New Mac Mini M2 Pro - couple of questions...

[mitchino]

Last week I bought a Mac Mini M2 Pro, and so far I'm loving it. I'm running Sonoma 14.4.1. The Mac keeps going to sleep, and the Energy Saver panel in Sonoma seems to have less options than I have on older Macs like Computer Sleep and Display Sleep.How can I keep the machine on unless I tell it to sleep?

My other question is about external storage - what are good options? Should I just get a Samsung T7 or similar? I'm a bit confused about the firewire/usb-c/usb-a ports on the machine.

 

[Basic75]

My other question is about external storage - what are good options?

What are your requirements and use cases? As for Firewire, that's long dead and your computer doesn't have it.

 

[Basic75]

How can I keep the machine on unless I tell it to sleep?

You could look at caffeinate and pmset in Terminal.app.

 

[mitchino]

Thanks - use case is I'm a photographer & CGI artist who needs fast storage for working files, textures etc etc.

I meant to say Thunderbolt not Firewire!

Thanks for the Caffeinate tip - have installed.

 

[mitchino]

Been on you tube and buying an enclosure and nvme drive seems to be the way to go, speeds up to 3000mbps. I'm slightly concerned about the drive getting too hot - is that an issue?

 

[Fishrrman]

Heat can be an issue with high speed nvme drives. Mostly due to the enclosures, I think.

What happens is that if the drive gets too hot (heavy extended writes), then the enclosure (or drive) will "throttle back", reducing speed to compensate and reduce heat.

Thus, a "very fast" drive will slow down when overheating, sometimes by a drastic amount.

My suggestion would be to try either a Samsung t7 (or t9), or a Crucial X-9 first.
Both are USB3.1 gen2 drives that will give reads in the 850-925MBps range.
Not "thunderbolt speeds", but still quite fast and respectable.

If you try one and it's still "not enough", re-purpose it to backing up, etc.

 

[kenny1wk]

Check out the new OWC Express 1M2 enclosures. Hard to find any for sale, but look like something for serious cooling. I put a WD Black 4T SN 850X in mine and have over 3,000 read and write with it.

 

[mitchino]

That looks good - but I feel I read a poor review of a OWC nvme solution somewhere, was that a different product?

 

[ChrisA]

Last week I bought a Mac Mini M2 Pro, and so far I'm loving it. I'm running Sonoma 14.4.1. The Mac keeps going to sleep, and the Energy Saver panel in Sonoma seems to have less options than I have on older Macs like Computer Sleep and Display Sleep.How can I keep the machine on unless I tell it to sleep?

My other question is about external storage - what are good options? Should I just get a Samsung T7 or similar? I'm a bit confused about the firewire/usb-c/usb-a ports on the machine.

one more thing, let's say you have 512 GB internal and 2TB external storage. Then you might want 4TB external storage for Time machine. But the desk gets cluttered with cables and Time machine does not need to be fast.

 

[kenny1wk]

That looks good - but I feel I read a poor review of a OWC nvme solution somewhere, was that a different product?

I have read some poor reviews on their hubs & docks (mainly poor connections to them), but only good on this newest OWC Express thunderbolt 4 enclosure. Several reviews on YouTube all seem positive. Mine is fantastic especially coming from USB 3 backups. I almost bought the Satechi thunderbolt 4 enclosure, but loved the design of the Express 1m2 better. My speeds are 3,100 something on read and write.

 

[kenny1wk]

Last week I bought a Mac Mini M2 Pro, and so far I'm loving it. I'm running Sonoma 14.4.1. The Mac keeps going to sleep, and the Energy Saver panel in Sonoma seems to have less options than I have on older Macs like Computer Sleep and Display Sleep.How can I keep the machine on unless I tell it to sleep?

My other question is about external storage - what are good options? Should I just get a Samsung T7 or similar? I'm a bit confused about the firewire/usb-c/usb-a ports on the machine.

I also just purchased a M2 Pro Mini. I'm running 14.4.1 also with no problems having the Mini going to sleep on it's own. I do find that sometimes it takes me a couple tries to get the Mini to sleep.

 

[OWC_TAL]

Hard to find any for sale

I believe the next batch is landing in the next week so should be shipping again soon. Hopefully we can keep them in stock a bit longer this time

 

[mitchino]

kenny1wk - you're right it was a dock I read about. Going to try and and get the express 1m2

 

[kenny1wk]

kenny1wk - you're right it was a dock I read about. Going to try and and get the express 1m2

I saw where OWC is suppose to have then back in around 4/23/24. B&H photo and others carry them also.