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Stupid Mini Question
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subego
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Jul 17, 2016, 12:36 PM
 
Are RAM upgrades still "unscrew and replace" easy?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 17, 2016, 12:42 PM
 
No. Soldered down since the 2014 revision.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+...Teardown/30410
     
subego  (op)
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Jul 17, 2016, 12:51 PM
 
God dammit!

Thanks for the info, though!

I've got a friend who's getting a Mini and is a light computer user. Safari, email, music and movies.

They also want the thing to last a long time.

They're also also a cheapskate.

Can they get away with 8GB RAM? I would say yes except for maybe the long lasting part. Programs are only going to get more memory hoggy.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jul 17, 2016, 06:38 PM
 
The last few years have gone the other way. Memory compression in 10.10+ has been a boon. 8GB should be fine for a few years.

"Long time?" How long are we talking?
     
subego  (op)
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Jul 18, 2016, 05:14 AM
 
Until it hurts.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 18, 2016, 09:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by Mike Wuerthele View Post
The last few years have gone the other way. Memory compression in 10.10+ has been a boon. 8GB should be fine for a few years.
It was added in 10.9 Mavericks and was truly a "holy shit" feature for my usage.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jul 18, 2016, 05:33 PM
 
Yeah, that's why I specified 10.10+.

The implementation in 10.9 was just a shadow of what it would become in 10.10.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jul 19, 2016, 06:09 AM
 
For now Apple is still stuck supporting a lot of older Macs with 2GB or 4GB of non-upgradeable RAM. Still, I'd never buy a new one now without maxing it if I could.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego  (op)
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Jul 19, 2016, 06:41 AM
 
Me neither.

It's the psychology of it costing $899 (mid range with an upped HD) vs. $1,099 (midrange with HD and RAM). I feel he's going to balk at crossing the $1K barrier.

He'd be set if I was good enough of a pal to be free labor on a hard drive swap, but I ain't.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 19, 2016, 08:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Mike Wuerthele View Post
Yeah, that's why I specified 10.10+.

The implementation in 10.9 was just a shadow of what it would become in 10.10.
No, you misunderstand: It was a revelation in 10.9. It instantly breathed another two years of life into my MacBook Pro.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jul 19, 2016, 11:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
No, you misunderstand: It was a revelation in 10.9. It instantly breathed another two years of life into my MacBook Pro.
No, I understood you. It didn't do that much for me personally until 10.10.
     
P
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Jul 20, 2016, 06:22 AM
 
Interesting. While I skipped 10.10 (only major OS version that I skipped since 7.6), going from 10.9 to 10.11 I certainly did not notice any improvements to memory usage. 10.11 is fine, but I would say still a slightly worse expereience than 10.9 on a 2011 MBA 4GB RAM.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jul 20, 2016, 07:10 AM
 
I think machines with 4GB benefitted the most in the initial rollouts of the feature. I haven't owned any hardware with less than 8GB of RAM.

It makes sense that the feature helps low-RAM hardware in its earlier incarnations more than machines with greater amounts.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jul 20, 2016, 08:59 AM
 
I had 8 GB and upgraded to 16 for a single Logic project (2.5-hour 48-track live mix) that went from almost 30 GB of memory usage to EIGHT GB after installing Mavericks.
     
   
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