The best way to upgrade to a Mac Mini

It was time to die.

My iMac 2014, equipped with a 3 TB drive and RAM to the max, was a dream machine. For years, I turned it on and got to work, transcoding videos, recording podcasts, and writing books. It was almost too much machine. He had a massive and beautiful display – one of the first Retina models, if I remember correctly – great speed and amazing performance. And that lasted for almost seven years, a record given my habit of upgrading with every major Apple update.

Once I have installed macOS Big Sur, however, things took a turn for the worse. I would open multiple tabs in Safari and get a spinning beach ball that crashed so hard I was embarrassed for Apple CEO Tim Cook. Everything would freeze and spin for a solid two minutes before the Gray Screen of Death appeared. I would have to restart almost daily. Apple had reduced my once capable machine to rubble.

What should I do? I could use a laptop in the house, but these were taken by my kids and their distance education. I could keep working on this iMac and constantly reboot. I could use an iPad and cry to fall asleep every night.

Reader, I bought a Mac Mini.

The Mac Mini is a computer dear to my heart. I had a first generation model in 2005, and it was my first real foray into Apple products. Remember back then, unless you were a badass, you were doing all your real work on a Windows machine. They were cheaper, more ubiquitous, and, with the exception of a few art, music, and design apps, better performers.. We can make those points if you want, but for the average computer user, you got a Dell.

The original Mini was a revelation. It worked wonderfully, the UI was great (I wasn’t a Mac head so I probably hadn’t used it since the PowerPC days), and I could add any peripherals I wanted. I used an old monitor, a nice keyboard and a Logitech mouse. Everything worked perfectly.

After the death of my iMac, I wanted something similar in power with a big screen, something I loved about the huge bright Retina display of my old one. I also wanted to try the M1 chip. I traded in the iMac and installed the Mini. Here is what I learned.

Get a great instructor

I went for the $ 700 LG 24-inch UltraFine 4K UHD IPS Monitor, which delivers much of the brightness and clarity of the original iMac. I noticed a slight difference in color and light, and the screen was slightly smaller than the 27 inches that I was used to and, in retrospect, I probably should have picked a bigger one considering this is my daily driver. That said, the difference between the laptop, iMac, and this display is minimal.

You can go cheaper – around $ 300 for the BenQ PD2700Q – or go wild with the $ 1,600 LG 38WN95C-W. But what you’re looking for is a USB-C compatible monitor with a few expansion ports. Because the Mini only has two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, you’re going to want the expansion.

Get an external drive

The Mac Mini maxes at 512GB, what I noticed was filling up almost immediately. As mentioned my old iMac had 3TB on board, and that was more than enough. It was too little. I bought an external hard drive and turned it into a “junk” drawer for downloads and the like.

You will also want a voucher USB powered docking station. I have an Anker model with eight ports and am able to swap various peripherals while keeping my external audio system (the Scarlett 2i2) and the Logitech MX Master 2S mouse plugged in.

Replace your webcam

You’ll need a video capture device like the $ 110 Elgato Cam Link 4K. You can also connect a GoPro camera to your M1, but I had trouble getting it to work with the new M1 chips. I am currently plugging a Sony DSLR into the Elgato via HDMI because the USB streaming feature is not working. It’s the biggest slime in this whole system, and I certainly miss the built-in webcam – although the oldest iMac was obnoxious (the Model 2020it’s much better).

In total, I spent around $ 800 on accessories to make the Mac Mini work like my iMac, not including the cost of the Mini itself. Because iMacs don’t have M1 chips yet and the Mini was so reasonable, I think it’s a perfect opportunity to try out hardware that I haven’t touched in years and upgrade my Mac in the process.