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Late 2014 Mac mini is slow
- Thread starter someguy
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My Mac mini is the same spec. I have replaced the 500GB spinner with an Intel 500GB SSD and a 1TB SATA SSD sits in the original HD space.
The NVMe SSD is not that much faster than the 1TB SATA SSD was but I wanted to see how far I could push this little beast.
Compared to the original set-up with a 500GB HST 5400 rpm drive, the interface is much smoother, apps open quicker (not lightening fast, but quicker) and I spend less time watching the spinning beachball.
"What do you advice for MacMini late 2014 with: 4Gb ram, 1.4Ghz with Catalina OS?"
Add an external USB3 SSD as the boot drive. That will give you "all the speed you're going to get" from it.
If that isn't good enough for you, start looking around for a replacement Mac.
Add an external USB3 SSD as the boot drive. That will give you "all the speed you're going to get" from it.
If that isn't good enough for you, start looking around for a replacement Mac.
I'm a big fan of external SSD's - I boot my 2012 quad Mini from a 1TB Samsung T3 and it works very well with Final Cut Pro, Logic and other demanding software. But in this case, I disagree with the suggestion that an external disk will give you "all the speed you're going to get". My 2012 Mini has 16gb RAM and a quad-core processor, but @diegodp only has 4gb (which is not upgradeable) and a very slow processor. So I think it's a fair assumption that swapping will occur (when there isn't enough RAM, the operating system "swaps" data to the disk). So you want the fastest possible SSD to minimize the performance hit.
I also have a 2014 Mini (although a higher-spec model), and this is what I get from the original Apple 128gb internal SSD
Here is an external USB3 SSD on the same Mini
The internal SSD has over 67% faster write performance, and IMO you need all the help you can get with the crippled 1.4ghz/4gb 2014 Mini. I also have this same model Mini, but replaced it last year with a 2.8ghz/8gb 2014 Mini from the B&H sale.
JMHO, but I would think twice as to whether it's worth spending anything at all on your 1.4ghz/4gb Mini. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't, and mine has found a new home in a closet with other old gear that I no longer use.
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do you have any sleep / wake crashing issues? ie, does it crash when waking up?
thx
thx
Our 2014 Mini is a 24/7/365 file/media server. So, no I don’t have sleep/wake crashes.
FWIW we don’t put any of our desktop macs to sleep.
GetRealBro
Mine too, and it is probably only restarted two or three times a year. With my 2012 quad Mini, it is only turned on when I use it, so it typically runs about 8 hours a day and then I do a full shutdown. But I just close the lid on my MacBook Air when it's not in use, so it is constantly sleeping/waking. This seems to work fine, but every few months I get some weirdness and do a restart.
Yes, this really is a complete piece of junk, basically unusable it is so slow. Don't know what they were thinking even selling this in the first place. It takes me about 4 minutes to start up, then I click to open the browser and wait another 40 seconds or so for it to open. The problem is you will click on something, then more often than not nothing will happen (not even a spinning wheel) for several more seconds, so you click again thinking you must have missed it, and that of course makes things even worse. Only bought this to run Safari as I needed to be able to test and debug my site in all browsers. Figured it would be good enough to just run a web browser, but sadly it struggles mightily just to do that.
What type of hard drive, how much RAM, and what OS are you running?
I ask because I have a 2014 mini with an SSD and 8 gigs of RAM running High Sierra and I still edit audio on it and use it as a media server. It was my full-time computer nine months ago.
Three bounces to open Safari and I'm accessing it using screen sharing.
Perhaps yours could use a few upgrades?
[automerge]1589476438[/automerge]
Replacing the internal hard drive requires a lot of steps, but it's doable with iFixit guides.
Have to take nearly the entire computer apart, though.
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I feel your pain, I have the same machine and what I did was, I connected an external SSD and made it boot from there, it brought new life to the machine, it's night and day difference in how amazingly great and usable it's now. You can also replace the internal HDD for a SSD but it's more work.
Yeah, I decided it would be worth upgrading it, so splashed out $150 on one of these SSD's - https://www.amazon.com/OWC-Including-Installation-Components-OWCS3DAPT4MM02K/dp/B07QBR2KP7
Could have done it cheaper I know, but I really don't need much disk space, and didn't want to mess with completely dissembling it. This thing was really easy to install.
A huge increase in performance all around, its now more than adequate for my needs. That ancient 5400 rpm disk that came with it was the culprit for sure.
Could have done it cheaper I know, but I really don't need much disk space, and didn't want to mess with completely dissembling it. This thing was really easy to install.
A huge increase in performance all around, its now more than adequate for my needs. That ancient 5400 rpm disk that came with it was the culprit for sure.
That one installs internally, it goes where the optional Apple SSD would have gone originally. The kit includes the screwdrivers and cable adapter required and has really good installation instructions. It doesn't replace the existing drive, you just remove the bottom cover and then attach it using the adapter cable to the existing connector and use the supplied screw to hold it down. Then re-install the OS on the new drive. You can use the existing internal hard drive for extra storage, or backup I guess (not that I really need it).
Good gawd I'm so envious. Replacing my HD with an SSD in the Mini was the longest repair I've ever done. So many, many, many steps, though it was less stressful than I was planning because I'd developed a good system.
Way cool!
Hi, I've posted here before, because the solution fixed my late 2014 mac mini.
I've also got a 2017 imac that contains, according the original email, a "1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm".
This one seems to be slowing down too. Do I apply the same solution here, e.g. another samsung SSD? Are there other options for the imac?
I've also got a 2017 imac that contains, according the original email, a "1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm".
This one seems to be slowing down too. Do I apply the same solution here, e.g. another samsung SSD? Are there other options for the imac?
Yeah, Apple really doesn't make it easy.
Managed to replace the old hard drive with an SSD on a late 2012 Mac mini. It feels like any modern computer. SSD just makes the computing experience a lot better.
The 5400 rpm hard drive in my wife’s late 2013 iMac died several months ago. After reading the iFixit guide
iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639 Hard Drive Replacement
Replacing the hard drive requires separating the display and removing the left speaker. This guide also includes steps to upgrade your iMac's hard...
www.ifixit.com
GetRealBro
I have a 2014 Mac mini i5 8gb and I’ve had the same everlasting spinning beach balls since it was brand new. I didn’t realize it was common to that model until I happened upon this thread. I thought something was wrong with mine, but I just never bothered to fix it since I use it 90% of the time as a file/media server.
Is there something about the 2014 models in particular that makes them so slow? It seems it’s mostly due to the 5400rpm hard drive, but don’t other Mac mini models have similar hard drives in them?
Also I’m considering expanding the internal storage from 1TB to 2TB or maybe even 4TB (I prefer not to go the external storage route if possible). For my usage, what would be my best option? I think SSDs of that size are too expensive and would be overkill speed-wise since I’m mainly using it as a file/media server. Would a 7200rpm HD be best? Is that any easier to install than an SSD? Thanks.
Is there something about the 2014 models in particular that makes them so slow? It seems it’s mostly due to the 5400rpm hard drive, but don’t other Mac mini models have similar hard drives in them?
Also I’m considering expanding the internal storage from 1TB to 2TB or maybe even 4TB (I prefer not to go the external storage route if possible). For my usage, what would be my best option? I think SSDs of that size are too expensive and would be overkill speed-wise since I’m mainly using it as a file/media server. Would a 7200rpm HD be best? Is that any easier to install than an SSD? Thanks.
I also use a Mini as a media server with about a 2tb library on an external drive. I have a second external hard disk that is automatically mounted and cloned nightly with Carbon Copy, and I rotate that with a second backup drive periodically. The primary media disk failed about 3 years ago and it only took a minute to swap it for a clone and get back up and running. The new disk started to fail last winter, dropping frames on playback and making clickety-clack noises so this time I replaced it with a 4tb USB 3.0 SSD in the hopes that it will last longer. Also nice because it's silent and twice as fast as the old hard drive with no latency.
Yeah, it was pretty expensive (Oyen Digital, about $600 from B&H Photo) but I think it was money well-spent. Based on my experience, I wouldn't want to use an internal media disk on the Mini. Would be a pain to swap an internal disk every few years when it fails, plus there's the additional heat and vibration that can't be especially good for the Mini. My server runs 24/7, so I think drive failures are inevitable.
Yeah, it was pretty expensive (Oyen Digital, about $600 from B&H Photo) but I think it was money well-spent. Based on my experience, I wouldn't want to use an internal media disk on the Mini. Would be a pain to swap an internal disk every few years when it fails, plus there's the additional heat and vibration that can't be especially good for the Mini. My server runs 24/7, so I think drive failures are inevitable.
Basically both; limited amount of memory installed on the base model (I am looking at you Apple with only 4Gb in 2020?!?) and a 5400 RPM when SSD is standard on PC installs for the same price. The dual core processor doesn't help and was a downgrade to the 2012 Quadcore, except for encoding and decoding MP4 movies. The Haswell CPU has an improved Quicksync which retains good quality encoding at the same speed as the Sandy Bridge CPU in 2012 model. Having said that, you can't do much with 2014 in terms of RAM, but you can replace the slow 5400RPM drive with a SSD or add an external USB 3 SSD or better a Thunderbolt SSD based external drive. The SSD drive will make it fly and the Thunderbolt SSD drive with a large capacity will help speed up the memory paging with the limited 4Gb ram. For maximum performance, the Thunderbolt external option would be the best. I have mine setup with both my Macbook Air and Mini 2011 albeit with Thunderbolt 1 which is limited to 10Gbps. The Mini 2014 has TB2 which is 20Gbps. Keep in mind that Apple is likely to phase out USB 3 external booting in favor of Thunderbolt external booting. I think they removed Firewire booting in Big Sur. The best would be to upgrade the internal hard drive to a SSD and then add a fast USB 3 7200 rpm spinning drive as your media drive if you are strapped for cash. You can obviously add a large SSD as your media drive too. They are becoming more affordable.
Note that @subjonas stated he had 8gb of RAM and that the machine was used as a server 90% of the time. I have one of those base 4gb Mini's and used it as an iTunes server with the stock hard drive or a couple years. Actually, it was completely fine for that, it only had the standard pre-installed software on the disk and 4gb RAM was fine for running file sharing and iTunes, which was all it did 24/7. Trying to do anything else with it was painfully show though.
I replaced it with a better 2014 Mini last year (2.8ghz i5 with 8gb RAM and a 1tb fusion disk) when B&H Photo was "blowing them out" for $500. It's a much nicer machine and much more responsive.
The Fusion drive is actually a separate 128gb SSD and a 1tb hard drive. I split them apart (easily done with software only) and use the 128gb SSD as a system disk, plenty of space for a server. The internal SSD has a write speed of around 700MB/sec and reads a little faster. So, if you have a fusion drive, there's a solution that doesn't cost anything.
If you don't have a fusion drive, it looks very inexpensive and easy to install a PCie SSD and there's a long thread in this forum about that. MacSales.com also has an install video on their site. Thunderbolt SSD's are certainly nice, but they're expensive.
I replaced it with a better 2014 Mini last year (2.8ghz i5 with 8gb RAM and a 1tb fusion disk) when B&H Photo was "blowing them out" for $500. It's a much nicer machine and much more responsive.
The Fusion drive is actually a separate 128gb SSD and a 1tb hard drive. I split them apart (easily done with software only) and use the 128gb SSD as a system disk, plenty of space for a server. The internal SSD has a write speed of around 700MB/sec and reads a little faster. So, if you have a fusion drive, there's a solution that doesn't cost anything.
If you don't have a fusion drive, it looks very inexpensive and easy to install a PCie SSD and there's a long thread in this forum about that. MacSales.com also has an install video on their site. Thunderbolt SSD's are certainly nice, but they're expensive.
Since I have 8gb ram, I‘m thinking the constant beach balls are mainly caused by the 5400rpm HDD. But regardless, my first question was just regarding if/why the slowness issue is unique to the 2014 Mac mini, when other Mac minis should also have similar type specs, namely 5400rpm HDDs.
My second/third question isn’t actually about improving the performance. I wouldn’t mind it, but since I mostly use it as a file/media server, I’m mainly just looking to increase the storage capacity.
As far as why I prefer increasing the internal storage, it’s because I’ve had issues with external drives occasionally randomly unmounting, and I don’t find out for days, and so I miss out on a lot of automatic data sync and time machine backups. Also I think there is less potential for complications when I keep iTunes, Photos, etc. libraries on the internal disk. I also want to cut down on external drives for clutter’s sake.
So I’m going to upgrade from 1tb to probably 4tb, and since I don’t care much for improving performance, I would be fine going with a spinning drive, since they are extremely cheap compared to the same capacity SSD. So my second/third questions were whether it’s worth it to get the 7200rpm over the 5400rpm (is the benefit to cost ratio high enough since I do very occasionally use it for things like file/library/device management), and whether HDD is easier to install than SSD.
Thanks, but like you said I use my Mac mini mostly as a server, which is why I’m not really trying to improve performance. I just want to increase internal storage capacity (see third paragraph in my response to the user above for my reasoning on keeping it internal). The benefit to cost ratio of getting a system SSD for my uses is just not worth it. My questions (paragraph 4 above) are just regarding installing a new HDD. My mini’s drive isn’t fusion by the way, just 1tb HDD.Note that @subjonas stated he had 8gb of RAM and that the machine was used as a server 90% of the time. I have one of those base 4gb Mini's and used it as an iTunes server with the stock hard drive or a couple years. Actually, it was completely fine for that, it only had the standard pre-installed software on the disk and 4gb RAM was fine for running file sharing and iTunes, which was all it did 24/7. Trying to do anything else with it was painfully show though.
I replaced it with a better 2014 Mini last year (2.8ghz i5 with 8gb RAM and a 1tb fusion disk) when B&H Photo was "blowing them out" for $500. It's a much nicer machine and much more responsive.
The Fusion drive is actually a separate 128gb SSD and a 1tb hard drive. I split them apart (easily done with software only) and use the 128gb SSD as a system disk, plenty of space for a server. The internal SSD has a write speed of around 700MB/sec and reads a little faster. So, if you have a fusion drive, there's a solution that doesn't cost anything.
If you don't have a fusion drive, it looks very inexpensive and easy to install a PCie SSD and there's a long thread in this forum about that. MacSales.com also has an install video on their site. Thunderbolt SSD's are certainly nice, but they're expensive.
@subjonas
My bad for not seeing the 8Gb of ram. Yes, most of the beach ball is probably due to the slow 5400rpm. The 7200 rpm drive will help. If your external drives occasionally unmount, then I would look at
1, External drives on an underpowered USB hub or a problematic USB hub can unmount all by itself.
2, Don't set external drive to sleep via preference
3, Don't get an energy saving external drive that goes to sleep all by itself (some drives offer econo-mode)
I also run the Mac Mini 2011 as a server as well and I have 2 external RAID boxes hooked up to it. I used to get occasional dismounting, but after I removed the USB hubs and just plug 1/RAID box per USB and set the boxes not to sleep, I haven't had them dismount.
Hope this helps.
My bad for not seeing the 8Gb of ram. Yes, most of the beach ball is probably due to the slow 5400rpm. The 7200 rpm drive will help. If your external drives occasionally unmount, then I would look at
1, External drives on an underpowered USB hub or a problematic USB hub can unmount all by itself.
2, Don't set external drive to sleep via preference
3, Don't get an energy saving external drive that goes to sleep all by itself (some drives offer econo-mode)
I also run the Mac Mini 2011 as a server as well and I have 2 external RAID boxes hooked up to it. I used to get occasional dismounting, but after I removed the USB hubs and just plug 1/RAID box per USB and set the boxes not to sleep, I haven't had them dismount.
Hope this helps.
I have been running my 2014 Mini(s) as servers with two external USB drives for over 4 years. For three years before that, I used a 2012 Mini for the same thing. Never any problems with drives dismounting themselves. These are externally-powered desktop drives, not bus-powered units.
Anyway, while you have the machine open to replace the hard disk, you could put a small 128gb PCIE SSD in the empty slot and use it as your system drive, that would be very cheap and easy to do. It would give you basically what I have, and I don't get any "beachballs".
Anyway, while you have the machine open to replace the hard disk, you could put a small 128gb PCIE SSD in the empty slot and use it as your system drive, that would be very cheap and easy to do. It would give you basically what I have, and I don't get any "beachballs".