Apple finally announces an overhauled Mac mini | Hacker News Reader

Apple finally announces an overhauled Mac mini

arstechnica.com

208 pointsevo_9234 comments

Looking at these config prices... wow: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/3.6ghz-quad-core...

128GB SSD base, +800 USD to go to 1TB? +600 USD to go from 8GB to 32GB? +300USD to go to the six core CPU? brutal. I was considering this for a moment instead of building a PC rig at home because I really like macOS, but that's just too much.

Same. I primarily use a desktop for gaming these days, but also do iOS development. My dream machine would be a Mac Mini with an eGPU.

I'm looking to do a gaming rig rebuild soon, and was excited to see a new Mac Mini before I made my decision. These prices though....I'll just build a mini-ATX myself.

I have a mini atx build for Linux(I'm just a 100% linux guy), but I was considering a used mac mini or something for music stuff. I currently have to use a windows vm for a couple of instruments. But the state of music software on Linux isn't the best.

don't they even show a eGpu in the demo?

I mean, Apple always charges Apple prices. I'm more surprised that the base price is so high. They couldn't do a 4gb/64gb version with a lower-end CPU?

> They couldn't do a 4gb/64gb version with a lower-end CPU?

The PR would be far, far worse.

Yeah, I almost cry in joy when I see the base config and naively forget about how big are the prices for upgrading with apple.

And 128 GB? Not even iphones start at that.

iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR base models are 64 GB.

As are the newest iPad Pros

I stand corrected. I was so sad in how costly could be the model I wish that I do a bad comparision from thin air. (ie: The Iphones I have)

I agree. I have a 2011 Mac Mini Server (quad-core, dual-drive) that I've upgraded to 16gb of ram and 1TB of solid-state storage. To get the equivalent in this new Mac Mini would be ridiculously expensive. Thanks, but no thanks.

128gb of storage was too small for a PC 5 years ago, let alone in 2018.

If Apple just made the parts user replaceable, it wouldn't be a problem.

I used to always just get the lowest configuration Powerbook or Macbook Pro, and place an order for a RAM upgrade simultaneously from another vendor. And eventually max out the RAM, upgrade to SSD, etc. Made the upfront purchase price less of an issue as a longer term investment.

Apple is nickle and diming customers by locking down and soldering everything on Macs, when they should look at the Mac as a gesture of goodwill to the professionals and developers who contribute to the Apple ecosystem and help drive sales of Apple's iOS cash cow.

The RAM is user serviceable on the new Mini. The drive might be soldered this time but even the 2014 still allowed you to replace it so I am cautiously optimistic that the iFixit teardown will reveal it to also be replaceable. Which makes the i7 Mac Mini with base specs quite attractive.

If not you can use an external SSD since it's a desktop computer and doesn't move. An external 1TB Samsung for everything besides applications and OS isn't bad at all.

Just over a year ago, I bought an iMac, specifically because it was the only model (besides the Pro) that I could upgrade the memory after I bought it (which I've done twice already, nice to have 32GB when you have 4 family members constantly logged in).

If this Mini with up-gradable RAM had come out before then, I would have bought it instead.

Chances they use M.2 sata..... doubtful.

>An external 1TB Samsung for everything besides applications and OS isn't bad at all.

Yep. 4x TB3 means I don't care at all about the internal storage. I'll take the 128GB internal drive for the OS and be on my way.

I'd go with a bigger one, just in case. I'm pretty sure future releases of macOS with all its tooling will take more and more of that space and I'd expect the machine to be useful for 3-5 years (usually more, as per Mac tradition - my mini is 6 years old and the only thing I want to upgrade in it is the hard drive).

I believe the i7 upgrade is only available in the higher model, with the base 256GB SSD.

No you can go i7 with the 128GB model as well. I think the 256GB base model makes sense though, to have enough headroom for the OS and such.

So, after further consideration I think the one to buy is the base i5 model with 256GB for 1099. Buy the RAM separately. It looks like it has 2 slots. With my local vendor 2x16GB DDR 2666Mhz comes out at 300 USD or so. I already have an external 1TB SSD, but otherwise a Samsung T5 is available for around 220 USD. That's a 1600ish USD system, which is somewhat reasonable for a mac with those specs IMO. Would be nice if Apple just gave you that for around 1800, but the 2300 they want is just unreasonable IMO.

You sold me on this config. I want to be able to use this computer for a long time, and you hit the nail on the head.

I hope so. I just upgraded a 2015 11" MBA's 128GB SSD to a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive by using a $14 adapter (ST-NGFF2013-C)[0]. It works perfectly.

[0] http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2...

> The RAM is user serviceable on the new Mini. The drive might be soldered

sure / source?

If so I will order one straight away (not $2000 for 64gb ;)

> external 1TB

how do internal NVME SSDs compare to external ones speed wise?

Update: There are external Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD enclosures out there that can read and write in excess of 2000 MB/sec

But they bring you back to the $1000 upgrade cost ? :(

External drives would be based upon Thunderbolt 3 using USB-C compatible physical connections, and those are basically PCI-e 3.0 x4 lanes with a little external sync overhead. Samsung’s T5 drive would go along very well with these new minis. Obviously a drive hanging off a machine is less attractive / practical for business purposes but this is the usual Apple price / market segmentation model at work. Going back to user replaceable RAM is a bit of a shock to me considering other changes that are user-hostile (the T2 chip comes to mind).

Thanks

Any guess how much faster Apples SSDs would be than a T5 like this: ?

https://www.amazon.de/Samsung-MU-PA1T0B-EU-Portable-Kabel/dp...

I‘d expect an NVMe SSD to be about 5 times as fast as a traditional SSD like the T5, at least in theory. However as an owner of the T5 I can assure you it’s still very performant and ideal for large media storage. If peak performance is a real concern, you still have another option I just discovered: Samsung X5 - an external NVMe SSD: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/p...

This should be very close to internal PCI-based SSD performance and benchmarks seem to confirm this: https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/05/review-samsung-x5-thunderbolt...

So there‘s a storage upgrade path if you’re fine with external hardware. I‘m considering this solution myself.

Fantastic!

The new Apple SSDs in the Mac Mini 2018 are unknown so far but bets on being the latest Samsung and Toshiba NVMe SSDs for consumer class wear levels.

There’s a lot of small gotchas and caveats with Thunderbolt 3 and SSDs now but they are getting better slowly https://www.macworld.com/article/3276325/storage/nvme-over-t...

And let’s not forget that this is a 1st run product of a new generation and the Mac Mini 2019 may be significantly better in this area (or worse...)

The last generation of Mini's had a replaceable drive. I have an office here full of Mac Mini's where I bought the base 5400RPM drive model and swapped them all out to SSD's. Which by the way I have been very happy with as a way to get desktops for my entire team.

It's kind of a nightmare the first time, it took me like an hour, very slowly disassembling the entire thing and replacing the drive with the iFixit tools I ordered. The second time took like 15 minutes and it got easier from there, it's just kind of remembering all these steps.

Needless to say it's ridiculous that they built it that way, it would have been trivial to keep the form factor and make it easy. But whatever, it's no big deal to swap out. And there's a couple places in NYC that'll do it for you for $50 as well.

Hopefully the new one will be the same way, it does look pretty much like the same box. If the RAM is also upgradeable (which it appears to be) then the platform would definitely remain attractive.

You can always just order it with maxed out RAM. With 4 USB-C ports you don't need to replace the internal storage - you can just add more outside the box (like we used to do with our Suns and SCSI Macs - I still have a pile of 3-drive boxes that connected to my SPARCclassic). With that, 64 gigs can probably carry us for a good 3-5 years without too much of a hassle. The fast network option also makes sharing NAS through the office an attractive option.

> Apple is nickle and diming customers by locking down and soldering everything on Macs, when they should look at the Mac as a gesture of goodwill to the professionals and developers who contribute to the Apple ecosystem and help drive sales of Apple's iOS cash cow.

On the other hand, selling to professionals and businesses usually means much less price sensitivity. I know corporations and startups balk much less at the price of a fully-loaded MacBook Pro than a consumer who just wants a laptop to surf Facebook with.

This is life for high end systems though. I have a Dell Lattitude 7390, 8th Gen i5, 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. Cost about £850 (edu discount). The upgrade to 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM would have been an extra £500. Admittedly you also get an i7, but if Dell actually offered 1TB and 32GB RAM, I would bet it'd be at least £1k on top of the base.

On the plus side, despite Dell's warning, both the SO-DIMM and the M.2 SSD are user serviceable and easily accessible. The chassis even has retaining screws!

$800 for the base unit (i3/8GB/128GB SSD) is frankly ridiculous. Their price is roughly double what you'd pay for an equivalent NUC.

I just built a 32GB, 8 core/16 thread, NVidia 1050ti discrete GPU, 480GB m.2 NVME machine with a premium power supply and case for exactly $800.

I always expect 80-100% markup on a Mac, and I've accepted it, given the integration and beautiful design; but this time they went way over the top, especially with the upgrade prices. To get an equivalent Mac Mini (ignoring that it's impossible to get 8 cores and discrete GPU), I would have to spend about $2100. That's about 160% markup on comparable components. That's a first in Apple history, as far as I can tell.

A comparable system would be rhe 1600 hackish-mac mini I outlined in my last post if you add a 700 USD eGPU on top. Even if you deduct 400 for the additional casings required, it’s just so far from competitive. As you wrote, up to 100% markup for macOS and all the Apple benefits is acceptable, but it has gotten a really hard pill to swallow now.

I've been considering going down the hackintosh route but now I'm considering something more extreme.

ESX system with MacOS VM and GPU passthrough. If this works, then I could have a standardized MacOS VM build that will keep working as I upgrade the underlying hardware. Still mulling this over...

I've heard that your proposed setup works great. Do it!

I’ve been running that setup as my main workstation for over 3 years. Use an nVidia gpu and a dedicated usb card for IO. You also need a second machine to do esx management, I have a laptop. And a second video card to see the esx console (handy when it isn’t working). Finally don’t use multiple drives for esx datastores, there is no way to remove them later (to upgrade or replace failed drives). I learnt the hard way, transferring 6TB of vms over usb 2 is not fun.

I'm about to try qemu/kvm for a virtualized macOS solution. I have a 1050ti as my primary GPU on Linux (arguably a bad choice).

What card do you recommend for GPU passthrough?

Cool! Do you perchance have a writeup of your setup?

I managed to get a High Sierra VM converted to Mojave yesterday. Previous attempts had been failing due to the VM not being APFS. This link was helpful: https://licson.net/post/vmware-apfs/

I started musing if trying to get an eGPU to work with a Mac VM would be possible but that might be pushing it too far. It looks like Thunderbolt 3 support might be hit or miss from what I've been able to find so far plus I do not see a lot of motherboards (Z390?) that are TB capable. Gigabyte just announced a Z390 based Designare which looked interesting. https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/gigabyte-launches-their-al...

Current plans are:

  * ESXI 6.5 or 6.7
  * 10G NIC
  * 32 or 64GB mem
  * mATX footprint
  * USB switch to control which machine keyboard/mouse goes to
  * MacOS VM with iGPU passthrough
  * Win VM with Nvidia GPU passthrough for gaming

I'm hoping this allows for my dream of having two machines in one without having to dual boot.

On a related note, I'm still annoyed that there does not seem to be a wealth of consumer MBs that have onboard 10G

I'd say Win 10 with WSL is now arguably a better dev environment. The only reason I still use a Mac at work is because I need to support Safari/iOS clients and Apple doesn't allow VMs. You are not paying a 100% markup for OSX, you're paying a 100% markup because Apple keeps it 100% proprietary.

It's the Thunderbolt / USB C ports I'm going to miss from your setup.

I don't suppose you have a pcpartpicker build list handy? It would be nice to compare against what I'm currently looking at.

that wouldn't run mac OS, which comes "for free".

... with what kind of warranty? included software?

I totally expected I'd be buying this right away, but the prices just seem outrageous. And I had no problem plunking down $1150 for an iPhone XS recently.

I'm typing this comment on my 2012 quad core i7 Mac Mini with 16G of RAM and two 2.5" 2TB SSD drives. This machine still works great for all of my Logic music production needs. One of the things I love about this machine is how I've been able to perform my own memory and disk upgrades over the years to keep the machine relevant.

Looking forward to reading the iFixit teardown to see to what degree folks will be able to upgrade the machine's memory and disk in the 2018 model. I'm most excited about getting four Thunderbolt 3 ports, not necessarily for the increased bandwidth (you don't need a ton of bandwidth for audio) but for the ability power external peripherals.

You can upgrade the memory, they’re standard DIMMs. It’s still unknown whether the storage can be upgraded.

You can plugin SSD disks over USB-C. Not the maximum speed possible, but good enough.

Thunderbolt would be even better, right?

For sure. There are external Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD enclosures out there that can read and write in excess of 2000 MB/sec, which is reasonably close to what an Apple internal soldered-on SSD can do.

Given the prices of internal storage from Apple (a $1400 upgrade for 2TB ouch!) I think this is the route I would go.

> USB C

Thunderbolt 3, actually.

I have the same machine and it has performed admirably over the past five years. However recently it has been locking p for two to three minutes at a time. Tends to happen either with Adobe apps loading or if a Chrome tab starts working hard.

I'd love to get another year or two out of the machine. Maybe I just need to clean it.

The most annoying issue with the machine has been the thunderbolt to dual link DVI which causes my primary monitor to not get video when booting a good portion of the time. I replace the cable annually but that seems to only help a bit. Basically that computer never gets shut off because I don't have time in the morning to plug, unplug, restart, etc. until it works. Possibly never restarting also contributes to the lock ups I mentioned.

What sort of storage are you using? Often the best remedy is to get a new SSD. You can copy you entire OS and all over with the free Mac app Superduper

I have trouble with the apple dual link dvi adapter, but only on Linux where I need to disconnect the usb power cord and reconnect it when waking from sleep.

Also I expect CPU to be upgradeable (not officially supported of course). They claim it to be desktop CPU.

i have the same, with smaller drives. so disappointed with sierra or high sierra when they made it effectively impossible to boot RAID-1.

Too little, too late. The Intel NUC is far and away the better computer in this form factor - it's smaller, faster and cheaper. Also there's a better chance that it will receive an upgrade sooner than 6 years from now.

The Mac Mini is using full desktop components, not NUC laptop components. That's why it supports 4 times as much RAM, Thunderbolt 3, and a 65 watt CPU compared to the 25 watt NUCs.

> That's why it supports 4 times as much RAM

2× (64GB v. 32GB)

> Thunderbolt 3,

NUC also supports Thunderbolt 3

> and a 65 watt CPU

Well, okay, that one is right.

The NUC CPU is 45 watt, IIRC

Depends on which model. I got one earlier this year with a 7th gen core i5 processor: NUC7i5BNH with a i5-7260U, 2 cores, 4 threads, 15W TDP. Now you can get them with 8th gen core processors like these (among others):

  i5-8259U, 4 cores, 8 threads, 28W TDP
  i7-8559U, 4 cores, 8 threads, 28W TDP
  i7-8705G, 4 cores, 8 threads, 65W package TDP
  i7-8809G, 4 cores, 8 threads, 100W package TDP

The last two have fancy integrated graphics and only come in a larger form factor with a skull on the side.

edit: conciseness, formatting

> compared to the 25 watt NUCs

Modern high-end NUCs use 100W CPU, this one: https://ark.intel.com/products/130409/Intel-Core-i7-8809G-Pr...

Full desktop components...? Where do I put the video card?

In a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure -- there's 4 ports available. (Most Intel NUCs seem to have only 0 to 1.)

You are telling me that I can hook up 4 Nvidia RTX 2080's to it? Why are they not advertising this?!?!?

The NUC is quite a bit smaller, and has to pay the price of that compromise: can't keep as powerful components quiet in that size. Assuming Apple doesn't mess up the cooling system, that's a clear plus for the Mac. While I agree that it is late and expensive, it's going to be faster and has higher max specs. And of course it's an up-to-date small desktop mac, which at least some Apple users have been waiting for.

Which NUC? I'm not sure the Hades Canyon is smaller.

It's a bit smaller, but you are right, I forgot those are noticeably bigger than the square ones, and the difference isn't that significant.

> The Intel NUC is far and away the better computer in this form factor - it's smaller, faster and cheaper.

If you want supported MacOS, it's not.

Also, the Mac Mini has better maximum specs than the NUC.

Yes, of course! Every time someone says "You could buy a cheaper PC", you forget to mention that I would be forced to run Windows/Linux.

Not just for Mac Mini, there is a cheaper and better PC version of every single Mac hardware.

If you are running XCode, you have no choice but official Mac or Hackintosh.

What's the problem then?

The fact the Macs run pretty much only Mac OS reliably is the biggest reason I'm not buying Apple.

> If you are running XCode, you have no choice but official Mac or Hackintosh.

So... don't run XCode?

doesn’t this equate to “change your career” for iOS devs?

Well, that wasn't true for the Mac Mini form factor for a while. There weren't really any competitive PCs like that. But now I think even in this niche there are.

There is not a single NUC with internal power supply unit, so saying it's smaller is cheating.

That is some serious price gouging on SSD upgrades, +$720 for 1 TB.

Best Buy price matched several 1 TB SSDs (WD Blue, SATA, 2.5") for $150 (Canadian) apiece recently. And the price difference between different consumer SSD types is minimal.

I think you are comparing SATA to NVME SSDs, which is unfair. Not saying Apple isn't pricing them way too high.

That's been the Apple way for a very long time. Nobody should be surprised by it today.

It's getting old. I'm done.

That is actually not too far of from what Dell is doing with their SSD prices when you configure a system. Or memory for that matter. So I'm not really sure what all that comparison fuss is all about. I never see a "I just built a cheaper system with same specs" comment for a Dell system.

Also: I do not own a Mac

A Dell Precision won't have an SSD permanently soldered into place.

For those interested in the ahem, apples to apples comparison, a 1TB Samsung Evo 970 (M.2 2280 NVMe) is currently $280 on Amazon, so the Apple upgrade is is 2.6X, or $440 more expensive.

I feel like $800 for an i3/8gb machine is on the expensive side. Given that it is probably the best option to run OSX smoothly, maybe, it's worth it.

Don’t forget 128GB storage. Just a tad overpriced.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingdel-Powerful-Desktop-Computer-Blu...

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Two minutes of searching and I found a box with a better CPU, 16 GiB of RAM, 512 GiB of flash, and 1 TiB of HDD for a slightly lower price. The Apple Tax is real, at least for their desktops.

(I have never seen the point of these tiny PCs. You can throw a desktop in a corner where you'll never have to see it. If I'm allowed to buy a normal case, I'm sure I could trounce that Mac for about $400.)

The computer you linked is very different than the Mac Mini. The Kingdel is a knockoff NUC, basically laptop components. Notice how it maxes out at 16 GB of RAM, no Thunderbolt, and its fastest chip is still a 25TDP U-series which is probably slower in practice than what the Mac Mini starts with (looks like a 65 watt i3 8100).

The Mac Mini is indeed expensive for its specs, but it's also extremely small for those specs: desktop components in a sub-mini-ITX form factor. If you wanted to compare it to similar PCs, you're looking at the custom offerings from Zotac, etc. which also command a high premium.

Zotac is able to put a quadcore i5 with GTX1070 into a silent case of previous Mac Mini size, making it a very capable gaming machine even today.

Yes, they make some great machines, which are also priced at a premium. You're paying for the (small) size.

Apple is demanding reasonable prices that reflect the quality of their work. Developers should do the same, and those prices for the main tool they earn their livelihood with won't be a problem then.

It is the highest end i3. Quad core 3.6 ghz is nothing to sneeze at. I was pricing out something comparable on newegg (same i3, same quality nvme ssd, same high-grade motherboard class), and didn’t end up that far below apple’s price.

I’m eyeing the i5 though, with upgradeable ram and egpu / fast storage through tb3 that one could last me a decade.

Oh my, this specs are really nice. 64gb of ram and 6 cores with the SSD that it comes with is really not "mini"-like specs that we are used to.

I’m guessing this is the new Mac Pro. Just add an eGPU and max out the other specs — I have a feeling the price will be right up there with regular Mac Pro pricing.

Edit: yep, maxes out around $3900. Without an eGPU.

Edit again: I know asking about downvotes is a downvotable offense, but what’s the deal? What did I say that was wrong or even inflammatory? This thing tops out in Mac Pro price territory, I would not be at all surprised if this becomes the new Mac Pro with the addition of an eGPU.

Maxing out the CPU (comes w/ 256GB SSD & 8GB RAM) is $1300USD. Bumping to 16GB RAM totals out to $1500USD; bumping to 64GB RAM totals up to $2700USD.

Now add in the 2TB SSD and 10gb Ethernet.

The 10Gb ethernet was an extra $100, the 2TB SSD an extra $1400.

If you want a fully loaded, i7/64GB DDR4 RAM/2TB SSD/10G ethernet system, it'll cost you $4200USD, with more than half of that from RAM & SSD pricing.

OK, so more than I thought. I think I was in the education store. So I stand by what I said — maxes out in Mac Pro price territory.

You can get a quad-core 28W NUC for $500 with TB3, so there is already a cheap precedent that is as powerfull (though limited to 32GB RAM with current SO-DIMMs).

How's macOS run on that?

Not sure about 8i5/8i7 as I haven't ordered one yet, but previous generations worked like out of the box with very small changes - perfect Hackintoshes actually. You just needed to understand how to install Clover and a few drivers properly, then after each OS update needed to re-run a script changing 4K display timings while Intel GPU was disabled during the boot (if you wanted retina-style display).

Do you have a link with this kind of knowledge for persistence?

I wonder if the Mac-mini has the thermal capacity to avoid CPU throttling on tasks that push a 1080Ti eGPU to its peak.

Also, at that price, might as well buy the iMAC

I don't know why people downvoted your comment. I didn't. I don't understand the theory of downvoting on HN anymore (if I ever did).

But, I also don't quite agree with your comment. I mean, won't the new Mac Pro now be free to reach even higher prices than the existing Mac Pro? (Also, FWIW, my guess is the new Mac Pro will be in a different form factor than the mini, use xeon chips and ECC memory.)

If the new Mac Pro doesn't have Xeons inside, it'll get laughed off stage.

Matching the specs of my 5 year old iMac puts this at $1,900, and I'm not even sure if the new graphics card is comparable to the GTX 775M that Apple included 5 years ago.

> I'm not even sure if the new graphics card is comparable to the GTX 775M

I think you’re right about that. Apparently, GeForce GTX 775M delivers up to 2142 GFlops, UHD Graphics 630 only up to 423 GFlops. That’s 5 times difference in raw GPU performance.

What a bummer. My iMac cost $2k 5 years ago and included a nice 27 inch monitor. It's astonishing to me that $2k spent on the brand new Mac today would have severe downgrades like this.

Wouldn't the new iMac be a better comparison? The Mac mini has always been hamstrung by its small form factor.

I don’t want a better comparison, I want to replace my iMac with a headless desktop for under $3,000. I have a second big monitor at my desk for my work laptop and I’d love to reclaim the real estate that the iMac is taking up.

It was Apple’s choice to hamstring themselves with that form factor, not mine. Do I need to wait for Jonny Ive to retire to buy a normal $1500-$2000 Mac that I can use for programming, photo editing, casual gaming, etc?

I still have the 2011 Mac Mini powering my house... and services. We were seriously hoping this might be useful - but it fails to meet our needs.

My company buys Kingdels on Amazon, and adds HD and RAM. Same box literally ends up costing 50% of the price (CAD) compared to the equivalent Mac Mini I just tricked out on the Apple site. Given that we have no Mac specific needs (but need a Unix), I'm just sad.

I know it has been too long and the price is upped.

But I am going to buy this.

For an always on server at home nothing beats the Mac mini. Excellent os, excellent build quality, modest power usage, silent.

Have a Mac Mini at home that's been running 24/7 since 2009. Truly worth every cent.

Me too - I have one of the first intel models - it is still running - the only thing that kills them is that they eventually become obsolete.

That’s my experience as well. My g4 mini still boots up fine, it’s just that a 1 ghz ppc and 1 gb ram is basically a raspberry pi so even as a linux machine it isn’t particularly useful.

Same here - The only thing that kills them is Apple.

I'm interested to know what you run on this server...plex? torrent client? file server? on-prem file backups (if so, which software you use)?

I have a small Intel NUC running windows that runs always-on and does some of these things just fine, but I'm always looking for some excuses to upgrade a gadget.

I would like to use this as a file server and a torrent client. Does anyone here have some idea about the SSD endurance or can explain with some numbers, how long it'd last for the specific SSDs Apple is using (or even generic SSDs as a comparison)? Let's assume I write 2TB of data every month on to a 512GB SSD or 256GB SSD.

I tend to use such machines for a decade or longer (for as long as it doesn't break down completely), and considering that right now using Linux on these (with access to these SSDs) is difficult, I fear I might be out of up-to-date options in the future.

That is seriously seriously over-specced for a fileserver.

2TB of data a month on to SSDs is quite a bit though: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ssd-600p-nvme-end...

It's not for me but I'm happy that this little machine gets to continue with new iterations. I guess the only question is "who is it for" and "why is it for them"?

We use them as servers around the office, mainly to store local caches of Apple updates so we don't saturate our internet bandwidth.

I'm considering it as a mid-tier machine to run ableton/logic on as well as hopefully play some not-too-demanding games through Wine. Not a super hardcore gamer but I usually play roguelikes that are available on GOG for macOS or that are supported by Wine/Proton. Would be nice to run this with No Man's Sky through Wine on an eGPU.

Yep, also considering one of these for music software.

Add an eGPU (Razor Core X?), some discs via Thunderbolt and a nice screen and it will eat deeply into iMac and MacPro customers providing upgradability via the peripherals without the price of an internal screen and touchbar (hopefully, I am very curious about the price of the 6-core i7 with 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD, and 10gigE model.

Too bad the thunderbolt is not running over a fiber connection. That would have been a better upgrade and made the external devices, GPU etc. even better.

Not really; 40 Gbps fiber is the same speed as 40 Gbps copper and fiber can't carry power.

One use I’ve commonly heard is using it to offload builds for iOS development.

We use the trashcan Mac Pros at work to host VMs, and it's kind of a pain in the tuchas: terrible form factor, wicked expensive, and really outdated. These maxed out Mac Minis will be better for us in almost every way.

As a home user, I just might get this instead of building another hackintosh, but my guess is that it will be less interesting priced with a usable configuration. If the memory and storage is user upgradable, on the other hand ...

Edit: if I max out a Mac Pro's memory and storage, it comes to US$4,800. A comparable Mac Mini is US$3,300, and I can spend $800 to double the storage to 2TB. I definitely see us getting these at work.

For home use, I like that I can upgrade the memory, but Apple is predictably marking up the storage big time.

> Apple is predictably marking up the storage big time.

It's pretty offensive. +$600 to upgrade the SSD to 1TB from 256G, when a new 2TB drive at Newegg is $350.

To be fair, they are using NVMe, not SATA

I'm a fan on the Mac mini, as an iOS dev it makes the perfect CI build server and continuous deployment machine.

I'm curious, what CI tool(s) do you run on it?

A combination of Xcode command line tools/server (clang/swift compiler/app build), gitlab (the actual CI runner), and fastlane ruby gems to script the continuous deployment to Test Flight/App Store.

Thanks for the info!

I don't expect this product line to be the most popular mac product line, but it does have it's users.

* A mac is required for iOS development, so it can be used as a build server for teams working in Xamarin. Possibly used in other cross platform mobile development workflows. (Who: mobile developers, Why: to run builds)

* People that need more I/O than a macbook pro can support. In addition to the I/O a MBP has this has 10GB Ethernet, 2 USB A, HDMI, and a dedicated power slot. It's also significantly cheaper than the iMac Pro, while also having 10GB Ethernet. (Who: People working in video, photography, and anyone that heavily uses a 10GB network. Why: Better connectivity)

* Groups with existing macos server applications that want a headless server with cheaper/newer hardware than the Mac Pro or old Mac Mini. (Who: companies with macos server programs running. Why: It's newer better hardware)

* People that want a very small computer. (Who: Everyday consumers. Why: Small footprint. It's the cheapest Mac for people that like MacOS but don't the need portability of a macbook or the monitor of an iMac.)

Put me down under number 1.

I'm dreading buying anything from Apple, but I need to compile my React Native app.

I keep waiting for old generation macs to enter the used market to drive down prices. Hopefully I can snag a used one, compile once, and forget about the experience.

Have you considered hosted options?

https://macminicolo.net/pricing.html

Still absurdly expensive, but this might be a solution.

I could use a friends unused mac....

Thank you for the idea, I seriously didnt consider that.

That's $70/month for 2014 hardware (dual core no ssd), or $120 if you need a quad core or ssd. Prices for the new hardware haven't yet been announced.

Either way, if they keep their same pricing, there's a 12 month break even of buying your own hardware if you don't need to be on a data center backbone.

Good points. Do you know anyone who offers a Digital Ocean type of service where you can quickly spin up a machine and pay by the hour? May be useful for people who only need a machine occasionally to compile an app for iOS.

There's https://portal.macincloud.com/select/#/plans

Visual Studio App Centre has a build pipeline for React Native

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/app-center/

* Employees with desktop administration done with JAMF.

I'm currently an MBP user (and have been for several years). But I find myself not using the keyboard and screen that often, most of what I do is shuttle between home and office where I have better keyboards and larger screens. The mini looks like an interesting option because it can take more RAM than MBP, and is smaller/more portable. For those few times when I actually need a portable screen and keyboard, it may be possible to use an ipad pro for that, might be worth checking that out, or some other solution may be out there. Likewise on the MBP, I seldom actually need a battery, so I feel like I'm paying a huge premium for the laptop form factor.

That said, I can afford the MBP; as a professional, one shouldn't cheap out on tools that help you get your job done efficiently.

I'm a dev who's considering getting a Mac; currently running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS Developer Edition, as well as 18.04 on a self-built desktop from 3 years ago (haven't used Windows regularly since 2014). Mac Mini seems like the best choice for me, because I do less damage to the environment and my wallet getting a machine that lets me buy/upgrade/replace the screen, keyboard, mouse, and RAM separately. I would probably go for the 6-core CPU (would probably last me 5+ years), 32GB RAM, and 512GB SSD (not much of a music, games, or movies person).

It would have been for me if it were available a year ago.

I needed a family computer, to use in a shared space. I looked at the Mac Mini, but new ones had soldered RAM and didn't want to invest in a 2011 used model. I bought a 27 inch iMac because it was the only Mac with up-gradable memory. Have already upgraded the memory to 32GB, so all four of us can be logged in at the same time.

This Mini, with a 3rd party RAM upgrade, would have been perfect. Could have used the monitor, keyboard and mouse I already owned.

It's for me! It's a new Mac, and it's the cheapest model. There's no big mystery.

It's not the fastest, but all computers are fast enough now that it doesn't really matter to me. It doesn't have a built-in 5K display or high-end GPU, but I'm not a graphics geek so I don't care. I've already got a pair of big displays and a keyboard and mouse and speakers that I like.

It's smaller than my Mac Pro, so it will probably save me a bunch on my power bill.

It's pretty portable so I can take it with me, if I need to. Compared to Apple's laptops, it's cheaper, and doesn't require adapters for HDMI, ethernet, USB-A, or audio-out (i.e., everything I run across in the field).

It probably supports Linux better than a MacBook, so when Apple stops supporting it, I can still make good use of it.

It doesn't have analog/digital audio input/output, like my Mac Pro, which is too bad, but I can solve that with a cheap "external sound card". Those features seems to be on the way out with their professional models, anyway.

The only real downside is that the hardware isn't very upgradable, but that's basically the case with all Macs today, so until it gets so painful that I leave MacOS for Linux again, I'll just have to live with it.

A new Mac Pro might be nice, but it could be a year before we see that, and nobody has any idea what it's going to be. My hunch is it'll be expensive. It hasn't been since the G4 days that the entry-level Mac workstation was $1500.

I’ve had a mac mini as my desktop since 2005, this new model will be my third one. It’s quiet and easy to run 24/7 as a home server while doubling as an always-on desktop. The imac would also do, but I prefer buying the screen separately and the imac is still a lot more expensive (900 euro more for an equally specced imac to the mini I want to get).

If the SSD is user expandable, then its damn near perfect, but I get the feeling they pointed out the DIMM and not the SSD as replaceable.

Because of the way the T2 works, storage will never be replaceable/expandable in those Macs.

How so?

Normally an SSD has an on-board flash controller that communicates something like NVME or SATA to the host and a protocol like CFI to the actual NAND chips, it will also map from disk blocks (OS unit of storage) to NAND columns and cells using an internally stored table. These chips do a lot of other mundane things like wear leveling for NAND, clearing written cells, etc. If the T2 is taking the place of this controller and communicating directly with the NAND chips it would be at best duplicative of an external SSD controller and at worst completely incompatible.

Thanks :-)

Based on the marketing photos on the Apple site it sure looks like the NAND is soldered to the board and not socketed.

Alas no, it's basically soldered on. I'd love it with a pair of M.2 NVMe slots, but no such luck!

I'd advise getting the smallest flash drive option then just use an external NVMe drive via Thunderbolt. At least you can upgrade that.

Can you move parts of OS X to external storage?

MacOS used to be very flexible in this regard - you could clone your drive to an external disk and boot off the external disk very easily - but this may have changed with the T2.

I used to be a big Apple fan but with the prices the way they are, I can't do it anymore.

Big changes:

- 8th gen 4 core CPU in the base model, upgradable to 6 core

- 16 - 64 GB SO-DIMM RAM

- Upgradable to 10 gig ethernet

- 4 thunderbolt 3 ports

The 64GB of RAM is the interesting part. Competing mini-desktops from HP (EliteDesk 800 mini) and Dell (Optiplex 70x0) already have a 6 core CPU option but are limited to 32GB of RAM.

Even Intel's NUC line tops out at 32GB and I don't think they have 10gbit ethernet available, either.

Makes me wonder how much of this change is specifically because Apple knows there are people running racks full of Mac Minis doing mobile CI and builds for iOS apps, so they needed to bump up the density for datacenter applications a bit...

Most likely they all support 64GB of RAM. What has allowed Apple to offer 64GB is that Samsung released 32GB SO-DIMM modules this summer based on their new 10nm process. It's still almost impossible to find them aftermarket though.

They are based on the new 16Gbit DDR4 chips.

Who remembers when the Mac Mini was $499?

They were also very, very outdated.

Not at the time. I bought my (lowest end model) mid-2011 Mac Mini new at $499.

I just retired it a couple months ago. So, a 7 year life span. It wasn't a bad investment.

And I could still use it for stuff if I wanted. It just won't run the latest and greatest macOS.

They were $599 (well US at least) base in 2011.

It was up to $699 in 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110316161754/http://www.apple....

And back down to $499 in 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20181030141405/https://www.apple...

Or just generally when savings were passed on to consumers.

That was in 2005. Inflation already takes that up to equivalent $650 in 2018.

As I was watching the presentation I went to the mac mini page, it said "starting at $499"

The 3 year old Mac Mini, now for significantly less than a new model!

No that was the price before the update, now it says "from $799"

Three years ago (until about 5 hours ago) you could get a new mac mini for $499.

Who remembers when new computers used to come down in price despite inflation?

That was the time they also got much faster MHz wise every year.

Since when have computers gone up in the future? Workstations used to cost over $100k, now they can be had for $1k. Inflation != computer device pricing.

I'm kinda disappointed that there's only a single SSD option and no way to add another cheaper drive in it. That could've allowed someone to go with the lowest internal SSD drive. I understand Apple wanted to make and keep this one small, but the ability to an internal hard drive could've helped a lot on the cost front and also helped on the speed front (compared to an external drive).

In the past, I've replaced the DVD drive with another internal hard drive (though that was at a slightly lower speed).

I've been waiting for a 2018 Mac desktop of some kind. I have a stock (as in, bought off the shelf, no cpu/memory upgrades) 2018 MBP15 that works for now (as my 2011 had another fan failure, its repaired but not reliable enough for work) but I'm getting tired of small screens/fewer cores etc.

I thought it was going to be an iMac, but maybe this is the ticket.

If I can just find a decent monitor to pair with it here (Thailand) it might be a good option.

Did anyone see if they said whether these machines are user-upgradable? I have two late-2012 models that I've been very happpy with (one at home, one at work). Compared to the 2014 "update" the best part is being able to put in memory & drives yourself.

(Couldn't watch the keynote and haven't seen this said explicitly anywhere...)

It seem that the RAM is user-upgradeable, the SSD not. But as it has 4 thunderbolt ports, EGPU and external storage are possible.

Can anyone make a guess at whether you lose one of the Thunderbolt ports to have the 10gbE port? Alternatively, would you hit a bottleneck if you somehow managed to max out all three Thunderbolt ports?

Is it possible / does it make sense to use this as a Debian machine?

If you want a mini-ITX form factor Debian machine, you're probably better off skipping the Apple tax and building one yourself. Pros of this Mac mini appear to include: seamlessly runs macOS and high build quality. The internal components (with the exception of specific Apple chips) are commodity. So if you don't want macOS support, you can just make it yourself.

disk en-/decryption on the T2 chip would be interesting feature that you're missing out on - or is that kinda thing also commodity nowadays through accelerator cards?

Do you really need special hardware support? Apple's older FDE using Intel's AES-NI instructions available on all their CPUs was plenty fast.

Most SSDs support Opal although good luck finding Linux distro support for it.

Where would you find the software for the T2 chip without using macOS?

Perhaps but why pay the Apple premium just for the case design when you can also opt for something like https://www.pcworld.com/article/3267074/computers/intel-hade...

There is no NUC with a 6C/12T i7, though. An important question is whether the Mac mini will throttle the i7 much for thermal reasons.

I recently added a new heatsink to an older AMD CPU, hadn't realized how much it was being throttled previously.

Do any NUCs use the case as a heatsink ?

You can get some aftermarket cases like from e.g. Akasa that are one big heatsink.

Wouldn't the T2 security chip mean an end to putting non-MacOS operating systems on Apples hardware? Honest question .. I don't know the answer .. but it seems like this is going to be a hurdle for Linux on Apple hardware going forward.

EDIT: from another thread discussing Apples release today:

>You can install Linux, if you can accept that a lot of functionality does not work. Even on most MacBook Pro 2016 models audio, suspend/hibernate, and WiFi don't work.

https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

You can install Linux. Hardware not working is not a result of the T2 chip, since the 2016 MacBook Pro doesn’t have one.

A result of the T2 chip is, that you can't access the SSD under Linux yet, which makes running Linux on it pretty pointless.

The fundamental issue, that of Apple allowing you to boot alternative operating systems, is solved. The other problem of figuring out how to talk to the SSD is more of a technical (if important) issue.

In theory you should be able to install alternative operating systems by disabling "secure boot", but at least with Linux that isn't working properly yet. Trying to use the NVMe controller results in reboots, caused by the T2 chip. It's not clear so far if that's intended, a bug in the software running on the T2 chip, a bug in the NVMe implementation in Linux or if there is some logic necessary to properly initialize the T2 chip.

I haven't tried running a Linux distro on any Mac with the T2 chip, but that might be a challenge if that chip is used for authenticating the boot process or something like that. Additionally, the fact that the thing is brand-new means that it might be a while before some of it works with Linux.

You should be able to install Linux by disabling verified boot.

Nope, at least not yet, as the NVMe controller in the T2 chip doesn't work with Linux yet. See https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux/issues/71 for details.

https://system76.com/cart/configure/meer3b is probably a better choice unless you need the 64GB.

That's only 7th gen processors though.

Fair enough. They have 8th gen in their laptops but they haven't refreshed the Meerkat in a bit.

This is using a 8th generation chip. Since the 9th gen chips are drop-in compatible, does this mean you can hack your way to a Mac Mini with an i9-9900k 8-core/12-thread monster?

Probably not. This is 2018 and everything gets soldered down now.

They are probably laptop CPUs, 45 watt version, different socket.

I believe he said expressly that they're higher-power desktop CPUS (reference that the older model used mobile ones).

CPUs available are:

* Core i3-8100 [0]

* Core i5-8500 [1]

* Core i7-8700 [2]

All of these are listed as having embedded version available, which I would expect Apple to be using, since embedded versions of desktop SKUs in the iMac.

[0] http://ark.intel.com/products/126688

[1] http://ark.intel.com/products/129939

[2] http://ark.intel.com/products/126686

i9-9900k has 16 threads, not 12.

8th gen = Kaby Lake = H.265 hardware acceleration correct?

yes

My guess is that it's going to overheat before you can effectively use the six core i7 option.

Also, I'm assuming their pricing is based on market research. So by pricing the 2TB version at +$1400 (which you could put into a non-macOS desktop build for like $300), they're implying you're either quite rich, ignorant, or you're spending corporate or academic money.

As a desktop option, why does this seem more expensive than the Macbook Pro?

The SSDs they use are almost an order of magnitude faster than regular consumer grade ones you can get for just over $300, and I was surprised last time I priced up something with decent performance that it cost about the same whether buying from Apple or not.

They have almost 6GB/s write speeds? Also, you can get a 2TB PCIE SSD that writes at 2000MB/s for $600.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/501128/Samsung-SSD-9...

Most drives I've looked at get around 400mb a second (I also use https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/), and the SSDs Apple use are 2500mb/s, so 6.25x faster.

I priced up the high performance 2TB SSD setup about a year ago, so I'll concede that data point is out of date.

I agree $1400 seems more reasonable when compared to PCIE SSD prices.

Too bad that with Mojave’s release they already dropped official support for some other Mac Minis, like my 2010 unibody one. I realize you can still get it to work by rolling the dice with a 3rd party binary patch, but jeez, the thing is only 8 years old.

> only 8 years old

The Moore‘s Law is dead.

No, it lives on in GPUs etc, see iPad pro / nvidia

Honest question: how many other pieces of electronics do you have that are still getting support after 8 years of use? I could understand appliances and cars, where the maintenance is mechanical wear & tear and not software, but anything with software generally has a 3-5 year EOL at this point.

Well. You can still install Windows 10 on it, can you? We did this with all the Macs at my old office. Shame.

I could go out and buy Windows or download Linux, and run them on this and even older computers, which is unfortunately probably what I’ll end up doing at some point. I like Apple, and am pretty bought in to their ecosystem. Their blacklisting of older hardware is one of my few complaints with them, really.

Most 8 year old PCs can run Windows 10.

Also, free software updates that you don’t pay for with your privacy.

Hmmm... I've got a Sonos amp that is ~ 11 years old. Just installed a software upgrade last weekend. But yeah... not much else from back then is still in daily use in my life.

What a wasted potential! The pricing is a huge show stopper!

If not for the fact you need Apple hardware to develop iOS apps and that my older mac mini is excruciatingly slow with the newer macOS, I wouldn't even consider this.

It looks like the RAM is user-upgradable.

I started reading article hoping for something interesting from Apple, but then I compare Mac Mini specs to the mini-itx system I've built back in February.

- AMD Ryzen 2400g (4cores 8 threads)

- 16 GB DDR4 Ram

- 256GB M.2 Nvme

- 1TB 2.5" HDD

- I can add more memory, internal storage, and still have a spare 16xPCI slot.

This runs linux and cost less than $800 Canadian dollars all in. Not impressed. Everything is upgradable and in a case that 3 times as big as mac one.

>case 3x as big

I don't think you are getting the whole "Mini' concept here.

3 times as big is still a comfortable size for a small pc and a small price to pay for using commodity/replaceable parts.

Most of the people who might buy a mini would probably buy a mini that was 3x as big. At least for me, what I really don't want to pay for is a screen and keyboard (as I would have to pay for with an imac/macbook/etc).

I still use a 2006 mac mini for headless server stuff, and a 2011 model to make use of macOS.

I would love to buy this for its form factor, but at those prices I'd be better off buying myself a tricked-out desktop. I could probably go threadripper + DDR4 and a 2080 Ti for those prices.

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