Not a bad price until you see it costs $300 to go from 4GB RAM to 16GB RAM. Do these have user-upgradeable RAM? I can buy RAM a lot cheaper than that.
Apple Mac Mini
71–80 of 134 posts
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#72I seriously do not understand how can it ship with a 500GB 5400rpm drive by default. This gives such poor experience to the user that Apple should have opted for all-ssd approach two generations ago. Very disappointed by that.
I bought a low-end Mac mini last year, upgraded it with 16 GB memory from Crucial, installed a Samsung SSD with Fusion Drive and bingo: reasonably fast desktop system for less than $900. I guess you can do it for $800 now.
The stock 5400rpm drive is unusable, but it's an easy fix if you're willing to open the box. With Fusion Drive, even a small SSD will make a huge difference.
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#73Now I wish I hadn't bought a new Mac mini 6 months ago. But I really needed one then. In any case, I applaud the switch to ULV processors (like those found in ultrabooks or the MacBook Air). Anyone know if this generation of Mac mini has a fan in it? I have a serious fanless fetish.
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#74Not a bad price until you see it costs $300 to go from 4GB RAM to 16GB RAM. Do these have user-upgradeable RAM? I can buy RAM a lot cheaper than that.
This page makes it a bit unclear: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/mac-mini
4GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory
Configurable to 8GB or 16GB, only at the Apple Online Store.
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like the physical design is the same as the late 2012, which on mine has a screw top "bottom" (until moments ago I had it upside down...always thinking that screen top was the top) that reveals a couple of so-dimm ports. I am extremely surprised they didn't go Broadwell given that Intel is just starting to put those out in volume.
Exactly, Broadwell would also allow passive or almost silent operation. The new NUCs in Q1/15 look more promising than this.
I have a fanless Haswell NUC from Logic Supply[0] that I use for a MythTV frontend that I really love. Boots super fast off the 32G SSD, and the HD-4400 GPU (with VAAPI) handles with aplomb every kind of video I've thrown at it.
[0]: http://www.logicsupply.com/computers/processor/intel-core/co...
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#76I seriously do not understand how can it ship with a 500GB 5400rpm drive by default. This gives such poor experience to the user that Apple should have opted for all-ssd approach two generations ago. Very disappointed by that.
I wish they just put in a small SSD by default and set it up as a Fusion drive. Even something like 64 GB would improve the OS performance a lot.
Instead they charge $200 to upgrade to a Fusion Drive with a 128 GB SSD.
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#77The $699 model + the SSD upgrade sums up to a whooping $899. I like the form-faktor and all, but really, with 900 bucks i am sticking to my custom ITX builds
Do you know of any good ITX hackintosh howto writeups? I might go that route too as I want small form factor and OSX, but do not want to pay an apple tax (even if their case is way prettier).
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#78The $699 model + the SSD upgrade sums up to a whooping $899. I like the form-faktor and all, but really, with 900 bucks i am sticking to my custom ITX builds
Do you know of any good ITX hackintosh howto writeups? I might go that route too as I want small form factor and OSX, but do not want to pay an apple tax (even if their case is way prettier).
tonymacx86.com is a decent enough community. I've built 10+ machines using the site-promoted build tutorials (with some modifications) for myself and friends. The forums are hit or miss in terms of helpful information, though.
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#79The $699 model + the SSD upgrade sums up to a whooping $899. I like the form-faktor and all, but really, with 900 bucks i am sticking to my custom ITX builds
Do you know of any good ITX hackintosh howto writeups? I might go that route too as I want small form factor and OSX, but do not want to pay an apple tax (even if their case is way prettier).
[deleted]
Re: Apple Mac Mini
#80Any idea if the harddisk is user upgradeable?
Since the design seems to have stayed the same as the previous generation: Yes, but you have to take the entire thing apart to get to the drive, and the parts are laptop parts so they're kind of finicky. iFixit is your friend.
The RAM, on the other hand, is extremely easy to change out.