Mac Mini M2/M2 pro

[ghettosynth]

It's still an $800 premium to go from the base SSD to 2TB. That's four times the cost of a competing M.2 SSD today.

no need to upscale ssd in desktop Macs, just buy external thunderbolt case for ssd and a ssd of your choosing

I find this to be tedious and you cannot make your boot drive work this way, at least not without limitations. My current M1 is setup that way. I won't do it again. The smaller drives have a shorter life-span. I consider 2TB to the be base level size for any new machine in my studio. That should be about $200 for a reliable drive.

I had 512gb m1 Mac mini with 2tb external ssd for instrument library. What tedious about it? Connect and forget.

You can't boot from it and still run certain kexts. So, your boot drive has to be the internal drive that has a shorter life and, if it dies, can potentially brick your mac. This is before we start talking about the tedium of external thunderbolt cables.

Compared to a modern windows machine, this is a metric ass-load of tedium.

[Serhii Kot]

It's still an $800 premium to go from the base SSD to 2TB. That's four times the cost of a competing M.2 SSD today.

no need to upscale ssd in desktop Macs, just buy external thunderbolt case for ssd and a ssd of your choosing

I find this to be tedious and you cannot make your boot drive work this way, at least not without limitations. My current M1 is setup that way. I won't do it again. The smaller drives have a shorter life-span. I consider 2TB to the be base level size for any new machine in my studio. That should be about $200 for a reliable drive.

I had 512gb m1 Mac mini with 2tb external ssd for instrument library. What tedious about it? Connect and forget.

You can't boot from it and still run certain kexts. So, your boot drive has to be the internal drive that has a shorter life and, if it dies, can potentially brick your mac. This is before we start talking about the tedium of external thunderbolt cables.

Compared to a modern windows machine, this is a metric ass-load of tedium.

Why do you need to boot from it? And you can actually.

What kexts? It is not hackintosh. Setup and forget.

512 ssd will easily last you a decade, this Mac will be not relevant by that time

[PAK]

Sure, but, they can't keep their prices up there forever because they do have to compete with PC sales. A 2TB SSD for $800 a decade ago would have been a bargain, so it's just a matter of time.

Do they compete with the general PC market though? Arguable I wish it was more so given M1 Ultra pricing (which is about on par with a prior gen Intel 12900k for audio, but at 2x the costs of an equivalent system). There are certain groups of high end users Apple seem to want to keep though, so we'll see how much they're prepared to compromise, on locking down Apple Silicon, to keep them..

Well, if M.2 is coming to the Studio, then IMNSHO, it's a MUST wait and see.

It's not coming to the Studio. It's said to be for the new Mac Pro (Entry fee: $6k+ ?), along with support for (iirc) two PCIe slots (I assume Gen 5). We'll see..

Without changes, to how the "T2" security works, it'll still require the internal storage to be present before booting from any M.2 storage device. It's clear, from others remarks (not yours), some people still don't understand this T2 restriction, and think you just boot straight from external storage.

[PAK]

I wonder if the SSD and RAM in those are different than consumer grade? I don't know.

No. It's regular "nand flash" sourced from many suppliers. It's literally the same stuff as they use in the iPhone. Apple do all their own drive controller software though. So, other than for who makes the chips, it's Apple's storage drive. I'm not sure if they've ever stated specs (write cycles / expected lifespan) for their storage (?)

It's been said they'll soon move to "3D nand", which stacks more memory cells on a single chip. They can use this to give more storage for less money, or to provide extra cell capacity to increase the product lifespan. Based on most Apple actions it's more likely they will use this to reduce component costs, as long as they deem lifespan "good enough".

[Bombadil]

I'm glad I got an M1 BTO when I did. It was on for hours yesterday, I touched it, it was room temperature. For what I need it to do with Logic, I couldn't be happier. The new machines seem to be underwhelming.

[sQeetz]

The new machines seem to be underwhelming.

Hope not. Just spent a lot of cash on one of those machines.

[Bombadil]

I hope it works. I'm seeing a number of 'DO NOT BUY' vids on YT.

[sQeetz]

Should I have waited until 3 nanometer Chips have been public?
Probably... yes
I need more power right now. And going from an M1 16GB 1TB to a M2 Pro 12 core 32GB 2 TB System might just be the boost I need for the time coming.

[Jolaff]

It seams the Mac Studio is better for Logic Pro...

[sQeetz]

It seams the Mac Studio is better for Logic Pro...

Right now a Mini with Pro Chip might be cheaper than a Studio with equivalent Specs.
Just wait until the Studio gets M2

[Scotty]

I think it depends on where the bottleneck is happening. The extra TB of storage space isn't going to help with your track count but it would be nice to have. The 32 GB could help if you are maxing out the ram and it is swapping to the drive dynamically. The Geekbench scores should be pretty reliable as an indication of what you could expect. That and the logic bench tests.

If you need a lot of tracks and run a a lot of plugins and you aren't opposed to a PC build (I use both Macs and PCS) the Ryzen 7000 series can achieve double the performance on multicore workloads.

NOt arguing with you at all but I'd be looking at the numbers and doing the math unless you have the cash readily at hand and can upgrade without having to worry about the cost.

My two unsolicited bits.

Should I have waited until 3 nanometer Chips have been public?
Probably... yes
I need more power right now. And going from an M1 16GB 1TB to a M2 Pro 12 core 32GB 2 TB System might just be the boost I need for the time coming.

[jdoo]

What monitor are folks getting for their Mini? Ive order a Apple M2 Pro, 10‑core CPU, 16GB RAM with the 1TB SSD. This to replace an aging iMac. Will be using it with Logic Pro, and some soft synth stuff, so nothing graphically challenging. Based on the Tech Radar article "Best monitors for Mac Mini in 2023 article, i budgeted for the Dell U2720QM. Around $540 or so. Starting to second guess that though. Any recommendations?

[Scotty]

If you are using it just for Logic and you don't need to be viewing it off axis or worry about colour accuracy it might be overkill. If you've got the budget and also do some video editing it looks to be a reasonable choice but the colour accuracy out of the box is rated as only decent but can be calibrated and is supposed to be impressive. If you plan on doing gaming it has a low refresh rate (60hz) - not great but but also low lag which is good. That may matter to you if you take your gaming seriously. It really depend on your application(s) and your budget.

What monitor are folks getting for their Mini? Ive order a Apple M2 Pro, 10‑core CPU, 16GB RAM with the 1TB SSD. This to replace an aging iMac. Will be using it with Logic Pro, and some soft synth stuff, so nothing graphically challenging. Based on the Tech Radar article "Best monitors for Mac Mini in 2023 article, i budgeted for the Dell U2720QM. Around $540 or so. Starting to second guess that though. Any recommendations?

[jdoo]

Thanks Scotty. My budget is going to be near the $450 - $550 mark for a monitor for this mac mini. I plan on using this Mac primarily for music, and will keep the iMac on my home office desktop and put this mac mini and monitor on a nearby music workstation desk (Wavebone Headquarter) I recently picked up. So.. the mini will do music 90% of the time.. and then, primarily for playing/recording. I am tempted to look for a dual monitor setup, if one exists, that would work with the Mini Pro M2.. and be < $600 ??

If you are using it just for Logic and you don't need to be viewing it off axis or worry about colour accuracy it might be overkill. If you've got the budget and also do some video editing it looks to be a reasonable choice but the colour accuracy out of the box is rated as only decent but can be calibrated and is supposed to be impressive. If you plan on doing gaming it has a low refresh rate (60hz) - not great but but also low lag which is good. That may matter to you if take your gaming seriously. It really depend on your application(s) and your budget.

What monitor are folks getting for their Mini? Ive order a Apple M2 Pro, 10‑core CPU, 16GB RAM with the 1TB SSD. This to replace an aging iMac. Will be using it with Logic Pro, and some soft synth stuff, so nothing graphically challenging. Based on the Tech Radar article "Best monitors for Mac Mini in 2023 article, i budgeted for the Dell U2720QM. Around $540 or so. Starting to second guess that though. Any recommendations?

[sQeetz]

Thanks Scotty. My budget is going to be near the $450 - $550 mark for a monitor for this mac mini. I plan on using this Mac primarily for music, and will keep the iMac on my home office desktop and put this mac mini and monitor on a nearby music workstation desk (Wavebone Headquarter) I recently picked up. So.. the mini will do music 90% of the time.. and then, primarily for playing/recording. I am tempted to look for a dual monitor setup, if one exists, that would work with the Mini Pro M2.. and be < $600 ??

600 bucks for a decent dual monitor setup? Scrap that.