The IT Nerd

Something that has generated a lot of email in my inbox is which M4 Mac mini should people buy. It seems that there is a fair amount of confusion around this computer. And this hasn’t been helped by people noticing that depending on the upgrades that you choose, you can easily spend the price of two Mac mini’s without trying too hard. That prompted me to write this post to try and answer these questions as best as I can.

• M4 or M4 Pro?: To be honest, most people should go for the M4 model. The only reason why anyone should go for the M4 Pro model is that you need the performance for 4K (or higher) video editing, 3D rendering, or anything that will take advantage of the extra graphics and performance cores that the M4 Pro has. If that’s not you, save your money and go for the M4 model.
• Does Thunderbolt 5 matter?: I wrote an article on Thunderbolt 5, which by the way is only available on the M4 Pro model, here, but the short answer is that it doesn’t matter for anyone with the exception of the three people on planet Earth who have Thunderbolt 5 accessories. It will matter in a year or two when more accessories such as drives, docks and monitors appear that leverage Thunderbolt 5. I should also point out that the people who would care about Thunderbolt 5 are the same ones who would be in the target market for the M4 Pro model.
• About that power button: To me, the whole discussion about the power button is a total non issue. Modern Macs are incredibly power efficient that leaving it on would not make any noticeable difference in your power bill. Besides, when was the last time you turned off your computer? Rarely if ever I suspect.
• Should I Upgrade The RAM and Storage?: Here’s some random thoughts on this before I get to my recommendations. Upgrades from Apple are expensive, largely because you cannot upgrade after the fact. And before anyone mentions it, the fact that the storage in the Mac mini is removable does not mean you can upgrade it for less by going aftermarket. In fact, no aftermarket upgrade options exist as far as I am aware. Apple knows that so they get you for as much as they can get away with. The flip side of that is that Apple’s storage is way faster than it has any right to be. Ditto for their RAM because it’s basically packaged up with the CPU. That makes it very difficult to compare against say a garden variety PC with upgradable RAM and storage where neither is as fast. Now having said that, here’s my recommendations:
  • 16GB of RAM is fine for most people. Unless you are doing something really RAM intensive, there’s no logical reason for most people to upgrade the RAM.
  • Storage is another matter. The fact is that 256 GB of storage isn’t enough in my opinion. So, besides giving Apple your money to upgrade to 512GB, you might want to consider external storage such as a Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 drive as that’s going to be way cheaper per gigabyte versus what Apple charges.
  • If you really must upgrade both because you have a use case that demands more RAM and more storage, the M4 Pro variant is what you should be considering.

Hopefully I’ve answered all of your questions regarding the M4 Mac mini. If I missed something, please leave a comment below and I will help you as best as I can. Or if you’re still not sure which Mac mini you should get, leave a comment below with your specific use case and I will help you as best as I can.

This entry was posted on November 30, 2024 at 8:35 am and is filed under Tips with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.