I don’t know if anyone has been following Apple’s new product development, but they’ve come up with a new tiny form factor Mac Mini for a mere $600!

Not only is this amazing the YouTube community with its power/price ratio, it’s form factor is so small it becomes a practical live stage device for performing. Quite honestly, this little thing will laugh at anything you throw at it for music production.

It runs very cool, very quiet even under heavy loads. Check it out, I think this one’s a winner..!

They also have a laptop with the same CPU but it’s $1000 more, which seems an awful lot to pay for a small display, so until they throw the M4 CPU into the MacBook Air, I think the Mini is the way to go.

My iMac 27” from 2011 is definitely showing its age, the new Mini is definitely tempting me!

Yes, finally Apple has fitted 16 Gig of Ram on their base model (Something the competition has been doing for years) however, they still only fit 256 Gig of storage, which is a joke in this day and age, so add another 200 to upgrade that. (Although even 500 Gig is low compared to most of the competition at that price)
Apart from the above it is a great little machine. (The Mac Mini has always been one Apples best value products)
2011, that's dodgy as Apple has no support for parts in Macs of that vintage.

Bill

For starters, the internal storage on the new Mac mini is user replaceable. Nobody’s sure yet whether you’ll have to buy an upgraded chip from Apple but probably someone will figure out how to do this. And quite honestly attached storage is so fast most audio/visual users use an attached SSD.

However, the benchmarks of the M4 are so much better than PC competitors that even if you spend another $400 on an internal 1TB SSD, it still beats its competitors. Personally I’d add a big external SSD and if I wanted to upgrade, I’d get more RAM. $200 would get you 24GB RAM, but the only reason you might need that for audio production is running huge orchestral libraries, and I rather doubt anyone here is doing that.

You really should watch some of the YouTube videos. Even the barebones base mini is gobsmacking testers with how it laughs at insane workloads, far beyond anything we’re going to throw at it. We’re not 4K 3D game developers, or working with 8K multiple video editing. Audio is laughably easier on computers compared to that.

For what we do, even the $600 base model is massively overpowered. And compared to its PC competitors that you’d need to pay well over twice the price for equivalent performance (even though you’d get more storage internally), you get Apple’s rock solid OS and no intrusive Windows bloat and vulnerability. It’s also an emulation powerhouse, so you can run Linux, Windows and other niche OS’s if you need to, at impressive benchmarks.

Most testers are calling the base model the best bang for the buck currently available by quite a margin..!

I have seen all the videos and always watch the keynote releases, which is why I said it is a great little machine, but it could have been even better. (If you watch the videos, you will find the storage is a complaint in virtually all of them)
As to upgrades then it's like the Mac Studio with the storage plug-in (It just has 1 slot rather than the 2 in the Mac Studio), but better to get what you want at the outset, rather than upgrade later.

Bill

https://youtu.be/WtIbGq6Od6o?si=7gBcO2nb78wGKSod

It’s simple.

You still haven’t explained WHY you need a huge internal SSD. Chasing meaningless numbers is an exercise in impracticality. Sure, Apple could add 20TB and give it away for free, but meanwhile, back in the real world, there’s a reason for the specs. Put ALL of the money in the CPU, make it blow the competition away, and let the user decide where to put the data. It doesn’t matter if a competitor computer has 4TB of internal storage if the CPU can’t compete.

Some people just look at numbers. Me, I look at whether the product will WORK better than its competitors. Of that there’s no doubt.

It is always best to run programs off the internal (The Data in them can easily be stored on a fast external drive (It's the way most people use computers), however programs improve over time and get bigger, thus a larger internal drive is more beneficial. (1TB is the optimal for most uses with the current software that is available, and will allow for plenty of future software updates)
BTW: Most music software requires fast single thread performance rather than multi-core performance.

Bill

Running off the internal drive might be a PC thing, but over in Mac-land, with Thunderbolt 4 (or TB5 on the Mini Pro!) putting your Home folder on an external drive is easy and seems to run blazingly fast. There are several YouTube videos explaining how you can do this and benchmarking the results.

There’s simply no comparing these new, MUCH faster modern computers to their older siblings. Things that in the past would not have been feasible are now performed easily and a lot of older ‘wisdom’ no longer applies. I have not yet seen ONE YouTube review and benchmark that consider the smallish base internal HD any kind of problem whatsoever. And these are guys that do heavy duty video, graphics and coding work.

I’m inclined to trust them…

Thunderbolt is Intel Not Apple; they just use it under licence. (Most PCs these days have a header that you plug a card in (For little money) if you need Thunderbolt speeds)
Running Software (Or even the OS) on an external drive has been available on Pcs (Personal Computers) for donkeys' years, whether they run Mac, Windows or Linux.
Nvme drives are used in most computers these days and easily match the speed of the drives in Apple Silicon Macs, but at a fraction of the price. (Many are even faster)
As I said, the Mac Mini is a great computer, and if you want the Mac eco system it is the best value out there.
BTW: there is no one OS that is best for everything, for that you need Mac, Windows and Linux to take full advantage of what's out there.
BTW: even basic computers these days would make your 2011 Mac look like a dinosaur, so it's hardly surprising you are blown away by the new Mac Mini.

Bill

It’s not just me that’s blown away by the M4 Mac Mini. I’m watching reviewers show benchmarks that has even the base model blow away 3 year old Mac Studio’s that cost $2k-3k! I’m aware my dinosaur iMac is outperformed by just about anything, but until this M4 Mini Apple didn’t make anything at that low a price (student discounts and specials can get it down close to $500!). My budget’s a lot lower than back in the day..!

I’ve also seen videos showing the base model running Windows and Linux and getting impressive benchmarks for productivity apps. Sure, if you got a $3000 TOTL video card in your PC, gaming performance is going to be a LOT better, but unless you’re a pro e-gamer the Mac Mini will run most Windows games at a playable framerate and resolution.

It's how much this thing has leapfrogged the previous generation at the absolute rock bottom price that’s getting my GAS to flare up! As the issue of the onboard storage is a non issue (only programs really need to reside on the internal drive, all data is quite content to sit on an external SSD) it seems niggly to not get it for something that doesn’t matter!

It’s like Porsche just released a base model for $20k that goes faster than their last $120,000 model, and people are losing their minds because a replacement MOMO wheel (that nobody really needs) is $10k! Big deal… buy the new base Porsche and use the stock wheel and go out and blow the competition away!

Costco is selling the Apple 2024 Mac Mini Desktop Computer with the M4 chip base model for $479.

This makes it the best bargain in Computers for 2024.

Amazon is selling this for $559.

https://www.amazon.com/Apple-2024-Desktop-Computer-10%E2%80%91core/dp/B0DLBTPDCS/


While the 16GB of Unified Memory is adequate for most tasks, the internal storage of 256GB is limiting.

You can easily overcome this by attaching an external SSD drive.
Here is a step by step guide on how to move your HOME folder to your External Drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtIbGq6Od6o

It is easiest to do this when you power up your M4 Mac Mini for the very first time.
You can also move your Applications folder to your External Drive. All your new Applications will get populated in this new location. However, the factory installed Applications that come with the M4 Mac Mini cannot be moved. They take up about 1.6GB of disk space.

This is the 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD you can buy for $103.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9Y48V73

This is the SSD Enclosure you can buy for $98.

https://ziketech.com/products/zikedrive-usb4-40gbps-nvme-m-2-ssd-enclosure-z666

Apple’s upgrade path is too steep. It does not make any sense.
If you were to upgrade the base model with 32GB of Unified Memory and a 2TB internal SSD, you would be paying $599 + $400 +$800 = $1,799
It is no longer competitive at this price point.

A more sensible path is to buy the base model and add an external SSD.

Don't confuse unified memory (The way the CPU reacts with the ram) with normal memory you get in a standard PC, as due to the way it works it allows for less to perform better than what it should. (You don't need quite as much)
You will regret it if you go with 25GB of Ram, even if you transfer the complete OS to an external drive. (Go for 512GB either from Apple or 3rd party suppliers like in the Mac Studio)
Shop around, you can get a just as good enclosure for a lot less than the one you posted. (Should be about a $20 saving)
When moving critical files to an external drive, pay a bit extra and go for recognised brand name rather than trying to save a few $. (Alternative backup the cheaper drive manually on a separate drive hourly rather than daily)
Most of the You Tube videos you see are by users, not computer techs, so don't take everything they say as gospel.

Bill

Personally, I’d be utterly amazed if anyone on this forum could do anything that would tax this new base Mini..!

Who buys a car that does 200mph+ if you never go over 70mph?! Yes, Apple make an M4Pro chip. You can get Windows PC’s with $2000+ video cards. But do you NEED one?

Let’s not confuse ‘specs’ for ‘capability’. For what WE do, this is likely to be the last computer we ever buy. Nobody’s scoring for Hollywood, we aren’t running TB sized orchestral libraries (that cost $1000’s) and editing multiple 8K video streams in Dolby Atmos. In OUR lives, it’s doubtful anyone’s even doing 24 track audio production using stock plugins and maybe editing a 1080p YouTube video. Russ is possibly the only member here doing anything more than that…

No need to spend more than the base M4 Mini. It’s tiny, it’s whisper quiet (useful in a studio!), elegant and secure. Ticks all MY boxes for sure!

Yes, but just like larger roads to reduce congestion just leads to more cars, more powerful computers mean software manufactures will make programs even bigger, that tax even the M4, thats just how computers go. (If it didn't everything would still be running on a Commodore 64)

Bill

Look, if you NEVER bought a computer because sometime down the road there’d be some software it can’t run, you’d never have bought a computer!

Take the absolute fastest, most expensive computer currently available… your argument is equally valid for THAT! Sooner or later, someone is going to come up with something it can’t run. So don’t get that either… wait a while. Rinse and repeat.

In the meantime, everybody that bought a computer that worked well NOW got all the work, made all the music, made all the videos, and you’re sitting in an empty room going ‘maybe it won’t run next year’s programs’.

What I look for in tech is a generational move forward, not an incremental one. I’ve done it with arrangers, with software, with everything I can. The M4 Mini is generational. It outperforms previous TOTL models from only two or three years ago, at close to a tenth of the price. The M2 and M3’s were incremental models. Performance jumps of 10-20%. M4 is benchmarking at 50-80% increase at creative tasks (audio track counts, render speeds for 3D, compiling code etc). Apple generally has two or three models before the next big jump. And usually introduced the big jump on their TOTL high dollar computers first.

This is the first time for over a decade that the leap forward got introduced in its BOTL range first. Now’s the time, especially with Trump’s threatened trade war with everywhere that makes the stuff we use! That $500 M4 might be $650 next year… 🤬