. From Intel to M4, that upgrade makes a huge difference but M1 Pro to M4 Pro is not a massive a difference as some might thing.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

If slower storage works for you, then you need a big RAID drive. If you put a solid backup strategy in place, you could maybe get a 4 bay with 20TB drives in it configured as RAID 0 for 80TB... or RAID 5 for 60TB with one of the drives acting as a RAID backup. That will be pretty fast in either RAID configuration, even though it leans on HDDs. Something like Thunderbay 4 should do the trick. That's not the only such option but just one. There's also an 8-bay version if you want to anticipate a much bigger storage future.

OR, go NAS and get maybe 8-Bay or 12-Bay Synology. They offer a unique kind of RAID that allows you to add more drives over time without having to rebuild the storage pool in the traditional way. In other words, you could create one at your 40TB to maybe 60TB (to get 20TB more now) level now and then add drives when you get close to full again. Synology is not the ONLY NAS option either but I use a 12-bay myself for about 10 years now and it works great.

NAS Bonus is that you can- optionally- set up your own "cloud" and put any photos to which you may need access while away there. Your own cloud will cost $0/month in rent. They have a solid Photo Manager app. These tools would allow you to put up to ALL photos in your own secure cloud without having to load up a laptop or separate storage to carry along.

Synology is flexible, so you might even be able to load up maybe a 12 bay with your mishmash of 4 & 5TB drives to create one bigger storage pool. And then, over time, as you need more storage, you replace smallest storage with a much bigger drive, let the system "absorb" the new storage into the pool and basically growing your storage pool. I started with a lot of 4TBs in mine long ago and have since been methodically replacing them with 14-18TB drives as storage needs grow.

Lastly, if money is too tight for either of those, I've been intrigued by hybrid enclsoures with bays for big HDDs as well as multiple slots of m.2. For example this one is 4 bays & 4 slots for under $300. You could load up 4 maybe 24 TB HDDs in that one for 96TB and/or up to 4 m.2 sticks at 8TB each for 32TB. I haven't tried that one but reviews seem generally positive. It is NOT Thunderbolt (which is a part of why it costs so much less) and some reviews reference the infamous "unexpected ejections" that plague so many drives & enclosures hooked to modern Macs running macOS newer than Big Sur. So that would give me pause. Other reviews by Mac people gush.

Bottom line (based on experience): I'd embrace the Synology option. I did just that long ago and it is great.

Great counsel. However we photogs usu do not need RAID 5 or even want it. Because we need backup, not real-time backup. Real-time backup like RAID 5 costs hardware, and instantly also backs up mistakes [e.g. if loading 500 images from card A to Drive B we want to back up Drive B after the transfer is complete and verified, not real time, in case errors occur during the transfer]. Photogs want backup of planned work to happen, not real-time backup of WIP like accounting needs. Of course if one has infinite backup hardware having RAID 5 in the mix cannot hurt if carefully planned.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I am looking to upgrade a 2020 Mac Mini to a M4 Pro Mini with this configuration:

• Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 64GB unified memory
• 2TB SSD storage

I currently also have a M1 MB Pro 16 inch, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 64 MB RAM, 2TB internal SSD.

My use case is mostly Lightroom and Photoshop, but I have many photographs that I need to keep in stock for my work. The current 2020 Mac Mini is becoming too slow. I sometimes use my M1 MB pro as a "desktop" hooking into my array of external hard drives.

I am curious if upgrading to the M4 Pro Mac Mini configuration above is a smart move. Will this new Mac Mini be noticeably faster in my workflow as compared to using my M1 MB Pro laptop?

Thank you for any suggestions.

...M1 Pro to M4 Pro is not a massive a difference as some might thing.

Correct. However Pro M chip to Max M chip is a massive difference. IMO any upgrade when it happens should be to a Max chip not to a Pro chip; and should also increase RAM because RAM demands are constantly increasing, especially in the area of images work.

Edit 1: My guess is that as folks like Affinity and Adobe implement AI more heavily into their code RAM demands may increase even faster than they steadily have for the last ~30 years since our Photoshop work began.

Edit 2: Also note that other things like memory bandwidth and available RAM choices improve concurrent with increasing to the Max chip.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Correct. However Pro M chip to Max M chip is a massive difference.

In many (or dare I say most) tasks: no. It’s a good and bad of Apple’s design decision to have the frequency target the same for the entire family of SOC, unlike AMD and Intel who typically scale clock speed with increased core count — generally.

EDIT: That is, unless your apps/tasks substantially utilize the GPU. Then the Max and Ultra variants will strongly pull ahead.

A bit dated:

Adobe Photoshop CC Multi Core Performance

With hundreds of CPU models available, it can be a daunting task to determine which CPU will give you the best performance in Photoshop. In this article we will be examining the multi-threading capabilities of Photoshop CC to determine whether a CPU with a high frequency or a CPU with a high...

www.pugetsystems.com

However, it doesn’t appear to have changed (much):

AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 WX-Series Content Creation Review

AMD has launched their new Threadripper PRO 7000 WX-series of processors, offering substantial performance improvements across the board. But, exactly how do they compare to Intel's Xeon W-3400 line?

www.pugetsystems.com

Lightroom appears very similar, favoring higher frequency vs. more cores:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7995WX Content Creation Preview

The 96-Core 7995WX is the highest core count desktop CPU on the market. How does it perform for content creation applications on the TRX50 platform?

www.pugetsystems.com

Of course, more processing cores will provide a benefit as more simultaneous tasks (i.e., other apps and background processes) occur.

My guess is that as folks like Affinity and Adobe implement AI more heavily into their code RAM demands may increase even faster than they steadily have for the last ~30 years since our Photoshop work began.

RAM is definitely beneficial in many situations, even just to provide more file caching — basically, macOS tries to utilize any excess RAM as a RAM disk (well, something akin to it anyway).

 

[Alameda]

Correct. However Pro M chip to Max M chip is a massive difference. IMO any upgrade when it happens should be to a Max chip not to a Pro chip.

Okay.... Kasson bought a $4,700 MacBook, with 40 GPU cores and 128 GB RAM. I hope it's a lot faster. Not the 20 GPU core machine the OP is contemplating.

But, I think the best approach is to assess what is too slow in the work you’re doing.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Okay.... Kasson bought a $4,700 MacBook, with 40 GPU cores and 128 GB RAM. I hope it's a lot faster. Not the 20 GPU core machine the OP is contemplating.

But, I think the best approach is to assess what is too slow in the work you’re doing.

IMO what we do is assess what we need to do in the work we will be doing rather than in what we are doing today. Obviously that is more difficult than reading up on someone's testing 6 months ago of last year's hardware/OS/apps. But new product life cycles start tomorrow and run for 5-7 years, so that future is the time frame we must plan for.

I agree with Kasson's choice which is the same choice I made with M2 when the M2 Studio I wanted remained unreleased. IMO choosing Apple's lowest end desktop and maxing it out at the lesser-but-pricey Pro chip would be a poor choice for the intended future workflow.

The Pro chip only allows a max of 64 GB RAM, which is viable today and the superb Mac OS will always make it work in the future as well. But 64 GB RAM is a poor choice in a new box for images work 2025-2030+; it will become sub-optimal. Apple's excellent Unified Memory Architecture efficiently uses UMA RAM for everything; demand on RAM will increase just like it always has, but perhaps faster.

Buy a chip series back at M3 if necessary, but do not skimp on RAM.