The new Mac Mini is out

Price drop in the entry model Mac Mini..., posted on October 16, 2014 at 19:42:32
AbeCollins Audiophile Posts: 46301 Location: USA Joined: June 22, 2001 Contributor Since: February 2, 2002	...which would make a nice music server with a bit more memory and swapping out the HDD for a SSD. The next model up will be a great general purpose Mac. I was hoping for an update to the MacBook Pro line or the 21-inch iMac. They came out with a very high-end high resolution (5K) 27-inch iMac but not what I need.

RE: The new Mac Mini is out, posted on October 16, 2014 at 20:40:39

farmdoc
Audiophile

Posts: 190
Location: No. California
Joined: December 8, 2002

I look forward to inmates who use the Mac mini as a server commenting on the new lineup. Specifically, would they suggest up to 16 RAM? Go with the fusion drive or the 256 SSD? Is a faster processor needed or the baseline Haswell enough? With the Thunderbolt 2 ports, is there a need for Thunderbolt backup drives or maybe use a Thunderbolt-FW adapter to a FW drive?

Those of us who have been sitting on the edge waiting for the update could use their guidence before we make the move.

For a server, the old i7...., posted on October 18, 2014 at 18:37:51

Rod M
Web Geek

Posts: 16245
Location: So. California
Joined: March 1, 1999
Contributor
Since: March 1, 1999

B&H has them for $739 shipped. Add an SSD and 16gb of ram.

If it's a music server, the base model at $499 is fine, no upgrades needed, just hang a big USB drive off of it.

The biggest advantage of the Haswell is a little lower power usage. But the new graphics chip is better if you were doing video editing or gaming, not needed for a server. The extra Thunderbolt is nice. I use one to convert to a VGA output for an old 22" 720 flat screen TV that doesn't have a DVI port, but supports VGA. So, a Thunderbolt drive would be nice. However, that would be if it was for real time writes and reads like a db or something. As a backup or media storage, USB 3.0 or NAS if plenty fast enough.

The best deal in my mind is the old $799 i7 version. Add memory and a 256GB or 512GB SSD. Between that and the internal 1TB, it's plenty of storage. Then hang a 2TB USB drive off of it for backup.

I loaded up a 128GB SSD with Mavericks and Apache, MySQL, PHP and all the other junk and still have 72GB left for data.

-Rod

Read today that RAM is soldered in on the new Mac Mini..., posted on October 18, 2014 at 19:52:00

Ivan303
Audiophile

Posts: 48887
Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM
Joined: February 26, 2001

Still can upgrade the SSD but not RAM. :-(

Link below:

First they came for the dumb-asses
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a dumb-ass

New 2014 Mac Mini Has Soldered RAM, Not User Replaceable

RE: For a server, the old i7...., posted on October 18, 2014 at 23:44:13

jumpsturdy
Audiophile

Posts: 194
Location: New England
Joined: April 5, 2002

Pretty much what I have done. 2012 mini with i7 which I bought at minimum configuration and immediately opened and added a 240gb ssd and 16 mgs of RAM. Had five firewire 800 drives from 2-4 tb and I just swapped into one of the enclosures a new WD red 6tb which I am using with USB3; and the remaining firewire drives daisy chained. Works great and is used exclusively for music. The multiple drives provide the peace of mind of several separate back-ups.
Only two issues have been the line noise concern with USB3 and the recent failure (Mavericks and later) of firewire 800 drives being able to sleep. The first issue I resolved by wrapping the internal USB jack in copper foil (which I did when I was adding the ssd and ram) and by adding a small piece of foil tape around the part of the external plug that shows bare metal. Seems to work well.
As to the firewire problem it seems the choice is to either let them spin 24/7 and hope you get lucky as far as longevity, or manually eject them and turn off the enclosure's power. This second option is what I am doing given their only periodic use as back-up.
I also run bootcamp/windows 8.1 which I use exclusively to run JRiver 20. Which I actually really like for both the sound quality, the configuration options and their Theatre Mode which makes the mini interface well with a large screen tv and function well at distances up to 12 feet from the screen.
Bottom line, if I were looking to buy another mini for music I would probably buy a used 2012 i7 on ebay and do the same mods again rather than go with a new model.

Thanks Rod & Jumpsturdy, posted on October 19, 2014 at 05:49:10
LWR Audiophile Posts: 66808 Location: The woods Joined: August 12, 2003	I will look for a used I7.

RE: For a server, the old i7...., posted on October 21, 2014 at 04:56:12
lokie Audiophile Posts: 1989 Location: Georgia, USA Joined: January 28, 2003	I think you have this right. The recent release sounds like a real dud: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/19/mac-mini-2014-benchmark/

A 'dud' in Multi Core performance...., posted on October 21, 2014 at 08:19:03
Ivan303 Audiophile Posts: 48887 Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM Joined: February 26, 2001	Because the new MAC mini does not offer a 'quad core' processor. But then, who would buy a Mac mini to run tasks, like movie editing, that take advantage of 'multiple cores' anyway? That would be work for a MAC Pro or iMAC. First they came for the dumb-asses And I did not speak out Because I was not a dumb-ass

RE: A 'dud' in Multi Core performance...., posted on October 21, 2014 at 08:38:58

Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007

There are audio applications requiring extensive signal processing. These include sample rate conversion and digital room correction, both potentially relevant to audiophile playback. Software is available that takes advantage of multiple cores, indeed some of these programs won't run well at the highest sample rates on 2 core machines.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

HQPlayer

RE: "can utilize up to around 27 cores depending on configuration"..., posted on October 21, 2014 at 18:02:53

Ivan303
Audiophile

Posts: 48887
Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM
Joined: February 26, 2001

That would be doing some signal processing, I'll give you that.

Seeing as the MAC Pro maxes out at 12 cores (think you can up that to 16 with an after-market Intel chip upgrade but it might void your warranty), I'm guessing your audio computer must quite a box!

I think the new MAC Mini with dual cores and Hyper-Threading (poor man's quad core) will just have to do it for me. ;-)

Link below:

First they came for the dumb-asses
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a dumb-ass

Intel 17 4578U

RE: "can utilize up to around 27 cores depending on configuration"..., posted on October 22, 2014 at 08:19:43

Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007

No, my audio computer is not a hot box. It is a few year old core i5 with two cores. This is sufficient to perform room eq on DXD and upsample it to DSD128 for playback on my DAC, but only if no other application runs, as CPU utilization is over 50%. It is also sufficient to perform room eq on DSD64 and remodulate to DSD64 and send that to my DAC, but not to remodulate to DSD128. Also, doing room correction at DSD64 the CPU fan spins up from 1200 RPM to above 2000 RPM in the summer months and this is noisy. A faster machine that run silently would be nice to have.

I also run iZotope RX on this machine. For some restoration work it would be nice to have a machine with 64 cores or more to enable some editing functions to preview in real-time. However, this is a matter of "want" not "need". I have no doubt that computers could get a million times faster than they are today and there would still be applications that would benefit from more speed. :-)

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

Computer Audio Asylum

The new Mac Mini is out

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