Mac mini review late 2012 install#
Mac mini review late 2012 update#
Mac mini review late 2012 upgrade#
Mac mini review late 2012 mac#

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions, guys.

I suppose they're technically correct, but I did exactly this and didn't notice any slowdowns. Some folks are going to tell you that 'it will run slower with DIMMs that aren't matched'. Unless you absolutely know that you need 16gb, my suggestion is to buy ONE 8gb DIMM, and replace the topmost 2gb DIMM in the Mini (with the bottom plate off). FIVE YEARS of 'external booting' later, it still boots quickly and runs fast. From the very first day, I set it up to boot and run from an SSD mounted in a USB docking station. The idea is to keep the SSD 'lean and clean' for speed. It helps to keep large libraries (such as movies and music, and perhaps your photo libraries) on the internal HDD. There's a faster, easier way that will give you speeds that are 85% of an internal SSD - that is, buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, plug it in and initialize it, and then set it up to run as your 'external booter'.ДЄ 500gb or even 250gb SSD will do the job and do it right. Many others have thought they could do it, then went inside, and then. You want to be completely confident in your ability to do the job, before you open the Mini.

Mac mini review late 2012 mac#

'I'd like to get an opinion on whether adding an external ssd to my late 2012 mac mini would show a great improvement in speed.' If you use the kit so that it now contains an SSD and a hard drive, watch out for a possible complication outlined in the link below, although it looks like the problem may no longer exist if the 2012 mini was upgraded beyond OS X 10.8. The kit works great, I love having two hard drives inside the Mac mini.

Mac mini review late 2012 install#

I used the Data Doubler kit on my 2012 mini, although only to install a second internal hard drive, not an SSD. The 2012 mini should see dramatic overall speed improvements from installing an SSD, especially because the stock 5400RPM is a slow hard drive to begin with. As a photo editing station with current Photoshop-like applications, RAM should be upgraded to 8GB or more. If you are using this more and more as a main photo editing computer, both the RAM and the hard drive are inadequate.ДЄs a server, 4GB RAM should be OK. I have the System, applications, and my user directory other than the image files and libraries on the SSD.

I just added an external SSD (Samsung 256 GB) to my 2012 quad-core mini (8 GB RAM) and the change has been dramatic. Or should I look to just increase the ram? Any ideas are welcome. In the end it all depends on how much $$$ you want to spend. Depending on what is installed (I'm guessing 2 x 2GB) you could go for a 2 x 8GB upgrade.

Mac mini review late 2012 upgrade#

So you could upgrade to an external SSD for storage too.ДЇor the RAM you only have two slots in the Mini and it is recommended that you put identical modules in each slot. The external disk is kind of a bottleneck to me since the 5400 rpm drive is much slower than the theoretical troughput of USB3. The processor should be OK for a while to come if you don't need top performance. I also have an external usb3 WD hd attached, but I believe it's only 5400 as well. My mini has a 2.5 ghz i5 chip, 4gb ram, and a 5400 rpm hdd inside.

That should boost the performance quite a bit since your Mini has SATA III.ДЄnyway, rather than try and deduce from a lot of online articles, I thought I'd ask more knowledgable folk that might have done this. I think the best course of action is to install an internal SSD in place of the spinning disk for the OS.

Mac mini review late 2012 update#

That said, would it just be better to update to a newer model? I'm not sure as of this writing if minis even have ssd drives or if they still have the spinning versions. I also have a later iMac and I'll admit, I'm jaded when I compare experiences. I began using it mainly as a media center/server but find I'm often also using it as a 'real' computer. I'd like to get an opinion on whether adding an external ssd to my late 2012 mac mini would show a great improvement in speed.