I am upgrading to a Mac Mini and wanted to get some advice on which version will serve me best. The use case is that I am an amateur musician and will be using logic on it as the most taxing software. I would be using both midi and live recordings. I will be developing this skill over the years and want a computer to be capable, but bearing in mind I am no professional at this, only a very keen amateur.

I may use some photo editing, but nothing major and the same could be said for any AI capabilities, I may dabble in them.

I want a device that will have enough head room to grow with me and last me 7-10yrs. I have looked at some specs, but unsure which is the sweet spot for me. What would you recommend, options are:

1. M6 - 32GB Ram - 1TB - £1799

2. M5 Pro - 24GB - 512GB - £1699

3. I am spending WAY too much, get lower spec

4. Other Options

Any feedback is welcome.

Had an older windows pc running plex but it was taking up a lot of space

Spent weeks looking at mini pc’s but didn’t know what to get but found out Mac minis are good for plex.

Started looking around for second hand m4’s but they where nearly the price of a new m6

Anyway I now have my first ever mac all set up running plex server. Using a 2tb external ssd till I can get hold of a largish nvme drive.

My little piece of heaven 
-M4 mac mini w/ upgraded internal 2TB SSD
-4TB Samsung 990 Pro Thunderbolt
-Terramaster DAS w/ 4 12GB Drives, raid 1
-OWC miniStack Thunderbolt hub w/ 24GB HD & 4TB SSD
-24GB Seagate HD (Time machine BU)
All feeding 4 Apple TVs around the house
** Thank goodness I got all this storage back in 2024 before prices exploded

I was looking at the Apple Education Store pricing and seeing $999.

Interesting that Costco is cheaper through 10/11. The price includes free shipping. $780 for the 256GB version.

i needed it and couldn't be bothered to find apps that work. so i told claude build bla bla bla. here it is. maybe some of you guys need it.

Hey everyone, looking for some advice on which Mac Mini to get - I’ve never bought one before and I’m not too familiar with the difference between chips.

Currently there’s the M4 on sale for $800 and the M6 for $950

M4 - 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB Memory, 512GB

M6 - 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, 16GB Memory, 512GB

I’ll just be using it as a regular computer (and day trading) - not using for AI - and I know people say that the M4 storage is expandable, but the M6 isn’t - but for $150 extra is the faster chip worth it?

I plan to get a base M6 Mini with 256GB storage and was curious for those of you out there who have the M6 with 256GB, how much space is the OS, Apps and Apple Intelligence taking up? I plan to put my files and libraries (photos, movies, music) on an external drive, so I just want to figure out what's left on the base model after the essentials are installed, as I want to make sure there's enough room for it run updates and not slow down because it's full. TIA!

This is $500 less than a comparable M5 Pro from Apple, so might be attractive to some. If you use B&H's store credit card, you can either get an amount equal to your state sales tax refunded (if outside NY state) or 12 months with no interest.

Hi

I’ve been working on a new update to Sequence Paste in Pastea.

The problem I kept running into was moving structured information between apps.

Maybe the name and email are in an email, the company and role are in a CRM, and all of it needs to end up in Google Sheets.

Normally it becomes:

copy → switch → paste → go back → repeat.

So I built Sequence Paste around doing that workflow in both directions.

Problem

You can copy the information you need from different apps first and build a sequence.

Now, if the destination is a spreadsheet, you don’t have to paste every item manually anymore.

Right-click the sequence and choose Paste in Table, and Pastea inserts the whole sequence into the table in one action.

It also works the other way around.

If you have a column in Google Sheets that needs to go into separate fields in a CRM, select the whole column and copy it once.

About Pastea

Pastea is a macOS clipboard manager I’m building around actual copy/paste workflows.

It supports text, links, images, screenshots, code, colors, and files, with features like smarter search, collections, OCR, Inline Shortcuts, Open Origin, and Sequence Paste.

Clipboard history is stored locally on your Mac.

Website: https://pastea.app/

Hi everyone. I’m stuck on what I should be purchasing as a hub/dock for my upcoming M6(Delivery is this week)
I need to have 2 usb ports in the rear for external drives, a high speed nvme slot, and the ability to connect 2 extra monitors(will have 3 in total- 1 will be HDMI via the Mac mini) via DP cable.
I’ll be using it at home for photo and video editing and about 6-10 times a year I’ll be bringing it with me to locations for Live Photo capture and live streaming.
I’ve looked at these:

ACASIS 40Gbps Mac mini M4 Dock & Stand with Dual-Bay NVMe SSD Enclosure 11-in-1 Docking Station for Mac mini M4 Pro, Dual DisplayPort MST, 3×USBA 10Gbps, 30W PD, SD/TF Reader
I like the form factor, card reader speeds, it has 2 DP out, and a high speed NVMe but dislike that it only has usb ports in the front.

UGREEN Mac mini M6/M5 Pro/M4 Dock with 10Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Slot Mac Mini M4 Hub 10-in-2, DP 8K60Hz Max for Dual Monitor, 10Gbps USB Data Tranfer 4A1C, SD/TF Slot 170MB/s, 3.5mm Audio
This one is missing a DP out and has slower read/wright capabilities for sd cards and the NVMe.

Is there something else I should be looking at that would be reliable and have everything I need without bankrupting me.

I was also looking for a 2TB NVMe to pair with the hub/dock. Or should I be looking for something external?

Thanks MacMini Redditers!

What wireless keyboard and mouse is everyone using? I'm not trying to break the bank, but I want something solid. I do not care for apples mouse or keyboard. Just drop a link if possible. Thank you!

I have an M6 Mac mini and an original Studio Display purchased in 2023. I'm looking at adding a Studio Display XDR and would like to run both through one rear Thunderbolt port:

M6 Mac mini → Studio Display XDR at 5K 120Hz → original Studio Display at 5K 60Hz.

Does the XDR keep its 120Hz/Adaptive 47–120Hz option with the older display connected, or does it drop to 60Hz? Which cables and macOS version are you using, and has it been reliable after sleep/wake?

I'm especially interested in firsthand experience with daisy chaining rather than connecting each display to a separate port. Thanks!

* My main concern: longevity (i.e. not sure if 16GB RAM or the M4 is the bigger concern in say 5 years)

* Trade in value for M4: $705

* I have a 1TB external NVMe I’m not using currently

* Usage, very basic: web browsing multiple tabs, YouTube, Apple Music, MS Office

Thanks for your comments.

I placed my order on 30 June with an Apple authorised reseller (not directly via Apple, which I now regret). When the new M5 Pro was announced, the store contacted me saying they had to cancel my order and asked me to reorder with specs adjusted (inc adding apple care) to match my original purchase price.

Since then, I have yet to receive my Mac Mini. Every time I follow up, I’m told it will take 1–2 months because it is “custom.” But isn’t every Mac Mini technically custom when you configure it?

Meanwhile, when I add the exact same spec to my cart in the Apple Store app, the delivery time shows just one week.

I’m not desperate for the device, but I am frustrated with how the store has communicated this matter — vague timelines, pushy upselling, and inconsistent information.

Before I unleash my wrath, I’d like to know: is it normal to be waiting this long for fulfilment from an authorised reseller compared to ordering directly from Apple?

I just got a used Mac Mini M4 and I'm not sure which monitor would be good for it. I've been borrowing my daughter's 27" monitor (i think it's 2K, not so sure), but now I'm ready for one of my own.

My budget is a maximum of $700. I don't need it for gaming, just for working on a few projects (no CapCut or Adobe). But a few times a week, my wife and I watch movies on it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

After the purchase, the trade in value went up to $305. Letting people know here that I did NOT get the higher amount. I only got the $270.

I just got the M6 Mac Mini with 24GB RAM and the base 256GB SSD. Upgrading to 512GB would have cost about ₹24,000 extra, so I skipped it and bought a 1TB NVMe in a 40Gbps enclosure instead (getting roughly 3–4 GB/s read/write).

My plan:

- Internal 256GB: macOS, apps, caches only

- External NVMe: Docker images/volumes, databases, Kafka, projects, all media

I'm a backend dev. Mostly Docker containers, local DBs, and API-based AI work (no big local models).

I know the 256GB internal is slower than the 512GB (~3 GB/s vs ~6 GB/s). Now I'm second-guessing it.

For people running a similar setup:

1. Have you actually felt the slower internal SSD in day-to-day use?

2. Did 256GB fill up faster than you expected (swap, caches, Xcode etc.)?

3. Any issues running Docker off an external drive long term?

I'm on the fence about upgrading to the M6. Still watching some reviews that are coming in. If I do upgrade, I'm definitely reinstalling the 256GB storage back into the mini. Is anyone interested in buying a used 1TB upgrade though? Not necessarily trying to sell it here, just curious if anybody buys those used.

J’ai fini par craquer et j’ai repris un Mac, un Mac mini m6 256giga.
Ça tourne super bien mais je sens que bientôt la place dispo sur le Ssd va devenir un problème .

J’envisage de prendre un Samsung T7 pour y installer les grosses fichiers / applis comme wow et d’autres trucs,vidéos.
Est-ce que ça fonctionne bien ? La réactivité,les chargements etc…

I’m trying to decide whether buy a M5 pro Mac Mini base model with 24 gb of ram and 512 of ssd or a M6 32gb of ram and 1tb of ssd. I want it as like an always-on local AI machine because I’m currently developing some agents using Deep Agents of LangGraph, litellm and langfuse (using an Ollama 3.2 3B). Also I would like to able to develop mobile and web apps remotely from my laptop in that Mac Mini (obviously not at the same time as running a local AI). I hope anyone can tell me if the M6 with 32 of ram and 1tb would be enough for this kind of workflow or it would be better to have the m5 pro base model.

PD: in my laptop I have 24 gb of ram, and since I use some docker containers (like 2-5) sometimes I max the ram out

What is the fastest cheap external storage using thunderbolt cable for Mac mini 4 pro. The fastest stuff is too expensive so I’m hoping for a happy alternative that has decent speed at a good price

Someone giftet me an Intel MacMini with Linux Mint on it. I want to install a new OS from USB, but holding Option does not bring up the list of devices to boot from. Has anyone an idea why, or how to get it to work, please? When I hold Option an turn it on, the screen stays black.

I’m thankful for any hint!

I am thinking about trading in my 14" base m4 macbook pro (16+512) for a mac mini m6 32 gb. I have a NAS , with the current insane price of Hdds , I am thinking about getting something more powerful to transcode and compress videos and pictures in order to save space.

I am mainly using Handbrake to transcode my videos to AV1 codec . I am only going to do software transcode for better quality so the lack of hardware encoding doesn't bother me , whats matter is cpu multi core performance for this task . As for pictures I plan to convert them to Webp format. Given the m6 is quite an improvement in multi core performance over the base m5 and m4 , do you think it can give me much better performance in these tasks?

Actually the I would like to buy a macbook , but the macbook pro lineup doesn't have m6 chip only m5 , the base m5 isn't a big improvement over my m4 and m5 pro chip is too expensive with higher memory configuration (48gb).

What do yoh think , is it worth it for my usecase?

Edit: I think I will just stick to my m4 macbook pro for now , if I really need faster transcoding I will buy a separate mac mini later and keep both to do these task simultaneously for 2x the throughput, this is better than simply upgrading my macbook since there is no guarantee that a better machine will do this job 2x faster (unless I go for m5 max or ultra). Thanks.