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why is the new mini so slow D:

H

haruspex

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 9, 2011
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been using a power mac G5 for ages, sold it along with a bunch of other old computers i had to raise money for the baseline mac mini. i got it and it's great and stuff, but i can't help but notice it just seems really slow. like, slower than my 2008 macbook pro (which has a 2.4GHz C2D, also has Lion, 2GB RAM, 5400RPM HD).

i'm getting 8GB RAM in the mail soon because if i have more than three or four apps open on the mini it runs out of ram entirely and that's when it gets bad. but i've noticed it kind of stutters even when very little is open. i'm considering getting a SSD, but this is concerns me a bit. i don't see any reason why it should be performing worse overall than my macbook pro. i love this mac mini, but i don't think i'll be happy spending my $600 on a computer that's slower than my 2008 mbp :(
 
The thing only has 2GB of RAM, isn't it obvious why it slows down as you have more programs open?

When you install your 8GB of RAM you should notice an improvement.

I'm not sure why it's performing worse than your Macbook Pro but perhaps the Mini needs to be broken in? Perhaps spotlight is indexing stuff or something.
 
haruspex said:
been using a power mac G5 for ages, sold it along with a bunch of other old computers i had to raise money for the baseline mac mini. i got it and it's great and stuff, but i can't help but notice it just seems really slow. like, slower than my 2008 macbook pro (which has a 2.4GHz C2D, also has Lion, 2GB RAM, 5400RPM HD).

i'm getting 8GB RAM in the mail soon because if i have more than three or four apps open on the mini it runs out of ram entirely and that's when it gets bad. but i've noticed it kind of stutters even when very little is open. i'm considering getting a SSD, but this is concerns me a bit. i don't see any reason why it should be performing worse overall than my macbook pro. i love this mac mini, but i don't think i'll be happy spending my $600 on a computer that's slower than my 2008 mbp :(
Click to expand...

In a word.... "Lion" I see a lot of stuttering and pops that I didn't see on my 2010 mini with Snow Leopard server. 8 GB makes a HUUGE improvement as 2 GB is not enough to run lion and any other application. that said there is still a lot of room for optimization and i hope we see 10.7.1 soon...
 
Vermifuge said:
In a word.... "Lion" I see a lot of stuttering and pops that I didn't see on my 2010 mini with Snow Leopard server. 8 GB makes a HUUGE improvement as 2 GB is not enough to run lion and any other application. that said there is still a lot of room for optimization and i hope we see 10.7.1 soon...
Click to expand...

2 gigs is good enough to run the bare basics on a Lion machine. However the OP doesn't tell us what specific apps he is running. If he/she is rendering a movie file lets say or working on a rather large file in photoshop he/she is going to see some slowing down of the OS.

However like others have said the eight gigs of ram will do wonders for you.
 
The 2gb of ram is the killer! Our 2.3 is running fantastic now with 8gb. Much improved over the continuous spinning beach ball, 2gb set up.

Apple should be flogged for sending the 2.3 out with 2gb :rolleyes: .... IMO
 
^^ that's good to hear, gives me a lot more hope

sorry for not being more clear. here's the thing: i emphasized that the RAM, HD speed, and OS are the same on my 2008 MBP and new mac mini to remove those as possibilities for bottlenecks, and i know it'll definitely get better with more RAM added. but this is the issue:

on my MBP, i can be running alfred, mail, iTunes, Chrome with 10+ tabs open, Traktor, GraphicConverter, VMWare (with running XP VM), Linkinus, and MS Excel at the same time, and it's only after having about that much open that it starts to get bogged down.

on my mini, i can be running alfred, mail, iTunes, and Chrome with 10+ tabs open, and MAYBE azureus without it becoming horribly slow and stuttery.

again, i'm expecting the 8GB to make a huge difference, but it still doesn't seem right that there's this discrepancy in performance.
 
It's the RAM. I have a new base Mini with 8GB of RAM and with a lot of apps open, it runs faster than my 2009 mini with 4GB of RAM and SSD.
 
I think people are missing the point. The specs are exactly the same in both the MacBook Pro and the Mini except that the Mini had a newer faster processor.
 
Mr.C said:
I think people are missing the point. The specs are exactly the same in both the MacBook Pro and the Mini except that the Mini had a newer faster processor.
Click to expand...

Was that 2008 MBP running Lion? Probably not. I stand by opinion that Lion and 2GB of ram is the problem.
 
Vermifuge said:
Was that 2008 MBP running Lion? Probably not. I stand by opinion that Lion and 2GB of ram is the problem.
Click to expand...

If you read the original post the OP mentions having Lion on the laptop. Like I said it looks like the specs are pretty much the same except for the CPU.
 
It's not slow.

I'm also guessing your Power Mac doesn't have a single 5400 RPM hard drive in it.

"I was just driving a Ferrari Enzo and now I have bought a Kia Spectra. Why is it so slow??????"
 
Mr.C said:
If you read the original post the OP mentions having Lion on the laptop. Like I said it looks like the specs are pretty much the same except for the CPU.
Click to expand...

Then it has to be the HD 3000. It may just be poorly supported at this time. Does the 2008 MBP have a discreet video card / dedicated video ram? That missing 256MB of ram in the mini could also be the breaking point.

It looks like the MBP has a Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT with 256 MB, or 512 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM.

So 2008 MBP /w 2GB gram and discrete graphics VS. 2011 mini with 1.75GB ram and integrated graphics.
 
Last edited:
kerplunknet said:
It's not slow.

I'm also guessing your Power Mac doesn't have a single 5400 RPM hard drive in it.

"I was just driving a Ferrari Enzo and now I have bought a Kia Spectra. Why is it so slow??????"
Click to expand...

guilty of not reading the thread

Vermifuge said:
Then it has to be the HD 3000. It may just be poorly supported at this time. Does the 2008 MBP have a discreet video card / dedicated video ram? That missing 256MB on the mini or game could also be the breaking point.

It looks like the MBP has a Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT with 256 MB, or 512 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM.

So 2008 MBP /w 2GB gram and discrete graphics VS. 2011 mini with 1.75GB game and integrated graphics.
Click to expand...

yes, it's got the 256MB 8600M GT. i'm hoping it's the HD 3000 being not optimally supported at this time. also I forgot entirely to take into account the HD 3000 uses shared RAM so I guess I really only have 1.5-1.75GB RAM in the Mini right now.

either way, since some people are saying the extra RAM makes the difference, i'm hoping that'll do it for me. i guess we'll see when the RAM gets here.
 
haruspex said:
guilty of not reading the thread



yes, it's got the 256MB 8600M GT. i'm hoping it's the HD 3000 being not optimally supported at this time. also I forgot entirely to take into account the HD 3000 uses shared RAM so I guess I really only have 1.5-1.75GB RAM in the Mini right now.

either way, since some people are saying the extra RAM makes the difference, i'm hoping that'll do it for me. i guess we'll see when the RAM gets here.
Click to expand...

I must turn off this auto correct in lion -.- Really report back when you get the ram. I still think Lion is poorly optimized and that HD 3000 is rather new.
 
If the Apple store hadn't set up the slowest base mini (and no other models) I may well have bought one...
 
Both my Lion-running Macs have 8GB RAM. I highly recommend it.

The amount of RAM we have these days is insane. Just three years ago I had a MacBook with 2GB RAM and it ran really fast. Now my 2GB Mac is pretty slow and my 1GB iMac G3 is frustratingly slow.

Has software really become so bloated, or were these machines slow all along, we've just gotten used to how fast 8GB machines are?
 
True. If I was spending over £500 on a computer I'd be disappointed if it came with 2GB RAM.
 
I will throw in my two cents.. Even with the 4gb mac mini I have it was paging a lot (transferring memory between ram and disk) and the 5400 RPM drive that comes with the cheaper mac minis is very slow. Some of my disk tests showed it being at 20 megabytes per second. That is slower than usb 2.0!

Upgrading to 8gb of ram can be done on your own for about 70 dollars and is VERY easy. You can even sell the old sticks on ebay for about 20 dollars so its a very cheap and easy upgrade.

On a side note, I upgraded mine to a ssd while I was in there and of course it has no speed issues now.
 
8GB of memory, a few Lion Patches and maybe a SSD (as soon the cable situation are solved) for OSX/Home and there will be nothing slow with that Mac Mini :)
 
I recently purchased a base mac mini for home server purposes and I did find it to be incredibly slow compared to the 2011 ultimate iMac I've. When I decided to check the page outs, it had more page outs than usual even with less or close to zero apps running. Another major hit I found was disk speed, I was downloading bunch of apps and while it downloaded the Mac Mini was spinning on most basic tasks. I'm going to upgrade the memory to 8Gb and see how it reacts... but I also doubt the 5400 rpm...
 
vigu360 said:
I recently purchased a base mac mini for home server purposes and I did find it to be incredibly slow compared to the 2011 ultimate iMac I've. When I decided to check the page outs, it had more page outs than usual even with less or close to zero apps running. Another major hit I found was disk speed, I was downloading bunch of apps and while it downloaded the Mac Mini was spinning on most basic tasks. I'm going to upgrade the memory to 8Gb and see how it reacts... but I also doubt the 5400 rpm...
Click to expand...

I have the i7 Dual core /w 7200 RPM drive and 8 GB ram. I still encounter the beach ball and All i can really do is blame Lion. either poor hardware support or poor software optimization.
 
Vermifuge said:
I have the i7 Dual core /w 7200 RPM drive and 8 GB ram. I still encounter the beach ball and All i can really do is blame Lion. either poor hardware support or poor software optimization.
Click to expand...

I'm actually guessing it's more to do with the 7,200RPM drive. From experience I've seem many laptop drives spindown to conserve power, I've seen this in the Hitachi drives, some of the WD Green drive and the earlier model Seagate Momentus XT series.

I really don't think it's Lion rather the drive spinning back up that's causing the beach balling, I've put 3 drive in my Mac Mini and notice the newer Seagate was the only one not to do this. The stock Hitachi drive was probably the worst.
 
ezekielrage_99 said:
I'm actually guessing it's more to do with the 7,200RPM drive. From experience I've seem many laptop drives spindown to conserve power, I've seen this in the Hitachi drives, some of the WD Green drive and the earlier model Seagate Momentus XT series.

I really don't think it's Lion rather the drive spinning back up that's causing the beach balling, I've put 3 drive in my Mac Mini and notice the newer Seagate was the only one not to do this. The stock Hitachi drive was probably the worst.
Click to expand...

If a 512+ SSD was reasonable affordable i would replace the internal drive. for now this will have to do. I assume thats why i did not notice this behavior in my 2010 server. the drives hold always be ready.
 
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