# Mac Mini as a Master - specs



## simfoe (Jun 15, 2020)

Hi guys. I'm looking into getting a Mac Mini and using it as a Master, and using my current system (PC) as the second machine with VEPro. 

I was looking at the various Mac Mini models and wondered what specs I need to look out for when thinking about a Master computer. Would the bog standard model be okay? Would it better be to plump for the six-core i5? And, would the standard Ethernet port be fast enough (the upgrade is 10gb vs 1gb). 

Thanks!


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## Bassious (Jun 17, 2020)

Ive just set that exact system up recently. Added the 6 core i7, 64 gb ram and 2 tb drive. Ve pro to pc at 1gb seems ok so far. Im satisfied so far with the performance but i am watching closely because the mini does work hard and seems to heat up as a result.
Im running cubase 10.5 and final cut pro with apollo stuff as well. Doing live tracking and vsts native and ve pro but i havent had a track count over 100.
The fan spools up noticeably when working but noise is not overwhelming and thats mounted on the desktop. Im cautious about the heat but its 4 months old, early days.
The mini was a good choice for me because the bulk of my i/o is uad2 BUT the new macs are all tb3 so the layout requires some planning.
Overall id say yes. Mine was 5500$can but it does everything i need and is flexible and has a great footprint, ive eaten larger sandwiches!


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jun 17, 2020)

I use my Mac Mini as a master as well:

mac mini 2018
3.2 GHz i7 6-Core
32Gb RAM
1TB NVMe Storage
10GbE

If my budget had been higher I would have gone 2TB storage, just to be maxed out 

As now I have 3 1TB SSDs connected to the machine via USB-C (BBCSO Spitfire Drive, 1TB Samsung T5 and a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO for EW Hollywood Orchestra Diamond)


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## Rory (Jun 17, 2020)

Bassious said:


> i am watching closely because the mini does work hard and seems to heat up as a result.
> 
> Im cautious about the heat but its 4 months old, early days.



This was exhaustively discussed and debated on the Mac Rumors forum when the 2018 Mac mini was released. There's a thread on there that goes on for many pages.

I was in the camp that figured that the engineers who designed the processor know what they're doing. Two years later, the alleged heat issue has yet to materialise as an actual issue, and that's not because everybody is babying their minis 

People who are concerned about this should just get Apple Care and stop worrying.


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## SupremeFist (Jun 17, 2020)

Rory said:


> This was exhaustively discussed and debated on the Mac Rumors forum when the 2018 Mac mini was released. There's a thread on there that goes on for many pages.
> 
> I was in the camp that figured that the engineers who designed the processor know what they're doing. Two years later, the alleged heat issue has yet to materialise as an actual issue, and that's not because everybody is babying their minis
> 
> People who are concerned about this should just get Apple Care and stop worrying.


Yep, it's designed so that the enclosure itself is a massive heatsink so it gets much hotter than a laptop (because you're not supposed to have it on your lap ).


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## Rory (Jun 17, 2020)

simfoe said:


> Hi guys. I'm looking into getting a Mac Mini and using it as a Master, and using my current system (PC) as the second machine with VEPro.
> 
> I was looking at the various Mac Mini models and wondered what specs I need to look out for when thinking about a Master computer. Would the bog standard model be okay? Would it better be to plump for the six-core i5? And, would the standard Ethernet port be fast enough (the upgrade is 10gb vs 1gb).
> 
> Thanks!




I have the i7 (3.2GHz, six core) and can't comment on how the i5 would perform.

I have the ethernet upgrade, but you should not bother unless you know exactly why you want it. Very few people need it now, or will in the future.

Be aware of the fact that there are only two RAM slots. This affects how much RAM you purchase at the outset. You can't purchase two 16GB modules and then just add another 32GB. There's nowhere to put it unless you remove current RAM.

I installed the RAM myself. It is fairly straightforward unless you're all thumbs, and Apple has made it clear that doing it yourself will not void the warranty. You can also hire a computer tech to do it for not much money. There are several YouTube videos on the process. This MacSales video is one of the better ones:


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## Bassious (Jun 17, 2020)

Agreed, I was comfortable based on history. I had gone thru the thread you mentioned and that discussion helped me make my purchase. It was noticeable to me because i was migrating from a 5 yr old pc which is in a remote room for noise control. Placing the tiny unit on my work desk and having access was a real cultural shift for me. I couldnt help but notice as i worked but it really is never an interference. Because of the convenience I also added a new mac book pro with 64 gigs of ram and 8 tb of ssd to migrate my vst libraries off the pc. Between the 2 i have much more flexibility and it all works really well.


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## wayne_rowley (Jun 17, 2020)

I have the i5 and am happy with the performance. The fan rarely spins up. There was a recent YouTube video comparing the i5 Mini to the i7 and the conclusion was that the i7 offered negligible improvements over the i5. The focus was video editing rather than audio, but from the cpu benchmarks, I’m not convinced the performance benefit of the i7 justifies the upgrade cost.


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## SupremeFist (Jun 17, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> I have the i5 and am happy with the performance. The fan rarely spins up. There was a recent YouTube video comparing the i5 Mini to the i7 and the conclusion was that the i7 offered negligible improvements over the i5. The focus was video editing rather than audio, but from the cpu benchmarks, I’m not convinced the performance benefit of the i7 justifies the upgrade cost.


The i7 is roughly 10% faster on single-core and 20% faster on multi-core, plus it has hyperthreading so 12 threads rather than 6. Whether it's worth it depends on your use, of course, but I thought it a no-brainer for (assumed) extended lifespan.


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## Rory (Jun 17, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> I have the i5 and am happy with the performance. The fan rarely spins up. There was a recent YouTube video comparing the i5 Mini to the i7 and the conclusion was that the i7 offered negligible improvements over the i5. The focus was video editing rather than audio, but from the cpu benchmarks, I’m not convinced the performance benefit of the i7 justifies the upgrade cost.



You are presumably talking about the video below, released three days ago. The person who made it decided to keep the i7 and sell his i5. He found that the difference in video export speed was not great for compressed 4K video, but that the i7 was noticeably faster with raw footage. That is born out by his numbers, which show that the i7 is significantly more efficient with large video files. We're talking minutes, not seconds.

In any event, there is a basic problem with this video. He only tested export, not video editing. It is well known that Apple's T2 chip greatly speeds up video encoding. In the fall of 2018, Apple released a new version of Compressor that utilised the T2 chip and left previous export efficiency in the dust.

Export is just a different issue from editing efficiency. On both issues, there is no way that I would give up my i7 for an i5, or for that matter give up my external Vega 56 graphics card.

Here is the video:


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## wayne_rowley (Jun 18, 2020)

Yes, that’s the one. As I said the focus is on video rather than audio. I’m quite happy with the i5 and haven’t yet got to the stage where I feel it’s too slow or underpowered for my needs. Of course that’s bound to happen sooner or later!! However, when it does I suspect rather than wishing I’d gone for the i7 (which if you look at Geekbench is only 15% faster on multi-core) I’ll probably be looking for 8+ core system.

Wayne


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## Cat (Jul 20, 2020)

Would you guys store any demanding sample libraries on Mac Mini’s internal DSD disk?


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## wayne_rowley (Jul 20, 2020)

Cat said:


> Would you guys store any demanding sample libraries on Mac Mini’s internal DSD disk?



You can, because the internal SSD is fast. But I don’t as space on the internal is limited.

wayne


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## Cat (Jul 20, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> You can, because the internal SSD is fast. But I don’t as space on the internal is limited.
> 
> wayne


It is incredibly fast, yes, but I was wondering if the fact that the Operating System is also stored on it would impact the performance at some point. Also there is a problem with heating. NVMe's tend to get very hot and then they throttle down the speed (a lot!!). So are there people doing this with sample libraries without having any trouble?


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## wayne_rowley (Jul 20, 2020)

Cat said:


> It is incredibly fast, yes, but I was wondering if the fact that the Operating System is also stored on it would impact the performance at some point. Also there is a problem with heating. NVMe's tend to get very hot and then they throttle down the speed (a lot!!). So are there people doing this with sample libraries without having any trouble?



In regards to space, I’ve always understood the need to keep at least 25% free space on a Mac OS System drive.

As for heat, they can get hot, but I don’t think sample streaming taxes them in the same way that video streaming does (for example). I use external SATA drives over USB, and even with a lot of tracks I am barely using the drives at anywhere near their capacity and maximum speed. I would imagine the same is true on an internal NVME.


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## telecode101 (Jul 20, 2020)

..


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jul 23, 2020)

Rory said:


> This was exhaustively discussed and debated on the Mac Rumors forum when the 2018 Mac mini was released. There's a thread on there that goes on for many pages.
> 
> I was in the camp that figured that the engineers who designed the processor know what they're doing. Two years later, the alleged heat issue has yet to materialise as an actual issue, and that's not because everybody is babying their minis
> 
> People who are concerned about this should just get Apple Care and stop worrying.


Had mine since Nov '19 now
Since then I have used it as a Master DAW system, Edited and exported full HD Live Stream Concert footage, Ran Live Concert Pro Tools sessions on it along with multiple VMware instances etc.

Machine is fine for everything I have thrown at it


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## synthnut1 (Jul 24, 2020)

Wayne,
My understanding of the 25% rule pertained to HD’s and not ssd’s..


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## Kent (Jul 24, 2020)

synthnut1 said:


> Wayne,
> My understanding of the 25% rule pertained to HD’s and not ssd’s..


You will want to keep some free space on the OS drive though—tmp, var, etc. files need to be written, and to download anything requires extra space (above the size of the file to be downloaded) too.

for, say, an external sample drive, which will be read often but not really written to, then an SSD can be basically full.


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## synthnut1 (Jul 24, 2020)

Thanks for the info.....makes sense....Jim


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## puffer3 (Jul 26, 2020)

I just ordered and i7 mini and some ram to upgrade it. I sold my 2011 27” i7 imac (for $450!) on friday and got an additional cinema display to use from work for 80 bucks. I had toyed around with the idea of an old trashcan because all My displays, apollo interface and storage are thunderbolt 2, but i decided the adage “Get the fastest, newest computer you can afford” was the best pick here. So many people seem happy with the mini! I bought 64 gig of ram from newegg for just over 300$ To max it out. Now i have to wait a week for it to arrive from Hong kong. I am excited! The only downside so far was paying 100$ for two tb2/tb3 dongles. I hope they play well with my apollo 8 interface, g-raid storage and two tb displays. I only got 512gb drive as i am mostly keeping it system and using external storage fo libs.

i too went with the 10gb ethernet bc i recently found a maxxed out 12 core 5,1 macpro cheesegrater for a song. i am gonna throw a pcie ethernet card in it and use it as a massive vep host in the future when i have more sample libraries. I would just use this computer honestly as it is screaming and the geekbench scores are 5500 multicore. I even got catalina installed on it! But no thinderbolt or way to add it!!! Still not a bad system for 100$ (12 core 3.3, 64 gig of ram and 4 hdd bays) anyone use a maxed out old pro in their setup? even tho i dont have too much need for it atm i thought learning to start using vep and working with a multi computer system would be good experience for when i get a job as a composers assistant or tech.

I was testing hd speeds with blackmagic speed test and doing geekbench scores. I know both these are general tests and less composer specific, but they are the most popular benchmark programs. Does anyone have any more specific benchmark styles for our type of work? Besides just filling up a session and checking the cpu and ram usage? Just wondering.


Since my displays are both tb, and i sold my main system, i have been passing the time waiting for my new mini using the cheesegrater with my projector to make reaktor patches on my wall. Feels very minority report. Now i just need gesture control....


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 26, 2020)

Get the biggest baddest processor they can stuff in the mini. The problem I discovered using my 2013 Mac Pro as the master machine was the CPU load from my mixing plugins. I realize you can mix within VEP on the other machines, but it's more cumbersome than mixing within Logic on the main machine. The nature of my work requires my sessions to be super flexible, so I'm constantly adjusting the mix.

Honestly though a beasted out mini will be significantly more powerful than the Mac I was using (up until I got my 2019 Mac Pro ), so as long as you spec it out right it should be more than capable of doing whatever you need it to, assuming the other machines are up to the task as well.


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 26, 2020)

Cat said:


> Would you guys store any demanding sample libraries on Mac Mini’s internal DSD disk?



No, especially not with the crazy speeds you can get with thunderbolt 3 externals these days (for cheap).


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## SupremeFist (Jul 26, 2020)

Rtomproductions said:


> Honestly though a beasted out mini will be significantly more powerful than the Mac I was using (up until I got my 2019 Mac Pro ), so as long as you spec it out right it should be more than capable of doing whatever you need it to, assuming the other machines are up to the task as well.


Yep, I've been working on Macs since the 1990s and my Mini i7 64Gb is the best bang for the buck Apple machine I've ever had.


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## Ashermusic (Jul 26, 2020)

I too am thinking of ditching my 2013 iMac and going the Mini route.


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## Ashermusic (Jul 26, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> I have the i5 and am happy with the performance. The fan rarely spins up. There was a recent YouTube video comparing the i5 Mini to the i7 and the conclusion was that the i7 offered negligible improvements over the i5. The focus was video editing rather than audio, but from the cpu benchmarks, I’m not convinced the performance benefit of the i7 justifies the upgrade cost.



It is my understanding that for apps that use multi-threading, like Logic Pro X, an i7 has a significant advantage over an i5. Am I wrong?


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## wayne_rowley (Jul 26, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> It is my understanding that for apps that use multi-threading, like Logic Pro X, an i7 has a significant advantage over an i5. Am I wrong?



Possibly. I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve seen stats claiming a 20% is improvement in multi-core for the i7. There‘s not much difference in single core from what I recall.

Thing is I haven’t yet maxed out my i5! Of course I’m a hobbyist and don’t run massive templates. Even so, if/when the day comes that I consider the i5 Mac Mini insufficient, I don’t think I’ll be looking at moving to the i7 model. I’ll probably look for an 8 core + Mac. 

Wayne


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## Ashermusic (Jul 26, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> Possibly. I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve seen stats claiming a 20% is improvement in multi-core for the i7. There‘s not much difference in single core from what I recall.
> 
> Thing is I haven’t yet maxed out my i5! Of course I’m a hobbyist and don’t run massive templates. Even so, if/when the day comes that I consider the i5 Mac Mini insufficient, I don’t think I’ll be looking at moving to the i7 model. I’ll probably look for an 8 core + Mac.
> 
> Wayne




20% is a LOT!


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## wayne_rowley (Jul 26, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> 20% is a LOT!



20% is 20%  That’s assuming benchmarks transfer into real performance increases.

I‘m not knocking the i7. I went for the i5 as it was a good deal on the refurbished site. The i7 upgrade would have been around 20% more in cost, so you get what you pay for.

As I said, I’m not maxing it out currently. But when I do, and I am looking for an upgrade, I will be looking for more than an extra 20%. This Mac Mini is nearly a 100% performance increase from my 2011 MacBook Pro.


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## Jdiggity1 (Jul 26, 2020)

i just bought the i7 model. looking forward to seeing what it can do. Looks good on paper. The T2 chips had a wobbly start with audio, but supposedly that's all been addressed with updates. We'll see.


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## Kent (Jul 26, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> 20% is 20%  That’s assuming benchmarks transfer into real performance increases.
> 
> I‘m not knocking the i7. I went for the i5 as it was a good deal on the refurbished site. The i7 upgrade would have been around 20% more in cost, so you get what you pay for.
> 
> As I said, I’m not maxing it out currently. But when I do, and I am looking for an upgrade, I will be looking for more than an extra 20%. This Mac Mini is nearly a 100% performance increase from my 2011 MacBook Pro.


You also have to think through things like VI performance is not 1:1 with absolute specs or artificial benchmarks. And, I could be a bit out of date here, but isn’t it true that i5 does not support hyperthreading?

::edit:: I see now that this has already been brought up, hah!


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## wayne_rowley (Jul 27, 2020)

Jdiggity1 said:


> i just bought the i7 model. looking forward to seeing what it can do. Looks good on paper. The T2 chips had a wobbly start with audio, but supposedly that's all been addressed with updates. We'll see.



Just be careful with updates. A Mojave security patch did something nasty to my T2 firmware causing kernel panics on startup. The only fix was to upgrade to Catalina.


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## Kent (Jul 27, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> Just be careful with updates. A Mojave security patch did something nasty to my T2 firmware causing kernel panics on startup. The only fix was to upgrade to Catalina.







- Apple, probably


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 27, 2020)

Jdiggity1 said:


> i just bought the i7 model. looking forward to seeing what it can do. Looks good on paper. The T2 chips had a wobbly start with audio, but supposedly that's all been addressed with updates. We'll see.



Good for you man! That'll be a capable machine. I always advise people to get the best CPU they can get for the system; RAM and storage are much easier upgrades than CPU's, so if you have to cheap out, cheap out on those elements and you can upgrade them later.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jul 27, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> I too am thinking of ditching my 2013 iMac and going the Mini route.



Whaaaaat? I thought you had an iMac Pro?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 27, 2020)

puffer3 said:


> But no thinderbolt or way to add it!!! Still not a bad system for 100$ (12 core 3.3, 64 gig of ram and 4 hdd bays) anyone use a maxed out old pro in their setup? even



$100?! And if you're running Catalina you must have an upgraded video card. Wow.

Yes, that's my main machine (12 x 3.GHz), and other people here use them.

Apparently there actually is a way to get it to run Thunderbolt, involving Boot Camp or maybe it was Windows machine and some hoop-jumping.


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## Ashermusic (Jul 27, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Whaaaaat? I thought you had an iMac Pro?



I wish.


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## puffer3 (Jul 27, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> $100?! And if you're running Catalina you must have an upgraded video card. Wow.
> 
> Yes, that's my main machine (12 x 3.GHz), and other people here use them.



yes it has and NVIDIA 3gb card inside on one of the PCIe 16x lanes. the macpro had been upgraded by a company called "editbuilder" so it had all been flashed and the video card was all working. I just threw in an SSD in one of the SATA bays and installed Catalina off a usb stick.

I was dreaming about the sonnet cards for nvme storage but i will start with just a single 1tb on one of the cheapo single drive cards with a heatsink. What kind of storage and audio interface are you using in your system Nick? 




> Apparently there actually is a way to get it to run Thunderbolt, involving Boot Camp or maybe it was Windows machine and some hoop-jumping.



I did see that people had gotten TB working with macOS softbooted in windows but I was weary about reliability of that work around. Maybe better to get an old RME interface that would play nice with this computer? I love my apollo 8 so it is a bit of a dealbreaker. Still I have had fun using this macpro workhorse. Please excuse me for taking this macmini thread down a shady 5,1 macpro cul de sac.


Just figured out that Catalina wont support my ancient midisport 4x4 so now i have to upgrade my midi interface too for this new setup...smh what did i get myself into? I don't like spending money on MIDI but I guess I am stuck now. Seems like lots of older midi interfaces will be paperweighted by this OS unless u had the drivers installed before you upgraded.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 27, 2020)

puffer3 said:


> What kind of storage and audio interface are you using in your system Nick?



Metric Halo 2882, which doesn't work on Catalina unless you do a $500 board swap (and I don't want to invest $500 in a 20-year-old interface that works really well and is only worth $500).

Storage - regular 600MB SSDs running at half speed because of the internal SATA 2 bus (except for one on a SATA 3 card, which doesn't make any difference; 300MB/S is still great).



puffer3 said:


> Seems like lots of older midi interfaces will be paperweighted by this OS



That's why my machine is frozen on Mojave. Catalina breaks all 32-bit software.


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## rnb_2 (Jul 30, 2020)

For anybody who is considering the i5 mini, there’s a coupon on Amazon for $150 off the 512GB/8GB config - see https://appleinsider.com/articles/2...ts-150-price-drop-with-hidden-amazon-discount . You’ll have to upgrade the RAM, of course, but it’s a good starting point.


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