WTB? Mac Mini - not any more!

TTony

Looking for a reasonable spec - ideally 8Gb / 1Tb and probably an i5 processor - it's going to run Logic, etc.

I'll probably end up buying new because it'd be an exVAT price, but thought I'd ask here first in case anyone has got anything that's no longer used/wanted.

spark240

Get 16G i7...you wont look back

PC_Dave

Just got me a Mac mini yesterday - got the 2012 i5 with fusion drive and 16Gb RAM - Absolutely brilliant!  

Some good prices on fleabay at the moment.

Would be worth looking at the "older" models purely for the upgrades as the newer ones can't be upgraded.

Dave

Funkfingers

spark240 said:

Get 16G i7...you wont look back

i7 is a no-brainer. i5 will soon be unable to support the DAW.

TTony

PC_Dave said:

Some good prices on fleabay at the moment.

Would be worth looking at the "older" models purely for the upgrades as the newer ones can't be upgraded.

Yeah, but "ebay".

I know I'd have all the rights as the buyer, but it'd have to be a ridiculous deal to tempt me, and if it were that ridiculous, I'd just be too suspicious to buy!

Know what you mean re upgradeability, but I'm currently using a 2010 MBA with 2gb and its just about coping, so I think an i5 with 8gb will meet my needs for a while.

Funkfingers said:

spark240 said:

Get 16G i7...you wont look back

i7 is a no-brainer. i5 will soon be unable to support the DAW.

That's a bold statement @Funkfingers.  I'm not sure that the added performance of the i7 would make *that* much of a difference - certainly not enough to justify the £270 price uplift.

Funkfingers

TTony said:
I'm not sure that the added performance of the i7 would make *that* much of a difference - certainly not enough to justify the £270 price uplift.

Apple, innit?

Gagaryn

Funkfingers said:

TTony said:
I'm not sure that the added performance of the i7 would make *that* much of a difference - certainly not enough to justify the £270 price uplift.

Apple, innit?

Soon all the Intel chips will be done for when Apple switch over to in house sand.

usedtobe

Apple get right on my tits!

TTony

usedtobe said:

Apple get right on my tits!

Whilst what you choose to put on your tits will undoubtedly be of interest to some people, it's not quite relevant to this thread ...

Funkfingers

TTony said:

usedtobe said:

Apple get right on my tits!

Whilst what you choose to put on your tits will undoubtedly be of interest to some people, it's not quite relevant to this thread.

Medicate yo' tits with balm. That's right, folks. Balm yo' tits.

TTony said:
 I think an i5 with 8gb will meet my needs for a while.

I'm not sure that the added performance of the i7 would make *that* much of a difference - certainly not enough to justify the £270 price uplift.

I am suggesting that you think like a power user. If you run a whole bunch of software instruments and amp/effect modelling in Logic 10.4.n, 8GB will soon fill and an i5 CPU will struggle. Juggling audio data in and out of virtual RAM relies on extremely rapid HDD/SSD access. Glitching is very likely.

notanon

@TTony I would consider a mini with SSD for main drive and a large capacity second drive. I know with the 2012 model you can perform that upgrade yourself. The speed of SSD as you probably know it's something you will miss when starting up apps, reboots, ...

Don't forget, as soon as you get the mini up and running connect a decent external drive and let time machine do it's stuff. One of the best apps apple have produced imo.

JezWynd

notanon said:

@TTony I would consider a mini with SSD for main drive and a large capacity second drive. I know with the 2012 model you can perform that upgrade yourself. The speed of SSD as you probably know it's something you will miss when starting up apps, reboots, ...

Don't forget, as soon as you get the mini up and running connect a decent external drive and let time machine do it's stuff. One of the best apps apple have produced imo.

What are opinions on the Fusion Drives? (Spinning HD with an SSD piggybacked for frequently used data). Thinking of getting a new machine for video and while I moved to SSD a couple of years ago, the storage capabilities of Fusion are very atttractive.

usedtobe

TTony said:

usedtobe said:

Apple get right on my tits!

Whilst what you choose to put on your tits will undoubtedly be of interest to some people, it's not quite relevant to this thread ...

You’re quite right. I can only apologise..

prowla

It's a shame that the current model Mac minis have the RAM hard-wired, so you can't upgrade.

I've used a fusion drive in a Dell and I have to say it was not very good; straight SSD drives are now cheaper and you can add an external drive to archive things off to.

On the i5 vs. i7 matter, there are different types of i7s, some being only 2-core. My current mid 2011 model is an i5 one and the CPU load often gets high and the fan kicks in.

TTony

Decided against the Mac route.

As I can't effectively get hold of Logic (download *is* the only option, although I'm aware of some sites where I can buy physical media, so it looks like Apple's blinkeredness is promoting piracy again), I'm going to save myself the cost of buying a Mac to run it on!

I'll probably just bring an old PC back to life, and upgrade it appropriately instead.

notanon

JezWynd said:

notanon said:

@TTony I would consider a mini with SSD for main drive and a large capacity second drive. I know with the 2012 model you can perform that upgrade yourself. The speed of SSD as you probably know it's something you will miss when starting up apps, reboots, ...

Don't forget, as soon as you get the mini up and running connect a decent external drive and let time machine do it's stuff. One of the best apps apple have produced imo.

What are opinions on the Fusion Drives? (Spinning HD with an SSD piggybacked for frequently used data). Thinking of getting a new machine for video and while I moved to SSD a couple of years ago, the storage capabilities of Fusion are very atttractive.

@JezWynd ; A very good question! I have to leave the debate to:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-vs-fusion-drive.2049515/

Point of note for me is the fact that things are now glued in and no longer easy to upgrade so you probably want to have an external drive anyway with time machine (a TB backup in the cloud??). For data look at the transfer rates discussed here:

https://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/usb-2-0-vs-usb-3-0-vs-esata-vs-thunderbolt-vs-firewire-vs-ethernet-speed/

I think I would go for speed of computer and guard against for loss of data. For me that would equate to extra SSD storage rather than fusion and then an external drive(s) for data when it comes to Mac or any other system that is locked down with respect to hardware.

YMMV

HTH  

JezWynd

Thanks @notanon, I'll check those links out. Totally agree about Time Machine. It recovered my entire system and 160GB+ of data after a system failure a while back. I was most impressed at how simple it was to recover.

notanon

JezWynd said:

Thanks @notanon, I'll check those links out. Totally agree about Time Machine. It recovered my entire system and 160GB+ of data after a system failure a while back. I was most impressed at how simple it was to recover.

@JezWynd ;

Yep, neat approach as you know. I would expect to build a new windows workstation within a couple of hours. A clone of a final setup will save time for the usual basic config on a windows PC but time machine restores everything exactly to when one last used the computer. Every piece of software with every last preference is restored. In the past that has taken me days to complete for my own PC.

Time flies (pun intended) and as far as I understand there are *equivalents* out there for Windows and Linux now but few match time machine on Mac.

prowla

Time Machine on the Mac is great; it really is one of those Mac things which you just turn on and find it's there when you need it a year or so later.

As for the Mac mini - I think Apple killed the product when they made it non-upgradable. It's a shame, because it's (was) a great product.

There was some talk about them releasing one which is AppleTV sized, in wich case the hard-wiring would be logical.

As it stands now, if you want an upgradable Mac, you have to spend £3k, which is a bit steep (and you never know if Apple will obsolete it the week after you buy).

The other option is their laptops, which are probably better made than any other on the market, but they have top-end spec and prices to match. Regarding prices, it's worth noting that Macbook prices are similar to Dell's hi-end models; it's just that they don't do budget models.

menamestom

prowla said:

The other option is their laptops, which are probably better made than any other on the market, but they have top-end spec and prices to match. Regarding prices, it's worth noting that Macbook prices are similar to Dell's hi-end models; it's just that they don't do budget models.

I don't completely agree with this.  The Dell XPS 13 for example is £1228, it has an 8th Generation intel processor  (i7-8550U) and £256GB hard drive, 4k screen.  The equivalent macbook pro would be £1450 but still doesn't have a 4k screen or 8th gen quad core processor  (granted, the screen resolution doesn't tell the whole story and Apple have very nice displays).
The Dell build quality is supposed to be on a par with apple, or at least not much in it. 

I think Apple need to update their laptops very soon, there's no doubt they are great machines, but competitors are a generation on with processors, screen resolution, and innovation IMO.  Apple need to keep up.