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What should I do? Purchase 2012 mini and sell my 2014?

A

applelover4u

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
336
179
I have a 2014 mac mini with 4gb ram and a ssd drive i installed. I been looking at the mac mini 2012 and Im tempted to purchase to replace my mac mini 2014 simply for more ram and etc

Should i make this move ? Sell my mac mini 2014 to purchase a 2012?

Is it safe to say that the 2012 is ahed of the 2014 and doing this would be a win for me?

Also thinking about buying a older macbook and using a monitor on it instead of the mini
 
applelover4u said:
I have a 2014 mac mini with 4gb ram and a ssd drive i installed. I been looking at the mac mini 2012 and Im tempted to purchase to replace my mac mini 2014 simply for more ram and etc

Should i make this move ? Sell my mac mini 2014 to purchase a 2012?

Is it safe to say that the 2012 is ahed of the 2014 and doing this would be a win for me?

Also thinking about buying a older macbook and using a monitor on it instead of the mini
Click to expand...
What are you doing with the Mini you have now? The 2014 has faster graphics and Thunderbolt 2, which can be an advantage over the 2012 in some use cases.
 
Oh definitely!
The 2012 Mac mini sitting infront of me looks waaay more shinier than those dull 2014 ones!
And I can ADD RAM to MY computer.
Then, getting a MacBook is more portable were the mini sits and just glistens all day with that aluminous shine!
 
chrfr said:
What are you doing with the Mini you have now? The 2014 has faster graphics and Thunderbolt 2, which can be an advantage over the 2012 in some use cases.
Click to expand...
Agreed. But if neither of those is particularly a concern, a quad core 2012 will run circles around the 2014 in some use cases (especially since you can't increase RAM above 4 GB in the 2014 model, where you can add RAM up to 16 GB in the 2012). But you may have to get an SSD into the 2012, or boot from an external SSD, since a 2012 with a spinner is going to be crippled compared to a 2012 (or 2014) with SSD.
 
There's a rumor that the Mini will be updated in October. I would wait until then before doing anything. Aside from that, you don't specify which 2014 mini you have or which 2012 you would replace it with. The base 2014 1.4ghz Mini is very limited - I have one for an iTunes server and it's fine for that, but really slow for anything else.

I have a 2012 2.6ghz quad core Mini and it's a great machine, but the HD4000 graphics chip is a limitation. And it's a six year old computer. I gave my base 2012 Mini to my daughter's family after upgrading it to 16gb and a SSD and it's a pretty nice machine. But again, it's six years old.

If it were me, I'd wait and see what happens (if anything) in October. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/11/apple-product-updates-fall-kuo/
 
I bought a used 2012 Mac Mini last year - if you're comfortable with the price, I'd say do it. I'm personally hoping there's a Mac Mini update this year as Boyd01 alluded to, but then again I've been hoping that for a long time now lol. If there is one this year I'll probably buy it. But I went with the 2012 used over the 2014 because I was comfortable with the ability to upgrade the drive and the RAM, and I got it for a good price. One note: Mine's a dual-core. 2012 was the last year of the quad mini's, and part of me wishes I'd held out longer searching for a quad instead of jumping on a good price for a dual core. Just my two cents.
 
ActionableMango said:
I think I suggested to someone that he wait until Fall...

...that was back in 2016. I wonder if he is still waiting. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
We can just merge this thread with the longest active running Mac Rumors thread of all time in the Fall. ;)
[doublepost=1532992298][/doublepost]
Boyd01 said:
The difference this time is that a (sometimes) credible source is predicting an October upadate. I don't recall anything like that in 2016. ;)
Click to expand...
Two years is a lot of time for pennies to be saved and if the rumors are finally true you're going to need a lot more pennies this time.
 
I'm using a Mac Mini 2009 with 8 GB 1333 mhz DDR3, 120 GB SSD and 2 TB HDD as a Plex & file server at home. It's also taking care of torrent stuff. Running El Capitan 24/7. Never stopped working. I never heard its fan.

Would I swap it with a 2014 Mac Mini? No. 2014 can't handle these. 2012? Hell, yes, if it was a really cheap upgrade.
 
yuzgen said:
I'm using a Mac Mini 2009 with 8 GB 1333 mhz DDR3, 120 GB SSD and 2 TB HDD as a Plex & file server at home. It's also taking care of torrent stuff. Running El Capitan 24/7. Never stopped working. I never heard its fan.

Would I swap it with a 2014 Mac Mini? No. 2014 can't handle these. 2012? Hell, yes, if it was a really cheap upgrade.
Click to expand...
While I am no fan of the 2014 Mini, and haven’t been even when it wasn’t 4 years old, this is nonsense. Any 2014 Mini is faster and more capable than the 2009 Mini.
 
chrfr said:
While I am no fan of the 2014 Mini, and haven’t been even when it wasn’t 4 years old, this is nonsense. Any 2014 Mini is faster and more capable than the 2009 Mini.
Click to expand...

Not really for my usage. I already stated I'm using 8 GB RAM and two SATA drives. I need both storage speed and capacity. Need them both. El Capitan is unhappy with just 4 GB RAM.

So it makes sense for me. 4 GB 2014 sucks, for my usage. YMMV.
 
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