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2018 Mac Mini

I'm not surprised at all. Kinda figured that people assuming swapping the ram would be an easy DIY situation were going to be SOL.

Even adding or replacing a 2nd drive in the 2012 mini was pretty complicated. It may turn out swapping ram can be done DIY, if so I imagine it's going to be significantly more complicated than swapping drives was in the 2012...
If a tech can do it w/o soldering, another human can do it with a youtube video and some patience. I replaced HDs for SSDs in my 2012 Mac Minis and it wasn't hard, it just took a little patience and organization. OWC is selling RAM - they'll have a how-to guide as well. If it wasn't user-replaceable, OWC would offer a tech doing it in-house only.
 
Does anyone know a solution how to connect 4-5 Monitors to the mac mini (1x 4k, 1x2k, 2-3xFullHD). All the Docks ive found only have 1 hdmi - i know have them all connected via displayport on newmacpro

The new Mac Mini only supports 3 displays. 2 via Thunderbolt 3 and 1 via HDMI.
 
If a tech can do it w/o soldering, another human can do it with a youtube video and some patience. I replaced HDs for SSDs in my 2012 Mac Minis and it wasn't hard, it just took a little patience and organization. OWC is selling RAM - they'll have a how-to guide as well. If it wasn't user-replaceable, OWC would offer a tech doing it in-house only.

I agree, the mini wasn't hard to do, but it did involve disassembling the entire machine and took a good 35-40mins. I'm not saying it might not be possible, but it may be more involved than some users are comfortable with...

Either way we'll have to see what a teardown looks like.. Plus we still don't know if Apple's statement that it should be done at an AASS means that a DIY would technically void the warranty.
 
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I'm guessing it'll be easier than replacing the ssd in the 2012 mini. I added a second ssd to mine. I hyperventilated a bit, it was a pain in the... but got it done in not too long, and it's worked just fine. And I've got the mechanical skills of a goldfish.

My guess is the ram slots will be just under the first grate that comes off with a few screws. There, I jinxed it.
 
I've added and replaced a second SSD in my 2012 Mac Mini with the OWC data doubler kit. That was a lot harder (but still not very hard, just nerve racking) than this RAM replacement looks. Still haven't ordered mine but will probably get the 8GB and order a third-party memory upgrade to install myself.

Edit: In addition to the slight difficulty of RAM installation, the cost of 64GB to go in the Mac Mini's two memory slots is considerably higher than putting 16GBx4 into a 27-inch iMac. It's kind of making me put off plans to finally have a 64GB beast in a small desktop form.
 
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Yup. 64g ram for a 2013 12 core, $329. For a 2018 Mac mini, $1079.

Are they trying to make us hate them? I don't see how they could do a better job, really.

I've added and replaced a second SSD in my 2012 Mac Mini with the OWC data doubler kit. That was a lot harder (but still not very hard, just nerve racking) than this RAM replacement looks. Still haven't ordered mine but will probably get the 8GB and order a third-party memory upgrade to install myself.

Edit: In addition to the slight difficulty of RAM installation, the cost of 64GB to go in the Mac Mini's two memory slots is considerably higher than putting 16GBx4 into a 27-inch iMac. It's kind of making me put off plans to finally have a 64GB beast in a small desktop form.
 
Yup. 64g ram for a 2013 12 core, $329. For a 2018 Mac mini, $1079.

Are they trying to make us hate them? I don't see how they could do a better job, really.
It's not because Apple is out to get you, it's because single 32 GB SODIMM sticks are still new tech. (Like the 4TB SSD in the 2018 MacBook.) Find aftermarket versions and you'll see Apple's assumed insane pricing is actually not as insane as people assume they are. Is there a markup? Sure. Apple's a company and has to make a profit. But it's not nearly as inflated as people assume it is. At least not initially.

Where Apple fails is: Not adjusting prices after the cost of bleeding edge tech comes down... Once 4TB NVMe SSDs or 32 GB SODIMMs are quasi-consumer-common then the price of that Apple model should come down respectively... Their failure to adjust pricing as the market shifts is what perpetuates the perception that Apple is always insanely marked up...

That said, anyone who's followed Apple over the decades should know that initially they're typically ahead of the curve when they introduce something new... The real issue is that they refuse to adjust the pricing over time. (Which admittedly I don't understand...)
 
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Typical Apple, they could have made it so much easier to upgrade the RAM but no they have to put in a bullshit method to try and get more money from their customers. The older Mac Mini was a 30 second job, this smells to me like a quick way to void your warranty!
 
Well, I went for 32GB Crucial RAM that I’ll be installing myself. For roughly $280 the savings was such that I couldn’t pass it up (or go with Apple memory). I’ll wait and see if prices drop next year, but for now this will have to be enough.

Choosing the 512GB SSD option seems to be the best value, but after saving so much on RAM the 1TB SSD seems relatively less expensive. I’d like to know how much drive space is enough for likely 5 years of use.
 
That's an interesting take on it, and yes I get that the dimms for this are newer tech. But ever since I've been buying macs (1985) the model that has always hit the sweet spot for the specs I wanted/was willing to pay was $3k. That continued until the iPhone came out, Steve Jobs died, and Apple changed from an innovative company making powerful products for people to create with, to a lifestyle company. Now the specs I want are about $10k, that's a little ahead of inflation.

I've worked on Macs my whole adult life and the last thing I want to do is switch to windows, and I won't. But it's increasingly annoying having to deal with a company that sells smoke as much as anything else. As Robin Williams said 'Gucci could put a stripe on a turd and sell it for a nice profit.'


It's not because Apple is out to get you, it's because single 32 GB SODIMM sticks are still new tech. (Like the 4TB SSD in the 2018 MacBook.) Find aftermarket versions and you'll see Apple's assumed insane pricing is actually not as insane as people assume they are. Is there a markup? Sure. Apple's a company and has to make a profit. But it's not nearly as inflated as people assume it is. At least not initially.

Where Apple fails is: Not adjusting prices after the cost of bleeding edge tech comes down... Once 4TB NVMe SSDs or 32 GB SODIMMs are quasi-consumer-common then the price of that Apple model should come down respectively... Their failure to adjust pricing as the market shifts is what perpetuates the perception that Apple is always insanely marked up...

That said, anyone who's followed Apple over the decades should know that initially they're typically ahead of the curve when they introduce something new... The real issue is that they refuse to adjust the pricing over time. (Which admittedly I don't understand...)
 
Im not convinced by the new minis, and will wait for the 2019 iMacs and iMac Pros, to see if they offer better storage options for a similar price.

Starting out with 128gigs on a desktop computer today is insulting. 1TB should be standard, and options should go up to at least 4TB, imo.
 
Starting out with 128gigs on a desktop computer today is insulting. 1TB should be standard, and options should go up to at least 4TB, imo.

While i respect your personal opinion, i do not think it is insulting; a Mac Mini have many different use cases, and in some of them a small system disk is perfectly ok and you wouldn't want to spend more money. For exemple, my Mac Mini, used as a file server and time machine server, have a system disk filled for less than 80G, and have 10Tb of external storage, 8Tb dedicated to the family time machine and 2Tb for file sharing.

If i had to substitute this Mac Mini, i would be pissed off to *have* to buy a 1Tb system disk that i do not need.

Said this, if you want to discuss costs, and user upgrade, it would be another matter :->

Maurizio
 
Thanks for the video link.
I agree that changing the ram could be easier but probably a 4 on a scale of 1-10 in difficulty (without any style points offered).
I can't help wondering if it would run a lot cooler without that bottom snapped on.
I wouldn't doubt it if someone like Sonnet will offer a rack mount for a "neked" mini?
I helped mount a 6,1 in one of their rack mounts and it was much harder than it should have been (nice once it was done though).
Anywho, too bad the flash storage is soldered. I'm sure that will add to the cost when it needs to be exchanged.
Hopefully, it will be something that I'd only have to do every 8 (?) years or so?

Still waiting to see what 2019 will bring but so far so good with the 2018 Mini IMHO.
 
That's an interesting take on it, and yes I get that the dimms for this are newer tech. But ever since I've been buying macs (1985) the model that has always hit the sweet spot for the specs I wanted/was willing to pay was $3k. That continued until the iPhone came out, Steve Jobs died, and Apple changed from an innovative company making powerful products for people to create with, to a lifestyle company. Now the specs I want are about $10k, that's a little ahead of inflation.

I've worked on Macs my whole adult life and the last thing I want to do is switch to windows, and I won't. But it's increasingly annoying having to deal with a company that sells smoke as much as anything else. As Robin Williams said 'Gucci could put a stripe on a turd and sell it for a nice profit.'

Yeah I can't argue that. Apple is more of a lifestyle brand than a computer company these days... That said, I think they started moving in this direction with the iPod and original iMac. iMac created a huge market of nick nacks that were playing off of the iMac's appearance, and the iPod paved the way for the iPhone... Either way, definitely true...

The other point I'd mention though is that similarly specced pre-configured PCs, (HP, Dell, etc), get pretty darned expensive too. (And can go WAY beyond the cost of Apple.) Although you can piece together a DIY PC dirt cheap, you can build a Hackintosh for the same cost, and there's a big part of the PC market that buys pre-configured machines, e.g. infrastructure.

Just piecing together an 18 core Xeon, similarly benchmarked to the iMac Pro, with 64GB ram and 2TB m.2 drive, on HP's site and I was just shy of 10k... Add a 16GB Radeon with equal benchmarks as Vega 64 and I was at 11.4k... At Dell I hit 9.5k. (List on both machines was 13k-14k). That makes the iMac Pro actually equally or less expensive for hardware that should perform almost identically...

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot about Apple I can't stand. I hate that almost everything's soldered in. And I hate that they're downright evil to small repair shops. (That bothers more than anything.) But PC companies with the same pre-configured business model as Apple are actually in the same price range...

For whatever reason, everyone compares Apple against DIY machines which IMO isn't fair at all since you can DIY a Hackintosh for the exact same cost as the same PC... (And pay extra for Windows.) Only difference is Apple doesn't support it, but that's no different than a DIY PC. If you have hardware/software conflicts you still have to do your own troubleshooting...
 
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Hackintoshes aren't supported by Apple though, whereas Microsoft of course supports Windows regardless of who built the machine. Also, you'll find many custom builders providing better products for less $$$ than big names like HP/Dell, not to mention shops that will assemble a computer with multi-year warranties for <$200.
 
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