I thought the news on Broadwell pointed to more tablet oriented parts at the end of the year, with laptop parts next year and desktop parts in July 2015 or so? Regardless, I wouldn't expect the Mac Mini to be the first in line to get Broadwell,
Prior to a iMac with a MBA processor I would have tended to agree. The original mini concept was about putting a "mobile" (laptop) processor in a desktop that was substantially smaller. If Apple's objective is even smaller with mobile then perhaps high end tablet processor is next target. It has been about 10 years since the initial 'Mini' revolution ( Jan 2005).
There is a long string of folks who want to jam a "desktop class" A7/A8 into a mini. If that is "good enough" performance than Core M will fit the bill.
[ I'm not in that camp. I think the Mini might need to get bigger to merge with the iMac 21.5 rather than smaller and this MBA processor iMac is Intel catalog mismatch blimp till next iteration. ]
and definitely not for a mid-2014 machine (if the leak pans out), so I wouldn't expect one till later next year.
If 'Mid' stretches into September than perhaps. Sooner is probably confined to some MBA (or rMBP 13" ) variant.
The major problem with Haswell is that Apple could have done a mini remodel sooner with what has been out for almost a year. Unless Intel is rolling out something that was hugely missing before (e.g., cheaper HD5100 models in laptop class or HD5100/5000 in desktop class ).
Sure, but at a cost either in money or capacity as you've noted, plus that was just speculation, we might not see PCIe flash in a mid-2014 model at all.
IMHO quite likely will. The rest of the Mac line up is all on PCIe Flash. Even if they kept one 2.5" (e.g., the iMac) it would simplify supply chain to use the same flash models in the Mini as the rest of the lower end of the Mac line up.
2.5" SSDs went into old Mac Pro (gone) and the classic MBP (probably gone on next major MBP upgrade). I don't think Apple wants to buy any 2.5" SSDs. If there is a Fusion Drive option for Mini it likely going to look like the Fusion drives in the iMacs.
Also, I was really referring to server users, and probably should have focused on RAID-1; after all in a server environment I think redundancy wins over raw performance,
reliability is what RAID-1 targets. If the SSD doesn't' fail then don't need two. It isn't like there is redundancy in the rest of the Mini (no ECC , no dual network , no dual much of anything else ). SSDs do wear out, but if just OS/Apps for the drive and plugged in all the time not going to have spinning/moving parts failures if remove the HDDs.
plus even a RAID-1 of good 2.5" SSDs still delivers strong performance compared to HDDs.
But no where near as cost effective. Already are paying a $/GB penalty to go to SSD. Double down on penalty and there is an even larger gap.
but I was responding to a quoted source, possibly about the new Mac Mini, that mentioned that the current model may retain some advantages.
Well another could be dropping down to 2 cores only through either MBA or Core M restrictions. Perhaps both.
but for me the appeal of a Mac Mini server is that it's small, and reasonably capable on its own, without the need for additional peripherals, allowing you to fairly easily assemble a small cluster of independent machines each with its own internal (albeit software) RAID-1.
The server role of the mini is a "gravy on top" use case. It is probably not going to be driver in major Mini redesign as it isn't the primary use case. In the current design, they found something useful for the old DVD space to reuse the 2nd SATA internal connector for. If SATA drives are dinosaurs (to be phased out over next 3-4 years in Apple Mac Products), the new mini redesign probably wouldn't go out of it way to cater to it those.
The driving issue likey whether it is RAID-1 but how much "stuff" do most mainstream Mac Mini users has. What capacity requirements does the Mini have to hit. If in the over 400-500GB range then probably will keep a SATA drive. If the target is less than it will be smaller. The "Fusion Drive" solution suggest that the average is bigger than 400-500GB.
Otherwise if you're going to start adding things in addition then you might as well just got a proper rack-server.
Apple is only going to build the minimum set of products. The expanded set of use cases are always going to be "adding things in addition".
Similar issue with non rack systems too. If want "off-the-shelf" , dedicated storage / etc servers then there is stuff like Synloogy , DHCP/Network routers / etc.
