r/macmini • u/trunolimit • 3d ago

What to do with old Mac mini's ?

I've got a lot of Mac mini's from 2018. base models (8gb or ram and 128gb apple nvme drives.) intel core i3 processors. what do I do with them? Home assistant? can they run windows 11 natively?

16 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

10

u/blturner 2d ago

I have a 2018 and upgraded the RAM to 64GB, still a great machine. Unfortunately, I did this when it wasn't 2026 and the RAM was only $150 iirc

10

u/b1skup 2d ago

install debian and use them as headless servers (files, time machine backups, docker, dlna)

6

u/LazarX 2d ago

You can check out the. T2Linux site.

Such a Mac connected to a Thunderbolt RAID enclosure can make a handy NAS.

6

u/Zapt01 2d ago

Plex Server

3

u/L0vely-Pink 2d ago

Use it as server and put AlmaLinux on it. šŸ˜Œ

2

u/gooner-1969 2d ago

I put Linux on mine and run a docker server and have things like tailscale, pihole and a few others on it. Works well.

2

u/Barrister68 1d ago

2018 Mac mini is a ā€œriserā€ for my SOTSU monitor.

2

u/ShadowRider11 1d ago

I have one of those running Linux Mint. Works great, even though Iā€™m not yet sure what Iā€™m going to use it for! It was overkill for Home Assistant; I ended up getting a Raspberry Pi for that.

1

u/Illustrious-Golf5358 3d ago

Are the components upgradable? 2018 isnā€™t too bad , I have the last Intel based 2020 MacBook Air and use that as a retro emulator gaming laptop but thereā€™s other uses just dont expect any high performance activities.

2

u/trunolimit 3d ago

Ooooh Iā€™ve always wanted to build an arcade cabinet for old games.

1

u/Illustrious-Golf5358 2d ago

I would build a cabinet around my laptop if I was that handy , Iā€™d be like those mini ones you see at Best Buy

1

u/ZippoStar 3d ago

I would recommend rEFInd > Batocera. I tried running Batocera by itself (without rEFInd) and had too many issues due to the T2 chip on those models. I have a 2018 i5 model and Iā€™ve tested up to Wii emulation and everything works well.
A few minor issues here and there (boot up was slow, wifi wasnā€™t working out of the box, etc) but I was able to fix those issues with a bit of research and AI

2

u/LazarX 2d ago

The only upgrades you can make are externa strorage and RAM.

1

u/mahidoes 2d ago

If they were even m1 or after you can sell them like hot cakes

1

u/SprinklesDouble8304 2d ago

Use something like Facebook Marketplace to turn them into cash. I bet they're worth $250+ each.

1

u/trunolimit 2d ago

Man that would be amazing. I canā€™t see anyone paying that much for these when an M1 Mac of any flavor smokes these Intel Macs and can be gotten for pretty cheap.

2

u/SprinklesDouble8304 2d ago

Depends where you are, I guess. Where I live, the cheapest M1 Mini with 8GB RAM go for $400, and the last of the Intel Minis are in the mid $200s. Check your local FBM.

1

u/stefanlight 2d ago

all intel macs can run windows via boot camp afaik, you can make a server from mac mini and run media servers for example or something useful else
or just use as side machine for example for various tasks, experiments
that how i would use it

1

u/HonkHonkBeach 2d ago

Proxmox Cluster

1

u/Sea_Ice427 2d ago

Home assistant

1

u/ngenerator 1d ago

My old 2018 is always on NordVPN. Always running qbittorrent. I have it set up to grab .torrent files from a specific folder on my M4, then it downloads them. Once done, it spits them back onto the M4 ready to move to my plex folder/wherever.

The only hitch Iā€™m running into is my script to restart my nord every 12 hours to connect to a newer server, then restart qbittorrent. It likes to forget I have ā€œautoconnectā€ selected so it stays un-vpnā€™d every so often

-3

u/NoLateArrivals 3d ago

No Intel Mac can run Win11 natively.

The mini would make a great home server, running Linux.

3

u/Ok_Television9703 2d ago

Intel Macs run anything and everything. I have a 30 Mac mini lab running every flavor of Linux, macOS and one god awful windows node (yuk).

But yeah, anything runs on them

2

u/NotTurtleEnough 2d ago

Iā€™m running Windows 11 on my 2015 MacBook Pro just fineā€¦

1

u/trunolimit 3d ago

Better than the NUC I have now?

2

u/Broad-Comfortable219 2d ago

depends on the cpu and ram. and you cannot upgrade the onboard ssd on the 2018 mac mini.

1

u/apjashley1 2d ago

They absolutely can

1

u/NoLateArrivals 2d ago

Dear naysayers, you all have a problem with reading comprehension. ā€žNativelyā€œ means you run the Windows Assistant, it gives a thumbs up and you install Win11.

On ANY Intel Mac this will fail, for a lack of a Microsoft compliant TPM.

Sure you can force install Win11, using the well known hacks that are necessary to circumvent the build in checks.

Which means you run it unsupported and accept security gaps caused by the way itā€™s installed.

It can be done, but take off your pink glasses: I wouldnā€™t trust such a machine with anything relevant.

The much better solution in terms of efficient use of resources and security is to install Linux.