My Next Mac Mini

#1

Post by ingve » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 12:15 PM UTC

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#2

Post by benologist » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 1:54 PM UTC

NUCs are awesome, I'm waiting to add this passive cooling case to mine, then an external GPU effectively everything but my MBP will be able to share.

http://www.fanlesstech.com/2017/01/exclusive-akasas-skull-ca...

These also look quite capable:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10966/zotac-mini-pcs-kaby-lake...

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#3

Post by Marazan » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

Apple's attitude to the Mac mini truly confuses me. Many years ago I was interested in getting one for eithet iPhone development or as a media pc but every time I looked they kept seeming to jack the price or downgrade the spec (relatively speaking).

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#4

Post by orbitur » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

Blog post leaves out an important point: is it easy to get macOS running on that particular model?

edit: The mini hasn't competed on a purely specs/price level since, perhaps, its first year or two of existence. There have long been better, similarly sized options if you don't care about OS X.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#5

Post by caleblloyd » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

The NUC has full Linux support out of the box. You can configure them with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB-512GB SSD for $400-$500, especially if you go for the old model (Gen 6 Skylake instead of Gen 7 Kaby Lake, not much has changed)

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#6

Post by taspeotis » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

orbitur wrote: post #4

Blog post leaves out an important point: is it easy to get macOS running on that particular model? edit: The mini hasn't competed on a purely specs/price level since, perhaps, its first year or two of existence. There have long been better, similarly sized options if you don't care about OS X.

The blog doesn't even try to make that point.

> It turns out there’s another OS that has all those: Windows. I’ve had Windows 10 on a gaming PC I built over 6 months ago and I’ve not had a single problem with it.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#7

Post by andreapaiola » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 2:02 PM UTC

Better late than never...

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#8

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 2:02 PM UTC

Marazan wrote: post #3

Apple's attitude to the Mac mini truly confuses me. Many years ago I was interested in getting one for eithet iPhone development or as a media pc but every time I looked they kept seeming to jack the price or downgrade the spec (relatively speaking).

[deleted]

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#9

Post by rwmj » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

I would take a look at the Gigabyte Brix. The basic model is £119 [1] - considerably cheaper than the Intel NUC. I have a couple running a firewall and a little server, and they have trucked along for years without problems.

[1] For a more complete spec including the other parts you may need, see: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/new-home-gateway-route...

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#10

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

>Well, perfect except that six years in this machine is very creaky. It needs a reboot every week or so (otherwise it will refuse to launch anything).

That sounds totally unrelated to the age of the machine, and totally related to what's installed, the mini running out of disk, etc.

Maybe do a clean install of the OS?

Aside from the mechanical parts (CD ROMS, Hard Disks, etc), the "digital" parts of a PC do not age and their age does not affect program execution speed (all other things being equal).

Either they work, or they don't (well, corrupted memory can cause crashes when accessed, but it wont slow down programs).