2018 Mini Mac Mini Features

2018 Mini Mac Mini Features

Unlike the 5K iMac, the Mac mini features four Thunderbolt 3 ports, which lend you many more options when it comes to external expansion.

With the release of the Mac Pro, that designation now belongs to Apples professional-oriented desktop machine with PCIe expandability.

Watch our latest episode of The Rewind as I take another look at Apples diminutive Mac.

While its still the same Mac mini from 2018, users now get more storage for their money on the two off-the-shelf configurations.

Apple seems to have finally realized that 128GB of storage isnt enough for todays Macs, as weve seen it slowly eliminating base 128GB SKUs across the entire Mac product line.

For example, the 128GB flash storage tier featured a measly 600MBs write performance, while the 256GB models and higher more than doubled that.

Because theres no display, and it resides in a compact form factor, the Mac mini is the most flexible computer that Apple sells in terms of placement.

This computer looks good on a desktop, next to a TV in a home entertainment system, or virtually anywhere else.

Its small size and stature makes it an ideal desktop companion for minimalists.

Fan noise is definitely noticeable, but it didnt seem to bother me like I thought it would when coming from inherently quiet machines like the Mac Pro and iMac Pro.

In other words, its a very basic quad-core CPU thats should be more than fine for basic tasks, but youll find the upgraded six-core i7 CPUs much better able for handling intense workloads like video editing in Final Cut Pro X, Handbrake encoding, etc.

Normally Id say upgrade the RAM as well, but I recommend doing that for yourself instead.

Upgrading the RAM in the Mac mini takes a little time to learn, but Ive done it so many times now that I can perform the upgrade in around 10 minutes.

I plan on making a brand new video about Mac mini RAM upgrades in the future, so stay tuned.

A couple of years later, and its still no surprise; this GPU remains the Achilles heel of the Mac mini.

This external chassis, which features a Radeon Pro Vega 56, is very quiet and provides iMac Pro-like performance.

The downside of such a chassis is that its expensive and somewhat bulky, but you can always opt for alternate eGPU options if desired.

You can save hundreds of dollars by opting to upgrade the RAM inside the Mac mini yourself instead of adding it on during the build-to-order process.

Of course, its not as easy as it is to upgrade the RAM in the 5K iMac or the Mac Pro, but with a little bit of know-how, the proper tools, and about 15 minutes, you can easily upgrade the 8GB base RAM to 32GB or 64GB of RAM, which you can acquire much cheaper via Amazon.

If you want 64GB, youll need two 32GB modules since the Mac mini features just two SODIMM slots.

As a regular Final Cut Pro X user, a most frustrating bottleneck occurs when you run out of RAM while editing video.

This causes writes to the swap files, which results in stutter, lag, and other suboptimal performance issues.

With the 2018 Mac mini, RAM upgrades are so easy that memory starvation should never be an issue.

2018 Mac Mini