Please recommend which Mac mini to purchase.

Personally I woluld never get a Mac with less than 1 TB storage. That's because I try to maintain a minimum of 100 GB of free space on my boot drive to facilitate optimal system and application performance.

Also if your current boot drive is more than 256 GB you wan't be able to use Migration Assistant to bring over all of your user data, apps and settings. You'll need to start from scratch, copy over your user data and apps but will have to add the activation key for any apps that require it. With Migration Assistant that's taken care of.

I've had a 500 GB boost drive in an older iMac and it was difficult to keep the necessary free space for updates/upgrades and performance.

Just some food for thought.

First, how large is your iMac drive and how much space are you using?

Based in that, how much space is used by your apps and how much is used in your home folder (don't use the Apple metrics for storage usage). Next, how much of that data in your user folder is really needed on a daily basis or even weekly basis? Everything you answer no to can move to an external drive. Also, as others stated, music, movies, and photos can easily take up huge amounts of space that can easily be moved to an external drive. That would be the best yardstick for what size internal drive you need.

However, with that said, personally I would avoid 256GB internal and move to at least a 512GB internal. Even with making all those adjustments mentioned to move stuff externally, there are a lot of apps that can store copious amounts of data in the hidden ~/Library/ApplicationSupport folder in your home folder that cannot be located anywhere else.

One other thing beside storage to consider is RAM. While the M-series Macs do use RAM more efficiently than the Intel Macs, depending on your usage, you may want to consider spending more on that than internal storage. As time goes on, apps, features, and operating systems won't consume less RAM but will demand more and more RAM.

LakeElmoJG wrote:

I will use the Mac mini only for office-related tasks -- no gaming. Should I get the most basic one, with 256 GB storage?

I would recommend getting at least 512 GB of internal storage. My Mac has that amount and the SSD is already a bit more than half full. Granted, I have about 44 GB of photos on the internal drive – and have a few third-party applications, including games, installed – but most large data files are on an external SSD. I expect that 512 GB will continue to be manageable (with care), but that had I purchased a Mac with just 256 GB, I would already be doing more work to manage internal drive space.

All new Macs now come with at least 16 GB of RAM. If you get an older Certified Refurbished or used Mac, you may want to steer clear of ones with only 8 GB of RAM. That might be adequate – or it might not – and if it wasn't, there would be no way to expand it.

If you plan on running Photoshop, Lightroom or other such heavy-duty photo programs, you may want 24 or 32 GB of RAM.

Yes! The basic model is ideal for intensive applications like video editing as well as the simple office stuff.

It will do pretty much everything the most powerful ones can but of course may take a bit longer.

The 256GB SSD is too small if you envisage video editing or massive photo libraries but is easily rectified by purchasing a cheap USB-C 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSD (£60 - £120).

On no account pay for extra internal storage space as it will cost you £200 for a miserly extra 256GB!

You will find that the basic model is 2 -3 times faster than your old iMac ever was . . . it will blow it out of the water!

LakeElmoJG wrote:

I need to upgrade from my 2017 iMac, running Monterey with the help of an external drive. I would like help deciding which Mac mini to buy. I have already purchased an appropriate monitor. I will use the Mac mini only for office-related tasks -- no gaming. Should I get the most basic one, with 256 GB storage?

With the little information you've provided, the base Mac mini sounds appropriate. Do you plan to use the external drive w/ the Mac mini? Best course of action would be to make a Time Machine backup of the iMac and use Migration Assistant during Mac mini setup to restore from TM backup.

First, how large is your iMac drive and how much space are you using?

Based in that, how much space is used by your apps and how much is used in your home folder (don't use the Apple metrics for storage usage). Next, how much of that data in your user folder is really needed on a daily basis or even weekly basis? Everything you answer no to can move to an external drive. Also, as others stated, music, movies, and photos can easily take up huge amounts of space that can easily be moved to an external drive. That would be the best yardstick for what size internal drive you need.

However, with that said, personally I would avoid 256GB internal and move to at least a 512GB internal. Even with making all those adjustments mentioned to move stuff externally, there are a lot of apps that can store copious amounts of data in the hidden ~/Library/ApplicationSupport folder in your home folder that cannot be located anywhere else.

One other thing beside storage to consider is RAM. While the M-series Macs do use RAM more efficiently than the Intel Macs, depending on your usage, you may want to consider spending more on that than internal storage. As time goes on, apps, features, and operating systems won't consume less RAM but will demand more and more RAM.

Let me put my cards on the table.

On both my M2 and M4 minis I do not use the internal 256GB SSD at all.

I have macOS Tahoe installed on external 2TB NVMe SSDs and I run (boot) the computers from those.

They contain my user folder, apps and everything. They are quite simple to set up, simply installing Tahoe in the normal way but on the externals. From thereon you run the computer normally from the external. The internal SSD gets no wear at all.

Whether you simply use your external for large files or boot the entire Mac from it has a tremendous advantage . . . your main SSD is not tied to your Mac.

If your Mac packs in you have not lost anything as the SSD and all its contents are separate.

If you sell your Mac you can keep your SSD and its contents . . . you win all round.

Of course the external is probably not as fast as the internal but in practice its speed has no effect on performance except when copying massive files and in that instance it will take longer but how often do you do that?

Regarding RAM, until this year I never had a computer with more than 8GB RAM yet I had no problems editing 1080p and 4K video. I tested up to 8 tracks of native 4K video all colour corrected playing simultaneously in FCP (PIP) with no dropped frames on my basic M2 . . . I haven't tried it on my M4 with 16GB RAM.

Power wise there can be few people who could legitimately complain about lack of performance of the basic M4 so long as they have a decent external drive.

I went with the regular M4 mini.

For storage I went with a 500GB SSD. Apple charges a lot for large drives and my previous computer had a 1TB drive which was almost full. There was no way I was going to afford a 1TB or larger SSD in a new Mac so I went with keeping all my data files on an external drive. I probably could have gotten away with a 256GB internal drive but even as it is now, I am using 136 GB already. My 500GB drive is more for future proofing. I keep apps and system files on the internal drive.

For memory I went with 24GB and I am glad I did. Memory on Macs has changed a lot in the past decade but what Apple sells as okay memory today will likely be barely adequate 5 years from now (if you are like me and keep a computer for almost a decade). I don't keep a lot of apps open all the time but I do have a lot of tabs open on my browser. As it is now with my web browser alone as my only open app, I am using 63% of my 24GB memory. Once or twice I have seen my computer using 75% which means if I had only had 16GB memory I would be getting close to 100%. This is today and given that newer systems always use more memory, if you keep your computers for a long time then it is worth considering purchasing more.

The drawback with modern Macs is you can not feasibly upgrade either memory or storage after you have purchased the computer.

Since you are purchasing a desktop computer using an external drive isn’t the least big inconvenient and much less expensive than upgrading the computer’s storage if 256GB isn’t enough. The most disk intensive data are music, video, and photos and you can move that data on an external drive if you outgrow the basic mini.

The M4 Mac Mini is an amazing computer that will meet your needs well. The two questions that you will want to ask yourself are: how much RAM do I need, and how much SSD storage do I need?

For basic business tasks you may be fine with 16 GB of RAM but may want to consider 24 GB if you do things like keep dozens of applications, documents, or browser tabs opened at the same time or if you use photo or video editing applications frequently.

As far as SSD storage, you will need to evaluate how much total storage that you currently use on your Mac and any external drives and decide on how much additional space that you may need for the future. Remember that you should always have plenty of unused space on an SSD so that it can work efficiently. So, I would recommend taking the amount of storage that you currently use and configure your new Mac to have at least 50 to 100% more for growth. External drives are great for adding massive amounts of storage if you need that in your business, but for most users that don't have that need, you will find it much more simple and reliable to have all of the storage you need in the internal SSD. Only you can determine how much that may be though based on your current usage.

Finally, understand that your RAM and internal SSD cannot be upgraded later so choose your new configuration wisely.

FYI, I believe that if you start up from an external drive on an Apple Silicon Mac, Apple Intelligence and Apple Pay features may be disabled.

Apple Silicon Macs "always start their boot process from their internal SSDs, even when they are set to start up from a bootable external disk." There is a new concept of "ownership" that did not exist with Intel-based Macs. While you can start up from an external disk "without reducing … boot security", you may need to go through an extra "2FA [two-factor authentication] dance" each time you move the startup disk to a new Apple Silicon Mac.

See: The Eclectic Light Company – How external bootable disks work with Apple Silicon Macs , and articles to which it links, which seem to explain this in much more detail than any of Apple's Support documents do.

I agree that Apple Pay and Apple AI probably don't work on the external but I have no need for them. If I did I would simply boot into the internal SSD.

I believe the external bootable SSD can only be used as a bootable SSD with the Mac on which it was created. If there is a workaround to use on other Macs I would be interested.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

I believe the external bootable SSD can only be used as a bootable SSD with the Mac on which it was created. If there is a workaround to use on other Macs I would be interested.

According to the Eclectic Light Company articles, the external bootable SSD can be used to boot another [compatible Apple Silicon] Mac. However, because of the "Ownership" wrinkle, you would need to do a two-factor authorization dance each time you moved it to a new Mac.