The hard drives in the new 2018 Mac mini are PCIe which means they are very fast, but also expensive. Unlike previous models, you cannot upgrade the internal hard drive. It is soldered in. But thanks to the USB-C interface on the new Mac Mini, an external SSD drive is now a good option. I chose to buy the smaller (and cheaper) 250GB Mac Mini and supplement it with a 500GB external SSD drive.

1. Mac Mini Md388ll
2. Mac Mini Z0w2
3. Mac Mini Mb463ll/a

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USB-C Gen 2 can handle the speeds of most (but not all) SSD drives. So unless you want a very high-end solution, you’ll be fine using an external SSD over USB. An external SSD drive plugged in via USB-C will only be 1/5 the speed of the new internal PCIe drives, but it’s still fast. The external SSD drive on my new mac mini is faster than the internal non-PCIe SSD drive on my previous mac mini.

1. Buying a drive.

My first purchase was a Samsung S5. It’s fast, it’s USB-C Gen 2, and it’s cheap. But it caused a 30-second delay each time my mac booted up. Apparently, this is a common problem nnd Apple support were unable to help me resolve it.

The drive I ended up using was the Seagate Fast SSD. It’s fast and works well. I purchased the 500GB version. I’ve already filled it up so end hindsight I publish should have gone for the 1 TB version but I was trying to save soem money.

2. What to put on it.

Now that you’ve connected your drive you need to choose which data to store on it. I used to recommend using your new SSD as the boot drive, but given that the internal SSD drive is now faster, you are better off booting off your internal drive and just putting some files on the external drive.

I kept OSX and my applications on my internal boot drive, as well as my users home folder. So my internal SSD drive looks like this:

• Applications
• Library
• System
• Users

I moved most the large folders from inside my Users folder onto my external SSD. I did not change my home folder to be the external SSD. I copied the files out of my home folder. I did al this when I was migrating the data accrossform my old MAc because it did not all fit in my new Users folder.

Here’s what I moved to my new external SSD Drive:

• Documents (from my user folder – 40GB)
• Downloads (from my user folder – 5GB)
• Mainstage Sounds (from System Folder – 60GB)
• Movies (from my user folder – 10GB)
• Music (from my user folder – 60GB)
• Pictures (from my user folder including my photos library – 140GB)

When you move your Music, Pictures and MainStage files you need to tell iTunes, Apple Photos and Mainstage the new location.

For iTunes, firstly copy all your music files across to the new SSD. (users/yourname/music/iTunes) Then go to Preferences, Advanced, and find ‘iTunes Media folder location’. Click ‘Change’ and select the new folder.

For Photos you need to copy the folder called ‘Photo’s Library’ across, then restart the Photos App while holding the Option key. This gives you the option to select your new Photo library from the external SSD.

Photos should open the newly copied library and you should be able to see your photos. If that is the case then go to preferences and select ‘use as System Photo Library’ to make this change permanent.

There are some applications that will still want to use files from within your home folder on your internal SSD. That’s okay. I allow them to do that.

I find it helpful in my own mind to know which files are where so I have my documents, my music and my photos on my external SSD and I have everything else on my internal one.

But you can arrange them how you like.

Overview

A powerful computer with high capabilities of intensive calculation, nice price-point (for a Mac) and elegant color.

This is a welcome back product for milions of users.

Something that could conquer also iMac owners for several good reasons.

Professional Power at your fingers

B. adobe illustratormr. mac's virtual existence mode. If we want to evaluate the power of a Mac computer we have to compare it to an other powerful Mac.

We decided to compare the new MacBook Pro 2018 with the Mac mini late 2018 and the result surprisingly sees the Mac mini winner, both for price and performance.

Processors

Mac mini 2018

8th generations intel chips from i3 quad-core processor 3.6GHz up to i5 and i7 6core processor and speeds of 3.2Ghz (4.6Ghz with Turbo Boost).

MacBook Pro 2018

Also here 8th generation intel processors. We have options for i7 quad core at 2.7GHz speed up to 4.5 GHz. with Turbo Boost. Plus with an extra cost we can deliver i9 6core processor with 2,6 GHz of speed, running up to 4,8 GHz with Turbo Boost.

Mac Mini Md388ll

RAM

Mac mini 2018

DDR4 2666 Mhz – up to 64Gb of Ram.

MacBook Pro 2018

LPDDR3 2133 MHz on 13″ Screen MacBook Pro or DDR4 2400 MHz on 15″ Screen MacBook Pro – from 8 to 16 Gb of RAM (32 Gb on 15″).

SSD

Mac mini 2018

Up to 2 Tb of Hard Disk, but always at 3.4 GBps which is very, very fast.
For comparison the 2014 Mac mini works at 580/750 MBps…

MacBook Pro 2018

The 13″ can deliver up to 2TB of HD and the 15″ screen can be equipped with 4TB of HD but at 3.2GBps speed in reading.

Graphics

Mac mini 2018

Here we have an integrated chipset: the Intel UHD Graphics 630.

MacBook Pro 2018

On the MacBook Pro we have Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 or Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 depending on the model (13″ or 15″).

MacMini 2018

Intel core i7 6core 3.2 GHz., up to 4.6 Ghz with Turbo Boost
16 GB. of DDR4 RAM at 2666 GHz
512 GB. of SSD Internal Drive at 3.4 GBps.

€ 1.989,00 in Italy

A powerful machine for doing almost anything. Can you use a dmg file on windows.

MacBook Pro 2018 15″ with Touchbar

Intel core i9 6-core 2.9 GHz., up to 4.8 Ghz with Turbo Boost
16 GB. DDR4 RAM at 2400 GHz
512 GB. of SSD Internal Drive at 3.2 GBps.

€ 3.739,00 in Italy

The state-of-the-art machine with great power and mobility.

Summary

Mac Mini Z0w2

Apple finally delivered a powerful “entry level” professional machine for the 85% of people. The Mac Mini Late 2018 (as it will be named in the future) is a computer full of potential, elegant and yet the best choice to be combined with high end monitors (up to 2 display in 4K simultaneously).

Mac Mini Mb463ll/a

… and the winner is…

It is true, with the Mac Mini we need to add a display, a keyboard and a mouse, at minimum, and in the case of video conferencing a webcam too.

But we are talking about a difference over 1.700 Euro for two computers where performance give a similar result.

There are several commentators who reject the Apple proposal of this Mac Mini, but at the end we have a superior computer (yes graphic cards are a little bit weak on the Mac Mini) compared to a “professional MacBook Pro”.