2011 Mac Mini Server for Home Studio on a budget?

Hertz32

Have been doing a load of research into the best way to run a home recording studio on a budget and I'm pretty certain a 2011 MMS is the most efficient way to go about it. Would be running Logic X etc.

It seems to be upgradable to Mavericks and the hardware seems good as long as I up the RAM to either 8 or 16GB (Which I know I can do) 

Any obvious flaws in what I want to do? Any other software I should ensure it's capable of running?

Cheers chaps  

digitalscream

Depends exactly what you're aiming to do. I've recorded a whole album on a dual core laptop with 2GB RAM I bought for £120...

So - what are you planning on doing with it? If you're just recording from mics and using a couple of VSTs on each of 30-odd tracks, a Mac Mini would easily do it even without a RAM upgrade. If you're going to be using amp sims, loads of cab impulses, drum emulation etc on 60 or 70 tracks then it'll probably need an upgrade. 

I'd actually suggest getting a 512GB SSD for your OS and working files, and leaving one of the stock 500GB drives for archiving projects; you'll actually be eliminating a bottleneck there rather than just increasing RAM even further.

Jalapeno

My 2010 mac mini has died, and a replacement disc isn't reviving it

Hertz32

will be using amp sims, drum emulation, multi-track recording from a few sources, re-amping, midi and running a reasonable amount of plug-ins at a time.
The one I'm looking at comes with Dual 750GB 7200rpm drives. so write speed should be fine I think... Probably have clones of all data on both HDD's and possibly an external HDD too. I don't trust HDD's for much, particularly not 3 year old 7200rpm ones

don't see myself using more than 30-odd tracks on any regular basis either

digitalscream

Hertz32 said:

will be using amp sims, drum emulation, multi-track recording from a few sources, re-amping, midi and running a reasonable amount of plug-ins at a time.
The one I'm looking at comes with Dual 750GB 7200rpm drives. so write speed should be fine I think... 

Dual 7200rpm drives won't even come close to the speed of a single 512GB SSD. Not only that, but you'd have to run them in RAID 0 to get any kind of real speed out of them - and because there isn't a hardware RAID controller in the Mac Mini server, any increase in speed of access to the drives will come at the cost of increased CPU usage.

To give you an idea, in RAID 0 you might get sustained read/write speeds of up to 100MB/s. With a SSD, you're instantly at the 500MB/s mark. Also, read/write latency is increased massively when using RAID 0, whereas the latency of an SSD is practically non-existent by comparison.

Trust me. You'd be much better off with a single 512GB SSD and an external hard drive than you would buying more RAM. You can always add more RAM later if you feel like it's hampering you; replacing your hard drive, reinstalling all your programs and shifting all your files about is far more of a pain in the ass.

Hertz32

Fair enough, I'm tempted just to try it and see first though. If it's a real problem then I'm happy to go through with the faff of moving data, I'd rather save the money right now if I'm honest. an extra £150 is a lot of money 

digitalscream

Hertz32 said:

Fair enough, I'm tempted just to try it and see first though. If it's a real problem then I'm happy to go through with the faff of moving data, I'd rather save the money right now if I'm honest. an extra £150 is a lot of money 

Well...it's a question of whether you want "OK" or "great". I've got a cheap Asus laptop with a Crucial MX100 SSD in it, and in terms of actual usability it smokes every other (much more expensive, higher-specced) laptop in the office. Until you've tried a computer with just a SSD in it, it's pretty difficult to imagine the difference it makes to your experience.

Hertz32

digitalscream;365506" said:

Hertz32 said:

Fair enough, I'm tempted just to try it and see first though. If it's a real problem then I'm happy to go through with the faff of moving data, I'd rather save the money right now if I'm honest. an extra £150 is a lot of money 





Well...it's a question of whether you want "OK" or "great". I've got a cheap Asus laptop with a Crucial MX100 SSD in it, and in terms of actual usability it smokes every other (much more expensive, higher-specced) laptop in the office. Until you've tried a computer with just a SSD in it, it's pretty difficult to imagine the difference it makes to your experience.

I have used computers with SSD's in the past, and I do intend to upgrade to one at some point when I have the cash to do so. I'm just not sure I do right now, if the 7200's will be fine for 6 months light use then OK suits me for now.

guitarfishbay

SSDs are faster but I'm pretty sure my projects are saved to my 7200 external thunderbolt drive. My projects are often 80-100 tracks and it is fine. Use one drive for system and one for audio and at 7200rpm you should be ok. I wish I could afford SSD externals though, for both speed and quietness.

My advice for you is to prioritise getting the best spec'd processor. Ram and hard drives can be upgraded on the minis but I can't remember if the same is true (or economical) with the processors. If you can get a quad core i7 you'll have plenty of power for most uses.

Hertz32

Yeah, that was my reasoning. The mms has a quad core i7 at 2.0ghz with turbo boost to about 2.9ghz as I recall. Its reasonably pokey

digitalscream

guitarfishbay said:

Use one drive for system and one for audio and at 7200rpm you should be ok.

If you're going to use two normal drives, this is the way to do it. Using RAID0 is dangerous, because you double the risk of failure (and therefore losing everything, as opposed to half of your files).

Jalapeno

As mentioned - I've yet to be able to reinstall OSX with a replacement drive (using CD, USB and network installs )

Hertz32

@jalapeno what is stopping you doing it? Is the installer crashing, or is it not recognising the install media etc.

Jalapeno

The latter ... I think I need to plug in the k/b and display direct rather than via a KVM switch (that's the last idea I have) - then it's off to Apple for possible repair ....

It's a Samsung SSD, that will need some magic applied after install - but nowhere near that point yet ....

Hertz32

See if you can install osx onto the SSD through another system? You can get SATA to USB converters. Install osx onto it as if it was an external harddrive?

Jalapeno

... when I have half a day to waste setting up the experiment

At the moment getting the BIOS to kick in and say "A-ha !! Need to re-install OSX" is the challenge .....

This isn't my #1 priority as I also have a MacBook, but it is an annoyance :x

Hertz32

Does it even seem to have a BIOS? You may have bricked it if not.

Freebird

There is a new Mac Mini on the way .. allegedly ...

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/new-mac-mini-2014-release-date-specs-features-price-uk-3472956/