Just purchased 2012 Mini

[BaZurk]

Hey guy's. So after many many years as a Windows user..(and shall continue to be so) I purchased a 2012 Mac Mini off ebay. Its a core i5 2.5 GHtz version and I will most likely be using it for surfing the web, trying out the Mac OS and maybe a media server in the future I kinda wanted to know if I needed more than the 4GB of ram it comes with. The reason I got the 2012 version is the easier upgrading factor but wanted to ask if you guys think I should add 16GB of ram and maybe a SSD? If so what would you guys recommend?

 

Edit: Or is 16GB a bit of overkill??

[Brian M. Veteran]

Personally I would upgrade it to 8GB at least. 16GB is overkill for general web surfing and media IMO.

 

An SSD is always a worthy upgrade. You have 2 options with the SSD (hardware-wise, an extra one software wise!). The first is just to swap the HDD for an SSD and put the HDD into a USB caddy or something. The second is to add the SSD as a second drive - there's room (since the 2012 chassis was designed originally for the 2 drive server). You'll need to buy a couple of bits - rubber grommets to hold the drive securely, and the flex cable. These can be had for about $15 on eBay. It's quite a long winded thing to do though: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Dual+Hard+Drive+Kit/11713

 

Adding the SSD as a second drive means you can manually create a "Fusion Drive" so you don't have to mess around with what's on the SSD and what's on the HDD.

[BaZurk]

Personally I would upgrade it to 8GB at least. 16GB is overkill for general web surfing and media IMO.

 

An SSD is always a worthy upgrade. You have 2 options with the SSD (hardware-wise, an extra one software wise!). The first is just to swap the HDD for an SSD and put the HDD into a USB caddy or something. The second is to add the SSD as a second drive - there's room (since the 2012 chassis was designed originally for the 2 drive server). You'll need to buy a couple of bits - rubber grommets to hold the drive securely, and the flex cable. These can be had for about $15 on eBay. It's quite a long winded thing to do though: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Dual+Hard+Drive+Kit/11713

 

Adding the SSD as a second drive means you can manually create a "Fusion Drive" so you don't have to mess around with what's on the SSD and what's on the HDD.

Thanks for the input Brian! I'm thinking going for the 8GB for the ram and poping in this SSD and creating a fusion drive. Is it difficult? Or should I just pop the SSD in and use the other as an external? Is a fusion drive worth the extra effort?

[BaZurk]

Personally I would upgrade it to 8GB at least. 16GB is overkill for general web surfing and media IMO.

 

An SSD is always a worthy upgrade. You have 2 options with the SSD (hardware-wise, an extra one software wise!). The first is just to swap the HDD for an SSD and put the HDD into a USB caddy or something. The second is to add the SSD as a second drive - there's room (since the 2012 chassis was designed originally for the 2 drive server). You'll need to buy a couple of bits - rubber grommets to hold the drive securely, and the flex cable. These can be had for about $15 on eBay. It's quite a long winded thing to do though: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Dual+Hard+Drive+Kit/11713

 

Adding the SSD as a second drive means you can manually create a "Fusion Drive" so you don't have to mess around with what's on the SSD and what's on the HDD.

Also... if I wanted to buy one 8GB stick now.... Would it run off one stick? Or one 8GB one of the 2GB until I buy another stick of 8GB?

[Jose_49]

Also... if I wanted to buy one 8GB stick now.... Would it run off one stick? Or one 8GB one of the 2GB until I buy another stick of 8GB?

Yes, It can run on one stick of 8GB. e

Oh, BTW, if you plan on using it as a media server, the SSD will kind of be expensive if used as main media storage option. 

 

I guess you can always get the SSD, and then have several external Hard Drives hooked up!

[WinMacLin Guy]

I would say that 16 GB is an overkill for the purposes you described; 8 GB should be more than sufficient but honestly I would personally start at 4 GB and expand as my needs grow. I think you should consider an SSD or a faster hard drive, the default 5200 RPM hard-drive that came with my Mini is definitely the bottleneck in my setup.

[nosense]

 16 gig is overkill, unless you're VMing\editing videos\encoding video\running a DAW.

[Pam14160]

More ram is not over kill as it seems some think.  If in the future you may want to do VMs the extra ram comes in very handy.  On my mini I have the 16 gigs of ram which allows me to have at least 4 VMs running at the same time, so get the ram if the price isn't to much.

[BaZurk]

Yes, It can run on one stick of 8GB. e

Oh, BTW, if you plan on using it as a media server, the SSD will kind of be expensive if used as main media storage option. 

 

I guess you can always get the SSD, and then have several external Hard Drives hooked up!

 

 16 gig is overkill, unless you're VMing\editing videos\encoding video\running a DAW.

 

More ram is not over kill as it seems some think.  If in the future you may want to do VMs the extra ram comes in very handy.  On my mini I have the 16 gigs of ram which allows me to have at least 4 VMs running at the same time, so get the ram if the price isn't to much.

So get this... a 2012 Mac I purchased off EBay thats suppose to come with 4GB of ram... Came with 16GB of Crucial already installed!!! Yeah baby!

[blank]

Are you enjoying it? I was debating getting a 2012 mac mini as well for general usage. Since Yosemite is soo sexy and windows is falling down the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way.

 

Which processor did yours come with and does it seem to keep up with all your tasks?

[BaZurk]

Are you enjoying it? I was debating getting a 2012 mac mini as well for general usage. Since Yosemite is soo sexy and windows is falling down the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way.

 

Which processor did yours come with and does it seem to keep up with all your tasks?

 

Loving it so far. Core i5 2.5Ghtz  Its fine for what I do. I am thinking about putting in a SSD. I will be using it as a media server but was pleasantly surprised when I played Civ 5 on it today and it looked good and ran very well. Boot time is a bit slow I suppose because I am use to SSD boot times but overall I must say I am pleasantly surprised by the way this handles. 

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

OSX has always been pretty slow booting to be honest. That improves with an SSD but it's still not amazing.

 

I will say in it's defence however that because of Apples tight control on the hardware and writing all the drivers, the suspend feature is extremely reliable. If you sleep the Mac and just resume it, it'll *always* come back up working correctly with no weirdness. It also resumes immediately from sleep. 

 

So I'd really recommend just sleeping it when you're not using it  

[Ambroos]

Bit hint: get a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad, combined with BetterTouchTool. The Magic Mouse and all Apple trackpads are pretty amazing once you get used to it, and the OS X experience isn't the same without them.

[BaZurk]

Bit hint: get a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad, combined with BetterTouchTool. The Magic Mouse and all Apple trackpads are pretty amazing once you get used to it, and the OS X experience isn't the same without them.

 

I do have a magic mouse.  BetterTouchTool is what exactly? a program?

[Ambroos]

I do have a magic mouse.  BetterTouchTool is what exactly? a program?

 

Yep. Allows you to add more gestures/clicks/taps to your mouse. I've used it to tap on the mouse instead of click, for example, but you can do much more with it.

It's a bit more useful for the Magic Trackpad, but I can't live without it when it comes to the Magic Mouse either.

[Aergan]

I do have a magic mouse.  BetterTouchTool is what exactly? a program?

 

It's very, very useful. It adds in the extra features that should be there by default - also it allows proper key binding shortcuts for the Apple Keyboard e.g. Command+Left Arrow to snap window to left (which is also not configurable in OS X).

 

I'd also recommend anyone burdened with a Magic Mouse or Logitech mouse under OS X to try Smooth Mouse: http://smoothmouse.com

 

It can change the Apple Magic Mouse or any Logitech mouse to mimic what I deem to be "correct behaviour" in terms of cursor acceleration & tracking under OS X (in other words, make it correctly track like Windows & Ubuntu Linux and not like v9.0 Mandrake Linux from 2002).

[Ambroos]

It's very, very useful. It adds in the extra features that should be there by default - also it allows proper key binding shortcuts for the Apple Keyboard e.g. Command+Left Arrow to snap window to left (which is also not configurable in OS X).

 

I'd also recommend anyone burdened with a Magic Mouse or Logitech mouse under OS X to try Smooth Mouse: http://smoothmouse.com

 

It can change the Apple Magic Mouse or any Logitech mouse to mimic what I deem to be "correct behaviour" in terms of cursor acceleration & tracking under OS X (in other words, make it correctly track like Windows & Ubuntu Linux and not like v9.0 Mandrake Linux from 2002).

 

While the mouse in OS X isn't brilliantly smooth, this doesn't help either as it further reduces the accuracy of the damn thing. It's better to just get used to the mouse tracking in OS X if you ask me. I tried SmoothMouse at work today and really wasn't a fan. Nothing like my Windows PC at home.

[Aergan]

While the mouse in OS X isn't brilliantly smooth, this doesn't help either as it further reduces the accuracy of the damn thing. It's better to just get used to the mouse tracking in OS X if you ask me. I tried SmoothMouse at work today and really wasn't a fan. Nothing like my Windows PC at home.

 

I'm having the opposite experience to you but I did find that it didn't work well until it was set to "like Windows" then a reboot of OS X

 

I'm going to be selling mine on soon anyway as I've found I greatly prefer having 5 dedicated hardware buttons and a scrolling wheel.