Late 2014 Mac mini is slow

[someguy]

I just picked up a used Mac mini (A1347, late 2014 unibody model) and it doesn't seem to run very well.

It's a 1.4GHz Core i5 with 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 5000. I plan to put an SSD in it, but it currently has the stock 500GB Hitachi 5400RPM disk installed. Apple Diagnostics reports no issues.

It is also running a fresh install of Mojave 10.14.2.

I know it is not a powerhouse, but even doing little things like right-clicking the desktop or opening an app begin with a 2-3 second pause where I wait to see if I misclicked. This is the case with no apps running and plenty of free/available memory.

This is primarily what I mean by "slow" -- not responsive. Not Snappy™

Is there anything I can check or any settings I can change to help? Or is there maybe something wrong that I'm not seeing?

 

[Boyd01]

I have the same model Mini. From what you have said, it doesn't sound like anything is wrong. Yes, it really is that slow. I only use mine as an iTunes server, so it's fine for that (just sitting and running iTunes 24/7 with a large library on an external disk). Some things are unbelievably slow, such as clicking on System Preferences. That can take as much as 40 seconds to open.

Mine had El Capitan pre-installed and I have not bothered to upgrade it. Wouldn't surprise me if it were even slower with Mojave. Adding a SSD should help, but you can't do anything about the 4gb of RAM.

 

[chuck21401]

I have the same machine, except running High Sierra. I added an external SSD as boot drive connected via Thunderbolt 2.

It is an older drive, bought it on clearance at Microcenter on clearance. Found it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Thunderbolt-Portable-LAC9000490/dp/B00LW217FC
I’ve read that a less expensive SSD connected via USB3 would work just as well.

I planned to crack open the mac mini to replace the stock hard drive but wasn’t confident in my skills.

The SSD made a huge difference, the computer is usable again. My kids use it to play mindcraft and something called ROBLOX. Seems to work fine for them.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I have the same machine, except running High Sierra. I added an external SSD as boot drive connected via Thunderbolt 2.

It is an older drive, bought it on clearance at Microcenter on clearance. Found it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Rugged-Thunderbolt-Portable-LAC9000490/dp/B00LW217FC
I’ve read that a less expensive SSD connected via USB3 would work just as well.

I planned to crack open the mac mini to replace the stock hard drive but wasn’t confident in my skills.

The SSD made a huge difference, the computer is usable again. My kids use it to play mindcraft and something called ROBLOX. Seems to work fine for them.

+1 to this. The spinning drive is the bottleneck on the computer. Run an SSD externally and install the OS directly to that - it will vastly improve system performance.

 

[someguy]

I have the same model Mini. From what you have said, it doesn't sound like anything is wrong. Yes, it really is that slow.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but I am hesitant to believe that supported hardware would run poorly enough to make me question if something was wrong.

Adding a SSD should help, but you can't do anything about the 4gb of RAM.

I did not know this when I bought the system, which is my fault, but you are right that I'm stuck with the 4GB of RAM. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I still think 4GB is a decent amount of memory for basic computer usage!

The SSD made a huge difference, the computer is usable again.

The spinning drive is the bottleneck on the computer. Run an SSD externally and install the OS directly to that - it will vastly improve system performance.

I've ordered the necessary tools from iFixit to do this job. I hope it helps! I will definitely report back later this week.

 

[Boyd01]

I am hesitant to believe that supported hardware would run poorly enough to make me question if something was wrong.

Unfortunately, if you had been following the Mini forum over the past few years, you would have seen a great number of posts that agree with my assessment. But I'm sure the SSD will help.

 

[Fishrrman]

someguy wrote:
"Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but I am hesitant to believe that supported hardware would run poorly enough to make me question if something was wrong."

Well, you'd better start "believing it", because that's the reality with the Mini that you have. Apple deliberately sold folks a grossly-underpowered version of the Mini (sigh).

The 4gb of RAM is soldered in and is NOT upgradeable.
It's always going to limit the computer, because the OS is probably "forcing page-ins and page-outs" (VM disk swapping) to the slow HDD.
But... you can alleviate this (to some extent) by booting and running from an SSD. This will accelerate page-ins and page-outs.

Get an external USB3 enclosure for the existing HDD, it can still be useful as an external drive (for backups, etc.)

Rather than Mojave, I would use Low Sierra (10.12) as my "OS of choice" on a 2014 Mini.
But if you want a "quick, easy, $0 way" to get things running with the new SSD, use CarbonCopyCloner (free to download and use for 30 days) to clone the contents of the HDD to the new SSD.

My guess is that there's nothing wrong with the software installation on the HDD itself.
Rather, it's the combination of the 5400rpm drive and the 4gb of RAM that's "slowing things down".

 

[revmacian]

Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but I am hesitant to believe that supported hardware would run poorly enough to make me question if something was wrong.

I had the same model Mac mini that you are using now. I say 'had' because I sold it at the beginning of this month and bought a refurbished 2017 MacBook Pro. The reason I sold it was due to it being so slow. The Numbers app took 36 seconds to open when double-clicking a .Numbers file and the Pages app was not much faster.

I didn't bother replacing the HDD with an SSD because I couldn't upgrade the RAM, and that is going to be its own bottleneck soon, so I just got rid of it and upgraded. I did, however, have numerous people telling me to swap the HDD for an SSD and that would give new life to that machine and make it much faster.

Try the swap and let us know how it went.

 

[Boyd01]

Get an external USB3 enclosure for the existing HDD, it can still be useful as an external drive (for backups, etc.)

I agree with everything you said.... except this. Why would you waste any money on an enclosure for that worthless 5400 RPM drive? If you want an external disk for backups, get a cheap bus-powered one. It will be much smaller, have more storage space, it won't require external power and will be just as fast. I have some cheap WD MyPassport external USB 3.0 disks that clock just as fast as the internal 5400 RPM Mini disk.
[doublepost=1547571698][/doublepost]

I didn't bother replacing the HDD with an SSD because I couldn't upgrade the RAM, and that is going to be its own bottleneck soon, so I just got rid of it and upgraded.

That would be a wise choice for the OP as well IMHO, before wasting more time and money on a machine that will always be very limited. But I suppose it all comes down to what you expect, and how much you value your time. There is also a fair chance that you will damage the mini when you try to install the SSD.

 

[someguy]

We'll see how much the SSD helps.

In the meantime, I would like to try running High Sierra. How can I go about getting that installed?

 

[someguy]

Night and day difference with the SSD installed. Running Mojave again and all seems to be well. I'm much happier now.

 

[Ploki]

People have forgotten how horrible HDDs were. especially small 5400rpm drives. ugh.

 

[trifid]

5400rpm drive on Mac Minis is pure hell, I feel bad for people still doing that and not realizing the necessity of SSD.

 

[leporto]

Night and day difference with the SSD installed. Running Mojave again and all seems to be well. I'm much happier now.

Hello, I'm sorry to be so late to the thread, but could I please ask: Which SSD did you use, and did you install it yourself or is it an external drive? Thank you very much (I am losing my mind with how slow this 2014 Mac mini is!!)

 

[someguy]

Hello, I'm sorry to be so late to the thread, but could I please ask: Which SSD did you use, and did you install it yourself or is it an external drive? Thank you very much (I am losing my mind with how slow this 2014 Mac mini is!!)

I don't recall the exact model SSD, but I believe any 2.5" SATA SSD should be fine. Here is one that I've used for other projects and might very well have been what I used for this project too.

Also, I had to buy a special tool to remove the innards of the system from the outer casing. See the iFixit teardown guide for more info.

Lastly, I will say that even though this upgrade made an enormous difference in the performance of the system, I still ended up replacing it with a newer and far more capable iMac a couple months later.

Good luck!

 

[getrealbro]

Hello, I'm sorry to be so late to the thread, but could I please ask: Which SSD did you use, and did you install it yourself or is it an external drive? Thank you very much (I am losing my mind with how slow this 2014 Mac mini is!!)

There are three basic ways to speed up a Late 2014 Mini — they all involve an SSD.

1- Add an external SSD like the Samsung T5. This gets you quite a bit of performance improvement with no “brain surgery”.

2 - Swap out your HDD for an SATA SSD. This gets you roughly the same performance improvement as an external SSD and keeps the data inside your Mini. BUT… it requires the most “brain surgery” to install the SSD. And you lose your HDD space unless you put it in an external case.

3 - Add an internal NVMe SSD. This provides the maximum performance improvement, keeps your current HDD for 'whatever' and requires only minimal “brain surgery”. Note: adding an NVMe SSD requires an adapter unless you have a fusion drive.

FWIW I took the easy way and added a T5.

GetRealBro

 

[Boyd01]

The external USB SSD is certainly the easiest and also offers decent performance. I boot my 2012 quad-core Mini Server from a 1TB Samsung T3 and use it pretty heavily with Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro with no problems. The external also has the advantage of being easily moved to a different computer in the future. But the 2012 Mini is a little different situation, since it has a slower internal SSD interface so there isn''t a lot of difference with an external.

I get similar performance from my Samsung T3 as getrealbro, but just FYI, this is what I get from the internal NVMe SSD on my 2014 Mini. It has a faster internal SSD interface, so you'll see a more significant difference in speed. Whether you really need this level of performance is hard to say. If you have a base 2014 Mini with only 4gb RAM, it should speed up virtual memory, which might make a noticeable difference.

 

[getrealbro]

I get similar performance from my Samsung T3 as getrealbro, but just FYI, this is what I get from the internal NVMe SSD on my 2014 Mini. It has a faster internal SSD interface, so you'll see a more significant difference in speed. Whether you really need this level of performance is hard to say. If you have a base 2014 Mini with only 4gb RAM, it should speed up virtual memory, which might make a noticeable difference.

It's good to see a test that allows a comparison of an external T5 and internal NVMe SSD for a 2014 Mini.

BTW which NVMe SSD and adapter are you using?

Thanks in Advance -- GetRealBro

 

[Boyd01]

Not using any adapters, it's all genuine Apple. This is the 128gb SSD that I split from the 1TB fusion disk in my 2014 2.8ghz/8gb Mini. It's now the boot drive for my iTunes server.

 

[getrealbro]

Not using any adapters, it's all genuine Apple. This is the 128gb SSD that I split from the 1TB fusion disk in my 2014 2.8ghz/8gb Mini. It's now the boot drive for my iTunes server.

Thanks. It looks like you are getting roughly the same performance as the OWC NVMe SSDs for the 2014 Mini.

OWC SSD Flash Storage Upgrade for Mac mini 2014

Upgrade your 2014 Mac mini flash storage up to 2.0TB with speeds up to 92x faster than the original drive. Kit includes all tools for DIY installation.

eshop.macsales.com

FWIW I’m trying to decide whether to get an external T5 or install an Internal NVMe SSD in our 2014 Mini that we are using as an iTunes music and file server. In my case we would need to get the adapter as well as the NVMe SSD. So an NVMe upgrade gets a bit pricey for a server and it isn't as easy to repurpose as an external T5.

GetRealBro

 

[leporto]

I don't recall the exact model SSD, but I believe any 2.5" SATA SSD should be fine. Here is one that I've used for other projects and might very well have been what I used for this project too.

Also, I had to buy a special tool to remove the innards of the system from the outer casing. See the iFixit teardown guide for more info.

Lastly, I will say that even though this upgrade made an enormous difference in the performance of the system, I still ended up replacing it with a newer and far more capable iMac a couple months later.

Good luck!

The external USB SSD is certainly the easiest and also offers decent performance. I boot my 2012 quad-core Mini Server from a 1TB Samsung T3 and use it pretty heavily with Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro with no problems. The external also has the advantage of being easily moved to a different computer in the future. But the 2012 Mini is a little different situation, since it has a slower internal SSD interface so there isn''t a lot of difference with an external.

I get similar performance from my Samsung T3 as getrealbro, but just FYI, this is what I get from the internal NVMe SSD on my 2014 Mini. It has a faster internal SSD interface, so you'll see a more significant difference in speed. Whether you really need this level of performance is hard to say. If you have a base 2014 Mini with only 4gb RAM, it should speed up virtual memory, which might make a noticeable difference.

Thank you very much for your responses. I appreciate it.

 

[Boyd01]

FWIW I’m trying to decide whether to get an external T5 or install an Internal NVMe SSD in our 2014 Mini that we are using as an iTunes music and file server.

Not sure exactly how you use your server or what kind of network you have. But I used a plain vanilla base 1.4ghz/4gb/500gb HD Mini as an iTunes and file server for three years and it was just fine. All my media was on an external USB 3.0 hard disk that clocked around 170MB/sec. That machine came very close to saturating my gigabit ethernet LAN. With a couple terabytes of media, I didn't think it made sense to put that on a SSD and I suspect the only difference would have been less latency.

That machine took awhile to boot from the 5400RPM internal HD, but who cares? It ran 24/7 without sleeping and probably only re-booted two or three times a year. I guess a SSD would save energy compared to a mechanical HD though. That Mini was painfully slow for interactive use, but for a server it was just fine.

Replaced it with the 2014 2.8ghz/8gb Mini last summer when B&H Photo was blowing these out for $500.... just couldn't resist. It's a much nicer machine, but frankly there's little advantage over the old base Mini for the way I use it. The 128gb internal SSD is more than adequate for my boot drive and is mostly empty. It only has the original Apple software, since I don't use that machine for anything else.

 

[getrealbro]

Not sure exactly how you use your server or what kind of network you have. But I used a plain vanilla base 1.4ghz/4gb/500gb HD Mini as an iTunes and file server for three years and it was just fine. ...

Thanks for the info.

Our 2014 Mini is our “backup Mac” which we will place in service if/when my wife’s aging 27” iMac dies. Her iMac is booting & running off of an external T5, so she can be back up and running very quickly, giving us time to source a replacement while not in a panic.

Every year during the holidays I do a fresh install of the latest macOS on an SD card or USB stick. to see if it’s ready for prime time on our Macs. This year I used the headless 2014 Mini. The process required multiple reboots, “in the dark” impatiently waiting for the Mini to get to where it supported screen sharing.

This got me thinking how easy it would be to add an Internal NVMe SSD. But after seeing your Speed Tests and pricing internal NVMe SSDs with the required adapter, I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.

GetRealBro

p.s. Catalina was a big disappointment. It crashed several times while it was sitting idle overnight. We’ll be running Mojave for the foreseeable future.

 

[davegoody]

I had the same model Mac mini that you are using now. I say 'had' because I sold it at the beginning of this month and bought a refurbished 2017 MacBook Pro. The reason I sold it was due to it being so slow. The Numbers app took 36 seconds to open when double-clicking a .Numbers file and the Pages app was not much faster.

I didn't bother replacing the HDD with an SSD because I couldn't upgrade the RAM, and that is going to be its own bottleneck soon, so I just got rid of it and upgraded. I did, however, have numerous people telling me to swap the HDD for an SSD and that would give new life to that machine and make it much faster.

Try the swap and let us know how it went.

I have a very similar Mac Mini, 4GB RAM and possibly the slowest HDD in the world. Some open-heart surgery later (only slightly kidding, it's a complete strip-down to get to the HDD), and the 500GB HDD has been replaced with a 250GB SSD.

Whilst it's no powerhouse, it's made a serious difference to performance, and whilst you can't upgrade the RAM, any paging to the SSD is an order of magnitude faster than it ever was with the spinning rust...... It's now a pretty functional PLEX Server (with a couple of external drives for media), as well as a file and print server, running Catalina. It's never gonna be quick enough for a main machine (for me) but it's decent enough for it's current purpose. The biggest bottleneck is the I/O speed on these machines, and RAM a very close second. It's like a new machine, comparatively speaking, since the SSD upgrade.

 

[Boyd01]

Some open-heart surgery later (only slightly kidding, it's a complete strip-down to get to the HDD), and the 500GB HDD has been replaced with a 250GB SSD.

This always put me off with regard to installing an internal SSD on my 2012 Mini and I just assumed it was also difficult on the 2014. But, according to the OWC video, it's dead easy if you get an SSD like their Aura Pro X2

Upgrade/Install a PCIe SSD in a Mac mini (Late 2014)

OWC's step-by-step video of how to upgrade the PCIe SSD in the Apple Mac mini (Late 2014).

eshop.macsales.com

My 2014 1.4ghz/4gb/500gb HD Mini is just sitting in the closet now that I replaced it with the 2014 2.8ghz Mini, and this looked so easy that I thought about upgrading it to a SSD. But I just couldn't think of a good reason to do that. 4 computers already seem like a lot for me

@getrealbro - my 2014 2.8ghz Mini iTunes server is running Mojave, and it is OK. However, I think it's slower than the old 2014 1.4ghz Mini for some reason - which really seems wrong, since it has twice the clock speed, twice the RAM and system disk that's 7x faster than the old machine. But I only see around 80MB/sec with the disk speed test when I mount it as a shared volume over gigabit ethernet (and this even happens when I share the fast internal SSD). The old 1.4ghz Mini was getting about 100MB/sec over the network.

The only reason I can think that would cause this would be if file sharing is much slower on Mojave than it was on El Capitan (which is what the old Mini was running). Is file sharing slower with APFS maybe? I have not really investigated this properly... it works well enough and I have other things to do.