New Mac Mini recommendations

My old workhorse 2009 Mini has started randomly restarting so it looks like it’s time for a replacement. Just about any Mini I buy today will meet the minimum requirements for Indigo, but what all you smart people recommend for good performance? I currently run Indigo, Airfoil and iTunes. I would like something that would last another 9 years.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am especially fond of the 2012 i5 and i7 Minis. The RAM and HD are both upgradeable and they are solid little workhorses. I have two i5 minis that run continuously, each replacing a 2006-era mini that died much like yours did.

The 2012 mini can be found cheaply, are solid and I think have better performance than the 2014-2018 minis, plus as I mentioned they are RAM/HD upgradable. I plan on using 2012 minis until a new and worthy version is introduced by Apple, or Indigo runs on another platform...

Terry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also, is 4gb of ram really enough? It seems that running lots of plugins, including HBB, would run better with more headroom.
Would there be any advantages to installing a SSD? I wouldn’t there’s much I/O bottleneck in Indigo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I run quite a few plugins and I just did a rough estimate using Activity Monitor to see what everything was using and it was about 1.5GB, including running 8 different Homebridge servers under HomeKit Bridge. On 4GB that doesn't leave much room for everything else like Airfoil, iTunes, etc. I'm sure you'll be fine but I've always maxed out my Macs with ram and always use SSD.

This might be the old curmudgeon coming out in me, but I still find myself leery of SSDs for critical things. I know they’re making them better every day, and with things like wear-leveling they have a theoretical maximum life longer than traditional drives. In the data center -with always-on drives- I’ve noticed that rotating drives fail a little more gracefully than their SSD counterparts. My completely uneducated theory is that once wear leveling space runs out, there’s nothing to do but fail... I do have SSDs in the minis, but I don’t really trust them LOL, and have an external USB conventional drive connected to each for time machine backups, plus I copy all Indigo-related data offsite every hour. Can’t be too careful...

I’ve got some 15 year old drives that still work well (but I do have copies of the data on those, I’m not that crazy), don’t know that I’d be able to say that about an SSD. Maybe so, but the crusty old IT fart in me says Bah humbug!

Terry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jay (support)]

the crusty old IT fart in me says Bah humbug!

Get off my lawn!

Yes! I actually said a variant of that this weekend. A lady down the street thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to bring her tiny designer dog to my lawn to crap. My two Pit Bulls running out the front door in conjunction with me yelling for her to take her dog crap with her hopefully got the point across.

Now in reality my dogs are no more than pillows with faces, but she didn’t know that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I faced this issue most of last year, aware that apple doesn’t seem interested in updaing the mac mini. I just bought the 4 year old mini and so far have been happy. There was some <possible> weirdness with the 2413U PLM and the mini USB3.0 ports.... that I never resolved... but I changed over to the 2448A7 wireless only PLM. Very happy. Most people don’t have the PLM issue.

This might be the old curmudgeon coming out in me, but I still find myself leery of SSDs for critical things. I know they’re making them better every day, and with things like wear-leveling they have a theoretical maximum life longer than traditional drives. In the data center -with always-on drives- I’ve noticed that rotating drives fail a little more gracefully than their SSD counterparts. My completely uneducated theory is that once wear leveling space runs out, there’s nothing to do but fail... k

That's why you put the SSDs in an external fault tolerant RAID with hot spare... and a couple on the shelf.

We build mission computers for industrial and military vehicle purposes. The SSD’s are almost a requirement for war theater mobile applications. Sitting in an air-conditioned home and rarely jostled, not so much.

We build mission computers for industrial and military vehicle purposes. The SSD’s are almost a requirement for war theater mobile applications. Sitting in an air-conditioned home and rarely jostled, not so much.

Reminds me of MilSpec calculator cases. (Yes,I’m old)



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Went with with a 2012 Mini with 8 gb of ram. After a little finagling, everything is up and running.
I wish I had timed reaction times with Alexa and HomeKit Bridge before and I swapped the new Mini in because they feel faster after.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“Alexa, are you quicker now than you were previously?”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

...it seems to me to be better all the time.

Hi,
Am old thread, but time for an update!
I am migrating my setup from a 4GB 2014 mac mini that is struggling trying to also run SS and a few other things to my 2017 iMac 16GB machine to see if things work better there, as a test.
What I really need is a new mac mini.
Options are
2018 and upgrade RAM myself
2014 16GB i5 or i7
2012 16GB i7

Clearly they differ in price a lot, even between the 2012 and 2014 models. I am thinking the i7 16GB 2012 which seems to be £200 cheaper than the 2014 and a cheaper than the 2018. If I leave SS running on the old 2014 box, with only 2-3 cameras, would this be fine? Would leave me the money for many more zwave modules and a new irrigation controller!

Can the 2012 take more than 16GB?

Thanks