[dugrant153]

Curious on what people think of a Mac Mini?

I'm currently running a very old computer: AMD Athlon XP Mobile 2200 CPU, 1 GB of RAM and a Radeon 9550 SE video card.... Yup. old School.

I've thought about getting a Mac for my next system but budget-wise, they're absolutely killer.

The price of the Mac Mini interests me but looking at the specs... I'm wondering if this will be a computer that will last? or am I buying into really old technology again?


All I need it for is organizing and utilizing Lightroom, emails/internet, etc.

[Adam]

The mac mini isn't particularly fast when it comes to photo processing. Have you looked into other laptop choices? There are quite a few <$1500 that have simply amazing specs, including the new i7's and 6Gb ram. And if you just want a plain old desktop, expect to pay no more than $1000.

[noahpurdy]

I can't imagine using Lightroom on a Mini. It'd be a pretty miserable experience, methinks. My recomendation if your set on a Mac would be to save your pennies and get one of the lower specced 15" MacBook Pros. With the i5 processors they're phenomenal.

[legacyb4]

That'd be like saying Lightroom would be a miserable experience on 50% of the Macintosh hardware out there right now (anything in a Core 2 Duo class including older Macbooks, iMacs, etc.). Unless you are working under the gun where every single minute of your workday has to be accounted for, you'd do okay CPU/RAM wise. The area you will feel a hit (just like any other lower end laptop will) is in the storage subsystem; look at dumping money into fast storage and leave the photos off the internal hard drive.

I've got a Mac Mini (last year's spring model) comfortably pushing around HD video content (1080p) and the CPU doesn't seem to be taxed to any significant extent.

[johnmflores]

The good news for us still photographers is that most modern PCs and Macs have plenty of horsepower to handle our needs. The newer systems, after all, need the horsepower for gaming, video, and other applications that push way more pixels than we do. That said, our expectations of what is "fast enough" is always changing.

Here's what to look out for in the Mini, in order of importance (my opinion at least)
-----
Hard Drive
This is the one place where the Mini lags, as its hard drives spin at 5400RPM vs. the faster 7200 RPM. Every time you scroll through a library or open up a file you are accessing the hard drive, which in Lighroom, is almost constantly. There are ways around this though:
1 - upgrade to the largest hard drive, as high capacity hard drives are generally faster than their smaller capacity brethren, even at the same RPM.
2 - buy it with a 5400 RPM drive and replace it with a 7200RPM drive.
3 - attach an external 7200RPM drive via FireWire 800 and put your Lightroom Catalog and image files there.

Memory
2Gb is ok. Upgrade to 4Gb if possible

Video
This is one of the places where the Mac Mini lags - they had to cut somewhere to make the pricepoint. Still, the GeForce 9400M (I believe the M means the card was originally meant for mobile systems) should handle LR fine.

CPU
The Core 2 Duo, while not the latest and greatest, should run LR fine.

-----
Ultimately, I think the base Mini with some minor upgrades will do just fine.

One place I would try to stretch the budget on is the monitor - get the biggest and best one you can find. A really big monitor will result in less scrolling through libraries and less zooming in and out of an image, which in my personal experience has a greater impact on my workflow than incremental improvements in CPU, Video, etc...

Good luck!

[dugrant153]

thanks for all the comments so far.
The reason I've considered the mac mini is due to my budget and also since I have existing pieces: I already have a fantastic Samsung Syncmaster 23" monitor hooked up to this old PC I'm typing on... and a good keyboard too
I also utilize a WD 1TB external hard drive on fire wire and may get a second as a backup - both utilized for photos (hmm.... tricky). Hence perhaps save money on upgrade costs.

I looked at the prices of upgrading the Mac Mini straight from the store to a larger hard drive and faster memory... and it's pricey!! O_o... ouch!

I think practically anything faster than a single core will be an upgrade for me, although I'm hoping the Core 2 Duo and Mac technologies will make it WAY more faster.

As mentioned, I'm not into gaming although some video might come into the mix. This will definitely be a Lightroom machine.


Edit: Just looked at the Macbook prices and specs and looks like the lower end Macbook pros utilize similar hardware as the Mac Mini (2 GB ram, Intel Core 2 Duo)... in which case if I'd want way more power, I'd need to save a ton of pennies as the 15" Macbook Pro is $$$$. LOL

[legacyb4]

You can daisy-chain the Firewire drives if the drives allow it (multiple FW ports). Otherwise, use FW for the primary library and USB 2 for your backup. Don't forget that you'll probably need a FW 800 => 400 adapter cable unless the drive supports FW 800 out of the box.

Some folks are willing to crack the case and do post-purchase installs; since you are going to park the LR data on an external drive, you may as well just max out the RAM only (2GB => 4GB) and get on with more important things in life (shooting & PP, for example).

Cheers.

[NewportPreacher]

Within the last month, I've moved up from a PPC iMac to a Mac Mini. I didn't go with the base model, however, but stepped up to the next level — the one w/ 4 GB or RAM, a slightly faster processors, and a 320 GB HD.

My experience in running everything, including Lightroom 2 & the beta of LR 3, has been overwhelmingly positive. I suspect that, on occasion, I've noticed some delay that is due to the slower HD, but that is the only negative thing I have to say.

Charges that a latest-generation Mac Mini doesn't have the horsepower to run Lightroom, PS Elements, etc., are, in my experience, unfounded. It may not be a screamer, but it's no dog, either.

Derek

[boriscleto]

The only thing I would be concerned about is that there might be an upgrade coming out soon. The Macbook was just upgraded to the GeForce 320M and a 2.4GHz C2D. The mini should be getting a similar upgrade soon. I use an early 2009 mini to run Aperture 3 and while it is not fast it is certainly usable. You just can't use it with PS at the same time.

[legacyb4]

True, but an new model doesn't make the older model any less effective.

If you need a new computer *now* (where not having one is impacting your ability to do business or other work) then I'd go ahead and get one. Otherwise, hang on just a little longer as boriscleto suggests.

[dugrant153]

Lightroom seems to have stabilized for now... but once things heat up again (as in weather-wise), I'm afraid it's going to make my old comp crash. And that's what prompted me to think of a new comp. Computer overheating due to weather causing major crashes during jpeg export.

I went to Futureshop for a bit to check out some of stuff. Looks like even the new macbooks use the Intel Core 2 Duo (same as the Mac Mini).

I think I will definitely wait a bit to see if there's an upgrade to the Mac Mini (there always is an upgrade with technology - you can't win). But if the overheating becomes a major problem, might be my time to upgrade.

Usability would probably a relative term to me. I'm coming from 4-year old technology!!

[chrish]

DIY mac with a core i5 or i7? Easy to add hard drive space later on if you need it. The tonymac one's seem pretty stable. tonymacx86's P55 Hackintosh Blog

A copy of Snow Leopard from Apple is only $29 and you can probably put an i5 mac together for ~$600 if budget is a concern.

[slinco]

I just recently upgraded from an old Mac G4 to a new Mac Mini and I'm very happy with it. I'm a pretty hard-core daily Photoshop user. By hard-core I mean my working files are often 8 or 10 layers deep (or more), and 500MB working files are not uncommon. The little Mini handles it all with stride.

After researching them I went with the higher spec Mini - 2.53 GHz, 4GB Ram, 500GB Drive. One of the reasons I didn't go with a MacBook or iMac is the monitor - Mac monitors aren't the best for photo editing. They aren't bad but they aren't the best, due mainly to brightness issues that aren't properly adjustable, and gloss/glare issues on some models. The brightness thing is the biggie though. I wanted to use the excellent NEC P221w, and it works wonderfully with the Mini. Of course if you're not making prints the brightness issue doesn't matter at all.

For the kind of work most people do in Lightroom you'd probably be fine with the base model Mini, but for the kind of work I do the higher spec model makes sense, and I'm very happy with mine.

[boriscleto]

DIY mac with a core i5 or i7? Easy to add hard drive space later on if you need it. The tonymac one's seem pretty stable. tonymacx86's P55 Hackintosh Blog

A copy of Snow Leopard from Apple is only $29 and you can probably put an i5 mac together for ~$600 if budget is a concern.

This is a violation of the EULA. While Apple does not take M$ like draconian measures to prevent it is clearly against the license. The $29 version of Snow Leopard is an UPGRADE from Leopard and is only legal on Apple computers.

[boriscleto]

I just recently upgraded from an old Mac G4 to a new Mac Mini and I'm very happy with it. I'm a pretty hard-core daily Photoshop user. By hard-core I mean my working files are often 8 or 10 layers deep (or more), and 500MB working files are not uncommon. The little Mini handles it all with stride.

After researching them I went with the higher spec Mini - 2.53 GHz, 4GB Ram, 500GB Drive. One of the reasons I didn't go with a MacBook or iMac is the monitor - Mac monitors aren't the best for photo editing. They aren't bad but they aren't the best, due mainly to brightness issues that aren't properly adjustable, and gloss/glare issues on some models. The brightness thing is the biggie though. I wanted to use the excellent NEC P221w, and it works wonderfully with the Mini. Of course if you're not making prints the brightness issue doesn't matter at all.

For the kind of work most people do in Lightroom you'd probably be fine with the base model Mini, but for the kind of work I do the higher spec model makes sense, and I'm very happy with mine.

I upgraded from an 867 MHz Quicksilver (now a file server). Using Leopard was almost impossible and iPhoto was very slow. The difference between an old G4 and a mini is like night and day. The only PPC that even comes close to the performance of a $600 mini is the dual 2.5 GHz G5 that retailed for $3300.