M4 Mac Mini: Tiny Size, Massive Profits!

Is there any other computer you can buy for $600 that offers the same sort of performance as the new M4 Mac Mini? It’s a fabulous computer… but those upgrade prices don't seem to be designed to improve the value proposition for you!

So, which is the best value spec M4 Mac Mini, that will give you best bang for your buck? Here’s my take on that and Apple’s pricing strategies.

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#apple #macmini #m4

[ConstantGeekery]

UPDATE: as many of you have pointed out, the SSD is not soldered to the logic board in the Mini. It is soldered to a proprietary removable board, much like the Mac Studio. Apple doesn’t sell upgrades or replacements for the Studio, and who knows if they will do so for the Mini. It’s not a straight swap either, so for the average user, the best advice is still to buy what you need rather than hope for some future change in Apple’s strategy.

Apple has been consistently soldering SSDs for 8 years now, hence the assumption… which I shouldn’t have made. My apologies.

iFixit’s teardown was published after I made this video.

[FabioBedoya]

I work in film restoration, VFX, and color correction. I've used the base 256GB model of a 2013 Mac Pro, the base M2 and M3 MacBook Air with 256GB, and a Mac Mini M2 with 256GB. External storage has always been, and will always be, my solution. I run everything over 10GbE Ethernet or a 40GbE NVMe setup with no issues whatsoever. I've never paid for Apple's storage upgrades and don’t plan to start now.

[ben-tendo]

The storage is not soldered to the motherboard, it is on it's own detachable M.2 slot similar to Mac Studio. You can't put any old M.2 in granted, but soon there'll be options that people are making to upgrade without Apple doing it for you. The board is also dual NAND (2 x 128GB) so is faster than previous boards.

[milkedition]

I checked and my apps folder uses about 60GB, so I got the base model. I intend to put everything else on an external drive. I am assuming I will have enough headroom on the internal drive for preferences, swap and whatever else it needs. I got an OWC thunderbolt enclosure and a Crucial 2TB drive for about $220 total. I checked disk speed and both my internal and new external drive achieve about 3, 000Mbps. So for about the same price I have 2.25TB of storage instead of 0.5TB. Seemed like a no-brainer for a desktop I’ll never be moving.

[Chiknng]

I laught at the sponsor moment, i was expecting the sponsoring moment to happen and skip that part, but 1 sec after i had a relief when i heard "there is no sposor". But good video as usual thanks !

[JohnnyMotel]

Stictly speaking the storage is not soldered to the MB, it's on a daughter board and it looks like these could become available as aftermarkets.
Additional to the SSD margins, lets not forget that the OS is upgraded for free, and major titles like FCPX are free to upgrade.

[carlosroldan]

The no sponsor bit earned you a like and a comment 😂 well done 👍

[adamsaint]

256gb, an external drive and a bit of research on how to install packages on that external drive is where it's at for pretty much everyone IMO, given that this is a desktop machine. The 8gb RAM was pretty much impossible to mitigate and I'm so glad that has gone away. But the storage - for a computer that will stay on a desk - that's an easy workaround. I expect lots of docks (the type made for older imacs) in the right shape to be available very soon, with loads of ports/sd reader etc. as well as an enclosure for storage.

[xkidmidnightx]

I feel like the upgrade prices are to subsidize the base model.

[NeilLavitt]

The 16/512 will be the sweet spot for most and it’s what I got. I always completely ignore the base pricing as it’s there to pull customers in. At the sweet spot, there is very little to choose between a PC and a Mac. Many that buy a 256 Gb version will probably have no issues as they will drive office apps and browsers plus edit a few photos.

I understand what you are trying to say, but Apple has done this for years.

That being said, a well spec machine of this type will probably last for 8 years and it may actually be lack of software updates that makes someone change.

[everlasts]

The good thing now in macOS Sequoia can offload apps / games to external drive and the App Store app will know where is the app/game to track the update, that could help reduce a lot of space in the internal SSD

[JuanFmTech]

Guess i will have to wait till the M8 so it comes with 512gb as base spec lol

[Realist-mc]

Another consideration for internal storage size is that iPhones can be synced to have local back ups, which will also chew up available space. Most “average” users would not even be aware the phone is being back up. Don’t even think about installing anything from Adobe, their software takes up huge amounts of space and cache files.

[dris]

As of last week, macOS 15.1 now allows you to set the OS to install apps on your selected external drive by default.

(PS. I have a 2015 iMac 27" i7 with 500GB SSD. I do photo/graphics and video with the major apps. I'm only using 60GB of ssd space with 440GB free even after a decade).

[jansix]

The NAND chips in the new Mac mini are not soldered to the logic board. They are on a removable proprietary daughter board. There maybe third party upgrade modules available in the future?

[vodee]

1:05 You made a mistake there. The SSD is not soldered in place. Instead, it uses a proprietary Apple design. You can actually swap the SSD in your Mac Mini or Mac Studio. While it's tricky to do, it can be done.

[allanpennington]

I didn't bother upgrading the base model, I just got the base M4 Pro. In comparison to an M4 with 24 gb RAM and 512 SSD the Pro with the same was only NZ$800 more. So I thought why not.

[matuszewskistudio]

In my opinion there are two models worth buying - base one and M4P 14/20 with 64gb RAM and 1tb ssd. It costs as much as "base" M4 Pro macbook but in this spec it will chew through most of the files with ease.

[ggproductions]

In a tiny, tiny bit of their (and soon others) defence, if you chose a bespoke unit and return it the unit becomes more difficult to sell, there will likely be more people prepared to buy a refurbed base version than an "upgraded" version. Just a tiny, tiny reason for a little boost in cost.

[rockymtnmovies]

Why not pay for iCloud for your storage and save a ton? Then you have it whenever you need, wherever you are. No extra hard drive to carry around.