“After a four year gap, the updated Mac mini is here, and it is a powerful and versatile machine,” Andrew O’Hara writes for AppleInsider. “AppleInsider got to spend some time with it and while it looks similar, it shows vast improvements over even the vaunted 2012 model.”
“Mac mini’s vocal userbase was clearly heard as Apple took a lot of their considerations to heart,” O’Hara writes. “Memory consists of two user-upgradable SO-DIMM slots and the flat body design makes it a great choice for server farms.”
“On the back we found several Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI, USB-A, audio out, and a Gigabit Ethernet port that can be upgraded at purchase to a 10-gig port,” O’Hara writes. “What we found most impressive was a stack of five Mac Minis, connected over Ethernet, running tasks assigned by Final Cut, Logic, and Xcode while the primary machine carried on with its normal tasks.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The new Mac mini is, in a word: Flexible!
SEE ALSO:
Apple unveils all-new Mac mini with a massive increase in performance – October 30, 2018
‘Flexible’?
Must be that recycled Al U. Mini-Um…
Sounds good, but for many users, small timers like me, I’d like to be able to buy minimum RAM/SSD and upgrade from third party (cheaper) places for SSD and RAM.
You can buy your own ram….
…and NVME external storage.
Buy with the 8Gb option if you plan to buy 32 or 64 Gb RAM later.
An $800 Mac with and $800 1 TB HD upgrade?
Which is the better choice?
$1799 Mac mini: 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, integrated GPU, NO mouse, NO keyboard, NO monitor
or
$1999 27″ iMac: 16GB RAM, 1TB Fusion HD, 4GB Radeon Pro GPU, Magic Mouse, Keyboard, 5K Monitor.
Choose wisely.
Outside of forcing buyers to choose nosebleed-priced SSDs, and the super-duper high-speed ethernet option, how did Apple make this machine more “pro-oriented?”
To me, a pro-oriented machine would have:
User swappable HDs
Option of using 3.5″ HDs since they’re bigger, faster, cheaper.
Even 2 user swappable HDs?
Dedicated GPUs with at least 2 or 3 pro-options
User swappable GPUs
User swappable Power supply.
Prioritization of these options for a “pro-oriented” Mac should have been much more important than the smallest, lightest aluminum casing. This is a desktop fer crying out loud, I don’t need to schlep it with me or worry about battery life.
The smart buyer will purchase a minimum SSD/minimum memory configuration, replace the memory with third-party memory, and use Thunderbolt-connected hard drives and even external GPU (mentioned at the rollout) if they need that kind of thing.
Yes, a user-swappable power supply would have been nice, but that’s what AppleCare is for. (And if everything but macOS is on external drives, then you really don’t need to worry very much about swapping in a new Mac mini if you need to.)
I understand what you’re saying, but
Being forced to hook up external HDs and esoteric TB GPUs simply proves my point: creating a cute, winsome little desktop computer is a dopey idea in the first place, if you are then forced to add external devices to make it work properly. This was the MAJOR issue that made the Mac Pro trashcan such a stupid concept. Give us a slightly larger computer and avoid that issue.
Running certain large programs on an external drives can be an extreme hassle.
Modular MacMini?
Let’s hope they keep up the momentum now rather than the update and Borges policies of recent years. IMacs should be next in the New Year one hopes.
It’ll be seven years before it gets updated again. Lol.
Oh, and after five years they’ll increase the price by 7%.
Nothing like just making stuff up and then complaining about it!
Well it IS campaign season…!
Why can’t they have a hard drive bay like the PS 4? If you want to add an SSD to this it can’t run at full speed, and if you want even close to full speed, you need to by a thunderbolt box that costs more then most SSDs.
Seriously, if Sony released productivity software for the PS 4 it would meet most user’s needs better then this.
I appreciate that you can add your own RAM but 256 GB is the top storage and you cannot add your own drives?
What genius thought of that combo?
???
Looks to me like the top storage is 2TB.
That’s been made very clear in every description of the box I’ve seen (as well as the “Buy” button on the Apple Store page.
Too bad that the storage isn’t (easily) user replaceable as is the RAM.
OTOH, with TB3, adding fast external storage should be no big deal. For example, I have a 48TB RAID (HD, not SSD) unit that runs at 1800 MB/sec on my iMac Pro. Same setup would work for someone who needs a lot of storage on the Mac Mini. Could do even better, speed wise, with OWC’s SSD raid boxes.
Might also add that I really appreciate the fact that they charge $100 extra for the very high speed Ethernet. I’m not being sarcastic; I’m still running 100 mb/s and I’m glad I don’t have to pay anything extra for the Ethernet speed I’m not going to use.
To me it would make sense for the new Mac Pro to have the same footprint of the Mac mini, but just be taller so you can stack them all together if needed. Why do they need a completely different form? I don’t think Pro users particularly care what it looks like, but a Mac Pro that’s essentially just a block of aluminium would look pretty cool I think. Just make it taller and allow it to be upgradable.
Oh I don’t know… PCI expansion cards? extra drive bays?
If Apple learned even a single thing from the 2013 Mac Pro fiasco it should be that external enclosures are a fugly kludge.
I’ve seen no indication that the audio jack includes an optical transmitter like my current mini. Guess I’ll need a new USB DAC if I choose to upgrade.