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Urgent Mini 2010 vs 2011 advice...

Joelburman

Joelburman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 31, 2014
226
9
As mentioned in this thread I've bought a used 2010 mini to have as a media player to my LED tv. Main reason for getting the 2010 model was for the internal dvd drive. I had an idea to upgrade ram, harddrive to SSD and possibly even the dvd drive to a blu-ray one. I've already inserted 8gb ram but unfortunately still have some lost frames at 1080p in the beginning of clips

With this in mind I'm having second thoughts about this model. Mainly towards the SATA II limitation for the storage when it comes to future proofing. Especially since I've found a good external blu-ray playerwith USB connection but still would rather have the drive in the mini.

Why I'm asking here is that a person is interested in buying my current mini for 375 USD and he of course wants an answer quite fast. Should I sell this one and instead look for a 2011/2012 model, however those are both rare and expensive on the second hand market in Sweden.

All inputs are welcomed.
 
Last edited:
Joelburman said:
As mentioned in this thread I've bought a used 2010 mini to have as a media player to my LED tv. Main reason for getting the 2010 model was for the internal dvd drive. I had an idea to upgrade ram, harddrive to SSD and possibly even the dvd drive to a blu-ray one. I've already inserted 8gb ram but unfortunately still have some lost frames at 1080p in the beginning of clips

With this in mind I'm having second thoughts about this model. Mainly towards the SATA II limitation for the storage when it comes to future proofing. Especially since I've found a good external blu-ray playerwith USB connection but still would rather have the drive in the mini.

Why I'm asking here is that a person is interested in buying my current mini for 375 USD and he of course wants an answer quite fast. Should I sell this one and instead look for a 2011/2012 model, however those are both rare and expensive on the second hand market in Sweden.

All inputs are welcomed.
Click to expand...

From my past experience the 2010 mac mini has held up fine playing HD video. If you have an SSD available I'd test it with that before you sell it. SATA II is still fast plenty fast for HD HTPC use. I wouldn't be too worried about future proofing. If you get it running 1080p sufficiently then you'll be set as there is no way to get it to 4k. So until 4k becomes mainstream you're all set at which point you'd have to jump to a 2014 anyway. Hope this helps!
 
jdphoto said:
From my past experience the 2010 mac mini has held up fine playing HD video. If you have an SSD available I'd test it with that before you sell it. SATA II is still fast plenty fast for HD HTPC use. I wouldn't be too worried about future proofing. If you get it running 1080p sufficiently then you'll be set as there is no way to get it to 4k. So until 4k becomes mainstream you're all set at which point you'd have to jump to a 2014 anyway. Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Agreed. As long as your primary use is to play HD video files your 2010 should be plenty future proof. My mid 2010 2.6 is doing just fine as a dedicated HTPC. When I upgrade my setup to 4K I will also upgrade my Mac mini (but that's still unnecessary as most media isn't available in 4K yet).
 
Thanks for good and reasonable feedback. Just sniffed up a possible i7 QC 2012 model though trough a webshop. Tempted to buy it because its listed at 686 USD which is low by swedish standards right now. They normally go for around 900-1000 USD on the second hand market.
 
yes,Just sniffed up a possible i7 QC 2012 model though trough a webshop. Tempted to buy it because its listed at 686 USD which is low by swedish standards right now. They normally go for around 900-1000 USD on the second hand market.
f083
 
Thanks!
I ended up installing my 240GB Kingston v300 SSD that was in my macbook pro earlier on the mini. When I'm running diagnostics I'm not getting huge numbers but the dropped frames in the beginning of a 1080p clip is now gone when playing it from the SSD so mission accomplished!!! :)
 
If you have dropped fames, the software is wrong, not the hardware. What software do you use for playback?
VLC for example is a hog, where XBMC is running flawless on even an 2009 mini. I run high bitrate Blu-Ray rips without any hiccup on a 2.26 C2Duo/9400M/4GB Ram/7200rpm HD.
 
I had dropped frames on both Quicktime and VLC. I'll look into XBMC.
 
Thanks I'll look into it. May be a good choice for me since I'm planning on staying with Mavericks on the Mini.
 
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