Anything we can do to get a new 27" iMac?
The memory prices are cute. 4 TB fast portable drive for $300 and 4TB on the mini it’s $1200?
Even bigger news, iFixit ran some tests and found:
If iFixit could swap modules between two Macs (I assume using Configurator to pair them with the new host), then it’s really good news for anyone trying to make aftermarket storage modules.
The big issues working against a company like OWC making such a module (before the news from this artcile) were:
- It can be tricky to get inside a modern Mac. But this is not really much different from other upgrade kits they sell, and accessing the SSD in an M4 mini requires minimal disassembly.
- You need a second Mac with Configurator to get it working.
- You can only configure brand new flash chips - no reusing chips that have been paired with another computer. Which makes it impossible to test modules before shipping them, and makes it impossible to refurbish returned modules - both of which makes it expensive to have a warranty.
But with the new news, that third bullet does not apply, at least for the M4 mini (hopefully for future Macs as well, but we’ll see about that).
Best spec yet I’ve seen for the Mini… great chart Adam. I finally got it together to get a kill-a-watt on my cMP power cord. Just sitting here reading this page, it’s drawing 150W. Depending on what I am doing, that can shoot up to over 200W. In winblowz, runs around 200W idle. Playing my fave MMORPG jacks it up to 380-410W. I just wonder what a new pc machine would draw…
As for storage, I’ ve seen a video with a guy getting just about 1k Mb/s on a 256GB model. That’s awful. I’ve seen guys testing a 512GB model and getting into the 3k range. While I think at some future point, we may be able to buy those little prepopulated boards to upgrade storage, I expect them to be nowhere in sight for at least 6 months. AND will the fruit do it’s thing and invalidate using them. Not an unusual move for Cupertino as they are FAR likelier to get away from it in the current climate.
A 1T boot drive is what I think I’m going to go for. My bet is the disk i/o might be faster still than 3k as I have seen a video showing a “hacked” (might have been iFixIt itself) 2T install hit around 5k. Now some may say get 512G then an external drive. Aside from speed issues, that means 2 of the 3 ports taken up (remember one has to have some backup solution).
FWIW, power consumption reported by my UPS is about 110W during normal usage, spiking to about 150W under heavy load and dropping to around 90W when idle with the screen off. I never put the computer to sleep, because I frequently access it over my LAN when I’m not seated in front of it.
But this load isn’t just the computer. It’s everything connected to my UPS:
- Mac Mini (2018 Intel)
- Dell 2405FPW display (24" LCD, CFL backlight)
- Raspberry Pi 3B+ (running my DHCP and DNS servers)
- USB HDD (for Time Machine)
- Networking gear (cable modem, Wi-Fi router, Ethernet switch)
I should have put a kill-a-watt on it much sooner, learning interesting stuff. Had to visit a neighbor for an hour or so, let the cMP sleep. Got back and saw it running 0.1W. Wow… it’s actually rare to go to sleep because generally if I’m not going to use it for an extended time, I’ll shut it down.
BUT my issue is my mouse driver got unloaded and I see no way to get it back without having to reboot the system. I doubt Logitech gives two shits with such an old machine & OS.
That’s pretty low, at least for large transfers where you care. Is that for the vanilla M4? Even at 256 GB, it should come with 2x128 GB which helps with the problem some former low-end minis showed. The M4 Pro pushes over 5 Gbps to/from its internal flash.
4 posts were split to a new topic: Let’s try to avoid unnecessary abbreviations
Pretty good for a up to 16 year old computer with a very large and flourishing aftermarket community, THIS is the real cheesegrater!
Nah, that’s the Trash Can™ 
Tab has a liver tumour (as yet undiagnosed but it’s having a profound effect on her appetite), so all thoughts of upgrading are banished from my mind and I’m questioning my choices to aim high rather than manage with what I have. We’ll see if I can make my new homelab setup (lots of VMs and under-the-hood routing configuration) work with acceptable performance. If I can, then I’m going to leave it for another day and concentrate on making my elderly feline friend better, for all the life that gives her (and spend time with the little darling as best I can, regardless). The Tab Test will henceforth be a benchmark for future purchases: if you had to choose, would you rather treat a beloved pet or risk default by buying this upgrade / new shiny thing?
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Yeah, I saw many videos of guys getting very slow transfer off the internal drive. GFor a host of reasons, I went for thee 1T model (got an edu discount) and I benchmarked mine showing roughly 3k read and write. Funny and these days it seems almost universally read is skower than write. Back in the spinning days it was the opposite.
Holy smokes, the power consumption is TINY on my M4. Just futzing around draws 5-7 watts. More intensive can draw up to 12-15 watts. I’ve seen it spike to 20, but VERY rarely.
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