Moving from 2017 Retina 5K to Mac Mini. Recommendation/Suggestions?

Using Lightroom and Photoshop you are obviously aware of the high demands on RAM so I would suggest getting more than the 24GB of RAM because you cannot add more later unlike your iMac. With those apps and macOS, the future will only demand more and more RAM. I have used both apps over the years and have only seen them get more and more RAM hungry.

With the speeds of the OWC 1M2, I would move all photo stuff to the OWC drive including Lightroom catalogs, caches, and scratch and the same with Photoshop. I have a plain M4 chip and OWC 1M2 runs at the same speed as the internal. Actually, you could move nearly all of your stuff to the external drive and run a "bare minimum" 512GB internal saving you some bucks.

Personally, being what I would consider an advanced amateur photographer myself, if I could afford it, I would get a base MacStudio.

I had a 2017 27" i9 iMac with an SSD boot drive and 16 GB of RAM. I was able to edit a 500Mb Photoshop image nearly the same as a 4 Mb image. The only difference was when I was trying to use the Retouch tool on the 500+ Mb file it was somewhat slow.

I now have a 10 Core Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD ($1084) with a 32" LG 4k monitor ($331) from Amazon.com)  is $1415 which is $541 less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac ($1956)  re 07/2025.

I got the above Mini with a 32" LG 4K monitor w/speakers for only $60 more than the 27" (didn't know the time that the Mini had a speaker).  There are many monitors available in 27" size on up for $100 to $500 depending on what features you want.  The monitor prices are before tariffs.

The M4 Mini runs rings around the Intel i9 iMac.

I have a 27" 2017 iMac and 2 years ago bought a base model M2 mini which did everything twice as fast as my iMac.

Earlier this year I bought an M4 mini which is three times faster than the old 27 inch iMac. Once again I bought the base model which cost me £530 new. The only problem with the base model is that it has a very small hard drive or SSD. However this is not really a problem because I use an external SSD.

What is more I have installed the operating system on the external SSD and boot the mini from that. It is a 2TB NVME drive in a thunderbolt enclosure which cost around £170 in total.

What I am suggesting is that even the base model together with external SSDs would probably be more than enough for your requirements. I use mine mainly for video editing with Final Cut Pro and da Vinci Resolve. The old iMac was fine even with 4K but of course the M2 and M4 minis just blow it out of the water.

I use cheap Phillips 27 inch monitors one is a 1080p and the other 4K. They cost £110 and £170 respectively. You can of course plug the mini into any television using on HDMI cable and use that as a massive monitor.

I just got the 10 Core Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD ($1084) with a 32" LG 4k monitor ($331) from Amazon.com)  is $1415 which is $541 less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac ($1956)  re 07/2025. Keep your keyboard and mouse from your current Mac for use with the Mini. 

I got the above Mini with a 32" LG 4K monitor w/speakers for only $60 more than the 27" (didn't know the Mini had a speaker).  There are many monitors available in 27" size on up for $100 to $500 depending on what features you want.  The monitor prices are before tariffs.

I'm able to open and edit a 500+ Mb Photoshop file with only some slowness in the initial opening. After that the normal editing I did was just as if I was working on a 4 Mb image file.

I find the 16 GB RAM in a Silicon Mac to be much, much faster than my 16GB of RAM in my i9 CPU 2017 iMac with an SSD drive. Unless you're editing some very large image files or heavy video editing you should be fine with the 16 GB basic RAM in the Silicon Macs.

Needless to say I'm a huge fan of the Mac Mini M4.

This is the setup I have got with my M4 Mac mini.

I am using the keyboard and mouse from the old iMac. The M4 mac mini cost me £530 which is £69 cheaper than Apple and it has a two year warranty. The monitor is a Phillips 4K 27 inch screen which cost £180. The Logitech webcam cost £13 and the 2 TB thunderbolt NVME was £180 whilst they 2 TB USB– C came in at £101. The eight port USB dock was £25 and the pair of Harman Kardon speakers was £10. Total £1039.

The much cheaper USB-C NVMe is not as fast as the Thunderbolt but in normal use there is no difference and I will not be buying Thunderbolt again unless they start giving them away!

The Harman Kardon speakers are no longer available but perfectly respectable alternatives can be purchased for around £20.

You may notice that the Logitech 270 webcam is off-centre . . . that is because my M2 mini (8GB RAM) which is to the left of the photo is the machine I use most of the time and when I swivel to use the M4 I am seated slightly left of centre. The M2 is identically equipped except the monitor is 1080p and most of the time the difference is not noticeable.

The advice you are getting to prioritize RAM over hard drive and to use an external SSD for your data is right on. I actually started doing this back around 2000 when I had to wait nearly 10 hours for all the data to transfer from my old PowerMac to the new one. Never again, I screamed! And now that it isn’t possible to upgrade hard drives and Apple’s HD prices are so absurdly high, it isn’t just better convenience, it is easier on the wallet. My current system is a M2 mini with 2 OWC Elite external drives, a Logitech webcam and 32 inch LG display.

I forgot to mention WebCams. The Logitech 270 which costs less than £20 is better than the built-in 2017 iMac WebCam. It gives a much sharper image.

Most monitors have very poor speakers but for £20 you can buy Creative Pebble speakers which are roughly as good as the old iMac.

You don't need to start spending thousands in order to get a good set up.

Unless you are really keen on spending $1500, there are other displays out there, though built in camera and mic may be a sticking point on many.

Here's one from Philips, a fifth of the price.

click here ➜ Philips 34E1C5600HE 34" UltraWide QHD 21:9 Monitor with Built-in Windows Hello Webcam & Noise Canceling Mic, USB-C Docking, Stereo Speakers, 100Hz - Amazon.com. $320

or here ➜ LG 32UR500K-B Ultrafine 32-inch 4K UHD (3840x2160) Computer Monitor HDR10 Built-in Speaker x2 - Amazon.com (no camera or mic though) $199

By all means spend as much as you want but it is probably not necessary.

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, watch this mini tutorial I made a couple of years ago demonstrating the "invisibility" effect using Final Cut Pro.

It was made on my basic M2 with only 8GB RAM. What is more, the mini was booted from a very slow USB 3.0 SATA SSD but just look at how crisp and responsive the machine behaves . . . it changes things almost before I have hit the keys!

Furthermore the mini was simultaneously recording the video and audio from the screen.

8GB RAM M2 mini Test

Remember that the basic M4 is half as fast again.