New Mac Mini recommendations

In my Mac Mini experience with RAM; 4Gb isn’t enough to run 2 processes at once, 8Gb is enough for “normal” operations, and 16Gb is lots.



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I defiinitely agree on the 4GB. Its just whether 16GB in a 2012 i7 is more than ample vs 16GB in a more recent i5 say.

Not sure if you can get refurbished where you are. I recently got the 2018 Mac Mini as a refurbished unit for about 20% off directly from Apple USA. I am about to order one from Apple Canada as well and it is also about 20% off. It is for all intents and purposes a brand new machine. And a better price. Just a thought.


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Cheers. Yes I can. refurbished i5 with 8GB, then me buying 2x8GB and installing them myself = £920 vs maybe £350-400 for a 2012 i7 16GB.

And wow... how fast is indigo on my 2017 iMac!

[jay (support)]

I defiinitely agree on the 4GB. Its just whether 16GB in a 2012 i7 is more than ample vs 16GB in a more recent i5 say.

I wouldn't attempt to link the amount of memory to the CPU type - there isn't really any big correlation. The more memory the better is my general rule of thumb...

From a longevity point of view I’d suggest the 2018 mini. The 2014 was anaemic even when it came out.. the current low end model is substantially faster and will get a heck of a lot more macOS updates in the future.


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Cheers. So 16gb 2012 should do the job well?


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[jay (support)]

Cheers. So 16gb 2012 should do the job well?

If it's only running Indigo, it should be fine.

I agree with Jay... but I did upgrade to a new mac mini 6 or 8 months ago and want to report my experience. I’m running a 13 camera securitySpy install and also a fairly large Plex server on it (28 terabytes of airport attached storage in two separate media boxes each with 16 terrabytes, I don’t compress my dvds or blu-rays...I purchased them because I believe artists should be paid....they are true backups and we have terabytes of home movies from when the kids were growing up. )

Get as much memory as you can in the hardrive....it’s soldered down. If you’re going to run cameras, consider a 10-GbE copper port too. I have a 24-port gbe switch with 2 10-GbE lines, one of which connects all my cameras to the mac mini running securityspy. It really smokes. No bottle necks even at 12 to 16 frames per second on all cameras.... Plex always has plenty of bandwidth for at least 2 streams of blu-ray quality. I figured i could buy an external GPU and connect to one of the 4 USB-C plugs but i haven’t had to do that.

I did have to put an external elcheapo fan blowing on the mac mini. It gets hot.

...or no plex and no cameras.... you’ll be fine.

From a longevity point of view I’d suggest the 2018 mini. The 2014 was anaemic even when it came out.. the current low end model is substantially faster and will get a heck of a lot more macOS updates in the future.


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Don't tell him but I think durosity has a point.




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Akimball. Wow. I don't think I'll ever have 24 cameras. 4-6 max I'd have thought. Do have switch with 10GBe ports but that pushes me away from refurb so the £90 adding for 10GBe is actually more like £200 increase.




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So the 24 port switch is simply the house backbone with 13 cameras. I may have said that wrong? Most of the cams run over ethernet, but 3 are wifi and most of the cams are 3MP types. The number of wifi connections averages about 50 and from the main trunk (alexa1, alexa2.....alexa20, etc.) I’m also running several 5-port and 8-port switches at different bedroom/livingroom/familyroom/greatroom TV locations which feed the 24-port switch. Roku, appletv, amazonfire, tv, dvd-player, receiver connections at each location. And then two home theaters installs, one dedicated and the other in the master bedroom with hidden screens and projector which pop out of the molding/walls when I say “alexa turn on movie time” lol. It took some doing, but was the only way to convince wife...”I promise nobody will know our bedroom turns into a movie flop.” It’s literally all mechanized. But you know, everything wants it’s own ethernet port these days.

My main point though was that a 2018 i7 mac mini can do alot. I also have it connected to 3 external bluray capable DVD drives through USB-C port hubs. The camera/plex data bottle neck I was afraid of never happened because of the 10-GbE port. I believe the cameras could actually work well over 10/100 channels. No worries.

I had only one malfunction/lock up on the mac mini. It overheated one weekend. Fan solved that. The Mac Mini i7 is quite a computer.

Don't tell him but I think durosity has a point.

This will be my 3rd mini in 2 years. WAF is low at the moment due to how slowly everything responds.

Question is, can I get it home and installed without her realising??

This will be my 3rd mini in 2 years. WAF is low at the moment due to how slowly everything responds.

Question is, can I get it home and installed without her realising??

Simply hide it from her by putting it in a Tesco bag. She’ll never notice!