Buying MM M2 Pro - 10G Ethernet and Peripherals Questions

[serendip]

Hey OP! I’ve had that 13” 2010 MacBook Pro for many years (you can see it in my signature). It was a great laptop from 2010 to 2019, but sadly as you said, it got stuck on High Sierra -yes, I know there are unofficial ways to update it further-, and despite the fact that I upgraded the drive to an SSD and the RAM to 8GB, it felt a quite slow at the end of its life, maybe because of the ancient Core2Duo CPU architecture, or because of the SATA II bus. That’s when I jumped to my current 2014 mac mini which, despite being just 4 years newer, felt like a whole new generation with the Haswell i5 dual core CPU.

Now, seeing that you keep your devices for way longer than 10 years, I would recommend you to upgrade some specs of your M2 Pro mini, which is a great device to hold onto for the next decade. Although, if you could wait until March, we’re probably seeing a new M3 Mac Mini, and the base M3 is so powerful that in some CPU benchmarks it scores almost like the M2 Pro, although GPU wise the M2 Pro is still superior in raw power (without RayTracing tho). Also, with the M3 you’ll be given the option of upgrading to 24GB of RAM, at a much more affordable price.

Now, if you can’t wait three months, and you’re decided to get the M2 Pro Mac mini, and you expect to have it for more than 10 years, I would consider upgrading the SSD to 1TB a) to never be short of storage, b) to enjoy the better SSD speeds, and c) to expand its lifespan, because as you may know, SSDs have a limited number of reads and writes.

I would also recommend you to upgrade to 24GB of RAM, but sadly that option isn’t available for the M2 Pro, only for the base M2 and M3. And going with 32GB, although a good idea for a mac that will receive many macOS updates in the far future, it will be too expensive. Here in Europe that upgrade alone is more than 400€, which is a lot of money to be honest.

So I think the base model could be fine for you, especially if you find it discounted, refurbished or in the second hand market. Or, you could buy it new, and maybe upgrade the SSD, which will be noticeably more expensive.

Still, I would wait three or four months to see how the M3 minis are, because I feel it is worth the wait.

Good luck!

PS: All of the above is my humble, personal opinion. I may be wrong on some things, but I wanted to share what I thought about, and help OP in his decision.

Thank you so much!

The MBP was a secondary computer for when I was traveling, until the hardrive in my iMac died; that’s when I installed the SSD and 16gb ram. I started looking at 2012 Minis several years ago, since they were so fully user upgradeable. But one thing then another, it never happened. And now, it’s long beyond time.

Wait until March (or later) for the M3… I don’t know if I can! Mostly because March could really be June or…

You’ve raised great points, and I appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you!

 

[avkills]

Why? >1Gbps internet is rolling out to the US at a faster pace than ever. And the real-world use cases for >1Gbps internet are few and far between.

And I say this as someone with 5Gbps internet.
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Well the biggest problem in the US is that the markets are strangle held by certain companies that pay off politicians so that other ISPs can not enter their market place.

Personally I also feel unless you have Fiber, whatever speed is being promised by cable providers will somehow be gimped if you try and do something meaningful with the speed. Our company saw time and time again during the pandemic when we were handling livestreams; almost everyone who had cable had problems.

Not to mention the pricing. At least it isn't as bad as trying to get drops in convention centers and hotels.

 

[picpicmac]

about the online Apple Refurb store, I’ve learned that

As you've also no doubt noticed, a Mini with 10Gb ethernet rarely shows up in the refurb store. But as you noted originally, the new price for the upgrade is the only not-extravagant upgrade that Apple offers for their boxes.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, debating whether to get 10GBe or not, because if I want it then it means no iMac. However, currently my Cox plan is at 500Mbs and while Cox does offer 2Gb/s as an upgrade I doubt it's worth the additional $75/month for me.

Still, if I buy new and have the $90 option to upgrade from Apple I'd take it.

Alternate plan: just buy a Studio. The M2 Max Studio is $1799 at the discount price, and the M1 Max Studio is sitting in the refurb store for $1529. The 32GB of RAM and front ports have value even if one doesn't use the standard 10GB ethernet. Once the M3 Max Studio comes out (March 2024?) then the M2 will be old hat and may go down in price in the refurb store. (Or, Apple might move the M3 Max Studio more upmarket which means the M2 Studios will likely not drop much in price.)

As someone else mentioned: if you have a home office then think about the intranet needs. I used to do a lot of photography, in the old days with film, and spent a lot of time scanning images. If I did photography today I'd get a NAS and multiple computers, and tie them all together with 10GBe. If you think you'll be setting up an office, or even if you live in a family with many computer users and want to network all of them together, then 10GBe is the way to go.

 

[ewitte]

If you upgrade to 10Gbit might as well get the Studio plus it has 32GB of ram for nearly the same price. Haven't gotten to it yet but I'm going to try moving one of my 2.5Gbit USB adapters to the Mac mini. I have 1.5Gbit internet but also a 10Gbit NAS and a server with 10Gbit (2 Optane drives and 4x2TB NVME array). Not urgent on the Mac mini I have an external TB4 enclosure for its own storage.

 

[serendip]

If you upgrade to 10Gbit might as well get the Studio plus it has 32GB of ram for nearly the same price. Haven't gotten to it yet but I'm going to try moving one of my 2.5Gbit USB adapters to the Mac mini. I have 1.5Gbit internet but also a 10Gbit NAS and a server with 10Gbit (2 Optane drives and 4x2TB NVME array). Not urgent on the Mac mini I have an external TB4 enclosure for its own storage.

With the M1 Studio (base config) being offered, new, for $1499, I am considering it!

 

[picpicmac]

With the M1 Studio (base config) being offered, new, for $1499,

Refurb store currently has M2 Studio base config for $1699. You might want to spend that extra $200 for an extra year of support and a faster processor.

 

[ewitte]

Refurb store currently has M2 Studio base config for $1699. You might want to spend that extra $200 for an extra year of support and a faster processor.

Microcenter has a new M2 Studio for 1799 at least when I looked yesterday. I wouldn't consider the M1 the reason I only used the base m2 mini a day is 60hz on HDMI 2.0 bothered me. It also only had 8GB but I didn't need to go up to the m2 pro for that.