I'm sure Apple knows where the demand lies. If your needs are niche enough to no longer be served, you still have options, at a cost: external (including TB2) is the way to go now.
It does require a mind set change and frankly the TB connectors and cables leave a lot to be desired in a rack cabinet. The other problem is the total lack of decent external storage,solutions. The expense of these solutions, the ones that exist, is less than ideal too.
I really like that the Mini comes with two TB ports now. That immediately makes the machine more viable for a variety of uses. I'm not happy though with the lack of a quad core variant.
There is a lot of handwringing going on here but one could easily buy a Minin with a 256 GB blade and add a conventional SSD to the machine for a very nice server. That is as long as bulk storage needs aren't massive and your server needs can function on a dual core. The lack of a dual core really bums me out. Further unless I'm missing something the high end machine offer little over the midrange machine. Strange really.
OS X Server is becoming less and less appealing with no hardware to run it on... Schools sometimes used Mac Mini servers, but the options are pretty much exhausted now. Mac Pros aren't servers.
To my mind the cheapest Mac mini is a downgrade to its predecessor.
I compared an MBA2012 (Ivy Bridge I5 1.8GHz HD4000) to an MBA2013 (Haswell I5 1.3GHz HD5000) and the newer MBA wasn't any faster. Graphics were even slower.
Now they drop the Mac mini2012 (Ivy Bridge I5 2.5/3.1GHz HD4000) to a Mac mini2014 (Haswell I5 1.4/2.7GHz HD5000). I believe that is going to be ugly in the benchmarks.
And to make things worse we are stuck another 2-3 years with Haswell, now that Broadwell is looming on the horizont.
I need cores for Compressor work. So I am actively looking at a refurb MP to give me some more oomph. It's a shame that Apple cannot see a way to provide for more customers needs apart from up-selling into a whole another price category.
The advantage of the previous generation of Mac minis was that they supported two mirroredinternal drives, which were perfect for the Macminicolo environment because the boxes were self contained units with just the one adapter for the second Ethernet port. Designing for fault tolerance is a good thing where you can't easily put your hands on the computer hardware.
It's still fault-tolerant as you can split up the SSD and HDD and although it's not mirrored exactly, it can be synced very quickly, especially if you switch the HDD with another SSD. If you had a mirrored RAID and a drive broke, you'd still have to take the machine offline to replace the drive. SSDs really shouldn't fail as much as HDDs either. Earlier batches weren't as reliable but they've improved the controllers.
Now I have to use external boot drives as well as external data drives.
I'll have to see what I can find for a 256GB Thunderbolt SSD, maybe I can still make this work.
I'm still pissed about the XServe, I'd really like to be able to buy one of those with two to four modern 12 core Xeons, dual power, modern full-GUI LOM, and 8 2.5" drive bays. I have clients who wouldn't blink at dropping $6-12k for that, depending on config. I don't want trash can shaped machines, I don't want single-drive Mac minis. I could live with dual drive minis, but this is just stupid. Please, Apple, bring back your insanely great enterprise-grade server hardware!
OS X Server is a good server OS. It could be better, of course, but for a Mac office, or even a mixed Mac and Windoze office, it's a FAR better platform than the sorry excuse for a server that you get from a Windoze box, and when you've got Mac clients, it's better than a Linux box.
check out synology's linux based xeon servers. simpler than mac os x server to set up, plays well with others and tons of free server / web apps supporting it. i'm surprised someone hasn't bought them out...
Just my personal experience- these two-core mobile processors stink when trying to do any kind of moderate processing (large spreadsheets, moderate video processing etc). IMO - that does not mean I should have to buy a Mac Pro(or forced to an all - in-one iMac) when a simple processor upgrade would suffice in the Mac mini.
With this limited ability to upgrade memory etc yourself (or at all), lack of workhorse processor upgrades(so far) unless one moves up in the platform; it seems to me, Apple has wrung the very last bits of Steve Wozniak's 'tinkering with computers' out of the company/product line and ticked off even more tinkerers/semi-pro users. I don't believe it is necessary for them to do that, and I'm not so sure that's a good thing in the long run... time will tell.
It was stated several times during the event that the mini is being positioned as an entry level "first Mac" so Apple is clearly positioning this machine below the iMac in specs. That explains the lack of quad core processors, the discouragement of opening it up for expansion, lack of OS X server bundle, etc. they are telling the people who used to make servers out of minis to do something else.
it seems to me, Apple has wrung the very last bits of Steve Wozniak's 'tinkering with computers' out of the company/product line and ticked off even more tinkerers/semi-pro users. I don't believe it is necessary for them to do that, and I'm not so sure that's a good thing in the long run... time will tell.
To describe the mini as a machine for tinkerers where you can only replace the HDD and RAM is a bit of stretch. 75%+ of Apple's sales are laptops, the iMac makes up about 15-20% and the rest is between the mini and Pro. Even dropping the mini would have no effect on their lineup, those <5-10% of people would just migrate to other models.
To me this "update" is a big disappointment. It seems quite clear that Apple was unhappy with how the Mac Mini was being used and who was using it -- and who they want to use it instead.
No quad-core option and no dual-disk option make this box a no-go for me.
1) I've waiting for this day so I can retire my 2001 iMac being used as both my Time Machine an iTunes Server. Not because I wanted the latest-and-greatest Mac mini but because I thought the Mac mini refresh would drop the price of used Mac minis since all I really need is GigE and USB3 since my iMac has FW400, USB1(not used) and 100 BASE-T. Unfortunately the prices for used Mac minis on Craig's List are so high that I might as well just buy a new one at $499 (with a student discount). Anyone else have another suggestion?
2) Has anyone successfully setup a home Mac as a VPN server that they can use to tunnel into from public WiFi so they can encrypt all their HTTP data?
3) I wish they had an SSD-only option I really don't recall much internal storage. Is it possible to buy the cheapest and an after-market PCIe-like SSD card that works with Apple products to achieve that or does it not contain the proper interface, like previous iMacs when Fusion Drive was first introduced? (I haven't checked iFixit yet)
To describe the mini as a machine for tinkerers where you can only replace the HDD and RAM is a bit of stretch. 75%+ of Apple's sales are laptops, the iMac makes up about 15-20% and the rest is between the mini and Pro. Even dropping the mini would have no effect on their lineup, those <5-10% of people would just migrate to other models.
Yea, I understand what your saying... just seems a shame limiting choices, if(big if) it really does not absolutely have to be. How far does one go? Next go around, the iMac? I'm not convinced they would migrate to other 'apple' models.
1) I've waiting for this day so I can retire my 2001 iMac being used as both my Time Machine an iTunes Server. Not because I wanted the latest-and-greatest Mac mini but because I thought the Mac mini refresh would drop the price of used Mac minis since all I really need is GigE and USB3 since my iMac has FW400, USB1(not used) and 100 BASE-T. Unfortunately the prices for used Mac minis on Craig's List are so high that I might as well just buy a new one at $499 (with a student discount). Anyone else have another suggestion?
2) Has anyone successfully setup a home Mac as a VPN server that they can use to tunnel into from public WiFi so they can encrypt all their HTTP data?
3) I wish they had an SSD-only option I really don't recall much internal storage. Is it possible to buy the cheapest and an after-market PCIe-like SSD card that works with Apple products to achieve that or does it not contain the proper interface, like previous iMacs when Fusion Drive was first introduced? (I haven't checked iFixit yet)
Re: 2) I have done this with an old slackware PC. LifeHacker has a great guide on it. Just port-forward port 22 (SSH) to the static internal IP of the box doing the tunneling. -Mine is running FreeNAS, so it's pretty easy just to start/stop the service & have specific users login.
Then on your "field" laptop, you just start Cygwin or your shell & run their command: ssh -[switches] port# user@IP. It will then ask you for that user's PW. It will check the cert, tell you it doesn't recognize it & it isn't stored, do you want to accept it. Yes.
Then you set firefox's Options/Preferences Advanced>Network>Connection>Manual Proxy settings, with the ones lifehacker has in there.
Then voila. You are running your Firefox traffic through the tunnel, ssh to your box, then out via your home internet. Hopefully you have a good upload speed, as that will limit it.
One PoV is that it's shitty of Apple to simply not design a second board for this other socket.
The use of LPDDR suggests that Apple is going to one common "low end" design for the Mac Mini, the edu/low-end 21 iMac and the Air, all based on the ULT chips. This means the Mini and the low-end 21 iMac are going to share the economies of scale from the Air.
I too went the Mac Mini 2012 Server route with the duel 1TB drives and 16 gigs of memory. Anything else I need to add to it i use high speed USB and Thunderbolt. Driving 3 external WD drives, DVD burner, duel monitors, and other sorts of USB when needed. Its been my main Mac system for over 6 years and it was at the time a refurbished unit. Total cost about $600 or more I think. Now running Parallels with Win10 too! I'm very happy with my Mini!
Comments
It does require a mind set change and frankly the TB connectors and cables leave a lot to be desired in a rack cabinet. The other problem is the total lack of decent external storage,solutions. The expense of these solutions, the ones that exist, is less than ideal too.
I really like that the Mini comes with two TB ports now. That immediately makes the machine more viable for a variety of uses. I'm not happy though with the lack of a quad core variant.
There is a lot of handwringing going on here but one could easily buy a Minin with a 256 GB blade and add a conventional SSD to the machine for a very nice server. That is as long as bulk storage needs aren't massive and your server needs can function on a dual core. The lack of a dual core really bums me out. Further unless I'm missing something the high end machine offer little over the midrange machine. Strange really.
To my mind the cheapest Mac mini is a downgrade to its predecessor.
I compared an MBA2012 (Ivy Bridge I5 1.8GHz HD4000) to an MBA2013 (Haswell I5 1.3GHz HD5000) and the newer MBA wasn't any faster. Graphics were even slower.
Now they drop the Mac mini2012 (Ivy Bridge I5 2.5/3.1GHz HD4000) to a Mac mini2014 (Haswell I5 1.4/2.7GHz HD5000). I believe that is going to be ugly in the benchmarks.
And to make things worse we are stuck another 2-3 years with Haswell, now that Broadwell is looming on the horizont.
I need cores for Compressor work. So I am actively looking at a refurb MP to give me some more oomph. It's a shame that Apple cannot see a way to provide for more customers needs apart from up-selling into a whole another price category.
I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned the biggest issue here with the new Mini. What happened to the quad core option???
Umm...four people...FOUR!!!...replied in this thread prior to your comment noting the lack of a quad core option.
It's still fault-tolerant as you can split up the SSD and HDD and although it's not mirrored exactly, it can be synced very quickly, especially if you switch the HDD with another SSD. If you had a mirrored RAID and a drive broke, you'd still have to take the machine offline to replace the drive. SSDs really shouldn't fail as much as HDDs either. Earlier batches weren't as reliable but they've improved the controllers.
Argh.
Now I have to use external boot drives as well as external data drives.
I'll have to see what I can find for a 256GB Thunderbolt SSD, maybe I can still make this work.
I'm still pissed about the XServe, I'd really like to be able to buy one of those with two to four modern 12 core Xeons, dual power, modern full-GUI LOM, and 8 2.5" drive bays. I have clients who wouldn't blink at dropping $6-12k for that, depending on config. I don't want trash can shaped machines, I don't want single-drive Mac minis. I could live with dual drive minis, but this is just stupid. Please, Apple, bring back your insanely great enterprise-grade server hardware!
OS X Server is a good server OS. It could be better, of course, but for a Mac office, or even a mixed Mac and Windoze office, it's a FAR better platform than the sorry excuse for a server that you get from a Windoze box, and when you've got Mac clients, it's better than a Linux box.
check out synology's linux based xeon servers. simpler than mac os x server to set up, plays well with others and tons of free server / web apps supporting it. i'm surprised someone hasn't bought them out...
Just my personal experience- these two-core mobile processors stink when trying to do any kind of moderate processing (large spreadsheets, moderate video processing etc). IMO - that does not mean I should have to buy a Mac Pro(or forced to an all - in-one iMac) when a simple processor upgrade would suffice in the Mac mini.
With this limited ability to upgrade memory etc yourself (or at all), lack of workhorse processor upgrades(so far) unless one moves up in the platform; it seems to me, Apple has wrung the very last bits of Steve Wozniak's 'tinkering with computers' out of the company/product line and ticked off even more tinkerers/semi-pro users. I don't believe it is necessary for them to do that, and I'm not so sure that's a good thing in the long run... time will tell.
To describe the mini as a machine for tinkerers where you can only replace the HDD and RAM is a bit of stretch. 75%+ of Apple's sales are laptops, the iMac makes up about 15-20% and the rest is between the mini and Pro. Even dropping the mini would have no effect on their lineup, those <5-10% of people would just migrate to other models.
No quad-core option and no dual-disk option make this box a no-go for me.
2) Has anyone successfully setup a home Mac as a VPN server that they can use to tunnel into from public WiFi so they can encrypt all their HTTP data?
3) I wish they had an SSD-only option I really don't recall much internal storage. Is it possible to buy the cheapest and an after-market PCIe-like SSD card that works with Apple products to achieve that or does it not contain the proper interface, like previous iMacs when Fusion Drive was first introduced? (I haven't checked iFixit yet)
To describe the mini as a machine for tinkerers where you can only replace the HDD and RAM is a bit of stretch. 75%+ of Apple's sales are laptops, the iMac makes up about 15-20% and the rest is between the mini and Pro. Even dropping the mini would have no effect on their lineup, those <5-10% of people would just migrate to other models.
Yea, I understand what your saying... just seems a shame limiting choices, if(big if) it really does not absolutely have to be. How far does one go? Next go around, the iMac? I'm not convinced they would migrate to other 'apple' models.
No quad core option... bummer, I guess they really just didn't want to "cut in" to the Mac Pro crowd...
There was a good explanation on MR. It's to do with how it attaches to the logic board, it doesn't work anymore, they'd need two logic boards.
One PoV is that it's shitty of Apple to simply not design a second board for this other socket.
1) I've waiting for this day so I can retire my 2001 iMac being used as both my Time Machine an iTunes Server. Not because I wanted the latest-and-greatest Mac mini but because I thought the Mac mini refresh would drop the price of used Mac minis since all I really need is GigE and USB3 since my iMac has FW400, USB1(not used) and 100 BASE-T. Unfortunately the prices for used Mac minis on Craig's List are so high that I might as well just buy a new one at $499 (with a student discount). Anyone else have another suggestion?
2) Has anyone successfully setup a home Mac as a VPN server that they can use to tunnel into from public WiFi so they can encrypt all their HTTP data?
3) I wish they had an SSD-only option I really don't recall much internal storage. Is it possible to buy the cheapest and an after-market PCIe-like SSD card that works with Apple products to achieve that or does it not contain the proper interface, like previous iMacs when Fusion Drive was first introduced? (I haven't checked iFixit yet)
Re: 2) I have done this with an old slackware PC. LifeHacker has a great guide on it. Just port-forward port 22 (SSH) to the static internal IP of the box doing the tunneling. -Mine is running FreeNAS, so it's pretty easy just to start/stop the service & have specific users login.
Then on your "field" laptop, you just start Cygwin or your shell & run their command: ssh -[switches] port# user@IP. It will then ask you for that user's PW. It will check the cert, tell you it doesn't recognize it & it isn't stored, do you want to accept it. Yes.
Then you set firefox's Options/Preferences Advanced>Network>Connection>Manual Proxy settings, with the ones lifehacker has in there.
Then voila. You are running your Firefox traffic through the tunnel, ssh to your box, then out via your home internet. Hopefully you have a good upload speed, as that will limit it.
I work remote a lot & it's fine.
Oh, I looked it up & here's the basic starting point @ LifeHacker, but they have many more with Hamachi, etc.: http://lifehacker.com/237227/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy
Another one also: http://lifehacker.com/5900969/build-your-own-vpn-to-pimp-out-your-gaming-streaming-remote-access-and-oh-yeah-security
One PoV is that it's shitty of Apple to simply not design a second board for this other socket.
The use of LPDDR suggests that Apple is going to one common "low end" design for the Mac Mini, the edu/low-end 21 iMac and the Air, all based on the ULT chips. This means the Mini and the low-end 21 iMac are going to share the economies of scale from the Air.