Getting a mac mini m4

RetiredUnit1

RetiredUnit1

Well-known member
My Windows 7 computer is ancient. And Micro$uck just stopped supporting MSE Microsoft Security Essentials in an effort to get me to upgrade. I so don't like that so much that I'm just going to say EFF U BILL and move to Mac. I already use an iPhone so it just makes sense.

Anyone using this? See spec's in pic at bottom. I'm just going to be using the Mac for GarageBand and browsing, and was wondering what people thought of the speed. It HAS to be better than my old desktop, lol.

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Also gonna get an external 2TB ssd. Can't believe how inexpensive this is. Way less than upgrading the mini to half a TB.

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EFF U BILL, HERE YOU GO OTHER BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION HAHA TAKE THAT BILL

...but really it can and will perform very well for those purposes. I use garageband on my iphone 14 just fine :ROFLMAO:

I will never buy anything that wants me to incorporate "apple intelligence" or any of that garbage but that's me
 
The mac mini has always been a great deal (for an apple product) and it’s especially true of the newest models. I wouldn’t hesitate at all.

The apple intelligence stuff on desktop is basically non-existent at this point and is easy to turn off in settings.

If you’re coming from Windows 7 and are used to customization and control you’ll lose a fair amount of it on mac, but there are tons of freebie utilities (cheatsheet is really useful coming from / between Windows) and documented settings called “dotfiles” that should ease any headache switching would cause.
 
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I’ve been using a Mac as my only laptop for the last 11 years and I will never go back to W1ndogs. I’ve been considering the mini for music production with Logic for a while. Maybe I’ll get one at some point. You won’t be disappointed with it!
 
I have an older Mac mini and it's wonderful, but I might suggest first buying the SSD drive and verify it's speed before ordering the Mac Mini. If that SSD is slow, then it may be better to buy a Mini with the larger drive.

Also, unlike Mac laptops, the old Mac Mini's allowed you to upgrade the drives yourself - I don't know if that's still true. Might be worth checking.
 
Honestly you'll be amazed at how quick it is vs your old machine. Which audio interface are you going to use?

I switched from windows to a M1 macbook air and couldn't believe how much better the experience was vs my old laptop. My interface didn't need me to install drivers and my latency went down considerably.

I also quite like MacOS
 
+1 for switching to Mac
But I wouldn't get that drive. Get a Samsung or Crucial. Sabrant is low tier chineseium. I wouldn't use it for critical backup anyway. There's also stackable hubs like the orico mini link that functions both as hubs and ssd enclosures. Not necessary but if you have several low speed USB devices(printers, etc) and/or use sd cards for a camera, they can keep the workspace tidy and keep you from using up your high speed thunderbolt ports with low speed devices. There are better hubs that the orico, but that's the first one from a brand that I recognized that was sub-$100. I'd check over at OWC
Also, it's a few $ cheaper refurbed from apple. I've never had a single single issue with direct apple refurbs and they carry the same warranty.
 
As someone who used a Win7 PC (i7 2700k 2012, upgraded to i7 3770 in 2022) up until 2023, I feel your pain. I do a fair amount of audio work with ProTools and a couple years ago I started incorporating some video work. The video work pretty much crippled my old machine - it just couldn’t keep up with that sort of workload. I built a new rig at the start of 2024 with i7 12700k and while it is fast, modern, and does everything I expect it to, it’s hot af. This thing is better than a space heater.

If the m4 had been released when I was upgrading I honestly would’ve just gotten that. My build cost right around $900 for the 12700k, mobo, 32GB RAM, Arc a580, and PSU. The system definitely has more RAM than I could afford in Apple land but that’s pretty much where the buck stops. Hell, my drives are so fast that I rarely see anything loaded into memory so I honestly believe 16GB of RAM is probably more than enough for most use cases. I might’ve taken a minuscule performance hit using the m4 over my current rig but to use an 8th of the power and generate far less heat - sounds better IMO. Also, Win11 is pretty abysmal and fights me more than I’d like. Really, I just want to turn on the machine and work. I shouldn’t have to turn the damn thing on every 3 days and do maintenance tasks.

Also, Avid says that they only support Intel processors in 2025. I know I’ve read about people using AMD and running ProTools without issue but it was a gamble I wasn’t willing to take. Now I have the best space heater a computer can be.
 
I think the mini is a good deal. I’m running a 2010 mini core 2 duo. I use Ableton and Reaper mainly. I won’t be able to upgrade past Ableton 11, thinking about getting an m4.

But it’s hard pay up and get past my “fuck all tech bros” mentality right now. I had Bitwig and Reaper running on Arch Linux (btw), the only problem was I didn’t invest time into learning bitwig.
 
I replaced my obsolete Mac Pro (from the last decade) with a 2024 Mac M4 mini (16GB and 256GB SSD), so the entry level one.

So far, it's very speedy by comparison with its predecessor and I can run all my old UA plugins again. This is not to say all of them at once but having access to at least some of them again is very beneficial for my nefarious purposes (composing and arranging mostly).

This model should suffice for running GarageBand and browsing as you say without breaking the bank.

You might consider springing for a bigger SSD if you can; it seems to fill up quite quickly.
 
I am a software engineer at Microsoft and I use Mac for everything outside of work, if that says anything. As stated by many others, for a Mac that mini is a great deal and it’ll do everything you want it to.

There are kits to upgrade the hard drive. You can put a 2TB in there for ~$250 but you need another apple silicon Mac available to you to restore it and reinstall Mac OS on it. And it definitely voids the warranty. I’m actually planning on picking one of these up for my studio and doing just that.
 
I have a mac mini M2 base that I love in the studio. I had to go out of my way to crash it, if I recall, I had 90ish synths open with 4 reverbs and a channel strip on each channel in Logic.

If I ever need 100 tracks with multiple reverbs on it, I have more than likely started a 311 tribute band, so please do the humane thing and pull the plug.

Up until I spilled coffee on it recently, my 2015 macbook pro was running just fine as well for smaller sessions, less than 24 tracks.
 
AceHyzer said:
I am a software engineer at Microsoft and I use Mac for everything outside of work, if that says anything. As stated by many others, for a Mac that mini is a great deal and it’ll do everything you want it to.

There are kits to upgrade the hard drive. You can put a 2TB in there for ~$250 but you need another apple silicon Mac available to you to restore it and reinstall Mac OS on it. And it definitely voids the warranty. I’m actually planning on picking one of these up for my studio and doing just that.
Click to expand...
Before I retired I was a Unidata programmer, worked in custom code for a software house with a manufacturing/erp/distribution system. Nice to be retired, lol.

What are your thoughts about this, which I found on Amazon. Says 'easy install'

Amazon.com: wusheation 2025 M4 Mac mini 1TB SSD Replacement Upgrade (1, TB) : Electronics

Amazon.com: wusheation 2025 M4 Mac mini 1TB SSD Replacement Upgrade (1, TB) : Electronics
www.amazon.com
 
AceHyzer said:
I am a software engineer at Microsoft and I use Mac for everything outside of work, if that says anything. As stated by many others, for a Mac that mini is a great deal and it’ll do everything you want it to.

There are kits to upgrade the hard drive. You can put a 2TB in there for ~$250 but you need another apple silicon Mac available to you to restore it and reinstall Mac OS on it. And it definitely voids the warranty. I’m actually planning on picking one of these up for my studio and doing just that.
Click to expand...
Well, kept digging..... this looks good. Doesn't block the power button (like others) and doesn't block the cooling (like others).
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RetiredUnit1 said:
Before I retired I was a Unidata programmer, worked in custom code for a software house with a manufacturing/erp/distribution system. Nice to be retired, lol.

What are your thoughts about this, which I found on Amazon. Says 'easy install'

Amazon.com: wusheation 2025 M4 Mac mini 1TB SSD Replacement Upgrade (1, TB) : Electronics

Amazon.com: wusheation 2025 M4 Mac mini 1TB SSD Replacement Upgrade (1, TB) : Electronics
www.amazon.com
Click to expand...
This would work but the kits I've found often have tools to help crack the thing open. Apple uses a clip system to close these rather than screws and it's a little disconcerting to open up, feels like it is going to break. If you were able to get the thing open this would likely do the trick.

RetiredUnit1 said:
Well, kept digging..... this looks good. Doesn't block the power button (like others) and doesn't block the cooling (like others).
View attachment 92095
Click to expand...
This looks cool and this way you wouldn't be in any danger of voiding the warranty! Also handy to have all the extra ports, so that is likely a really solid option. Also, you wouldn't have the need to re-flash a new operating system if you were to go this route, which would be nice.
 
AceHyzer said:
This would work but the kits I've found often have tools to help crack the thing open. Apple uses a clip system to close these rather than screws and it's a little disconcerting to open up, feels like it is going to break. If you were able to get the thing open this would likely do the trick.


This looks cool and this way you wouldn't be in any danger of voiding the warranty! Also handy to have all the extra ports, so that is likely a really solid option. Also, you wouldn't have the need to re-flash a new operating system if you were to go this route, which would be nice.
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly. I have it in my shopping cart, just waiting till my credit card rolls into the next payment period *tomorrow* to pull the trigger!!! 🤟 :cool:

Didn't know about the cracking thing. That would really bother me, lol.

My selected monitor, dude has sold over 1000 of them, and it says last one, but it said last one when I bought it, so he's either trying to limit the packing log jam, or making people buy in panic mode since it's so cheap.

www.ebay.com

Samsung UR591C 32" 4K UHD Curved Monitor 60hz 4ms LU32R591CWNXZA 887276350561 | eBay

Screen Size (Class)32. Samsung MagicBrightYes. Screen Size (cm)80.0. Set Weight with Stand5.5 kg. Set Weight without Stand4.8 kg. Item Condition. Refresh Rate60Hz. sRGB Coverage103%(Typ).
www.ebay.com

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