thanks a million, i've been struggling trying to think of ways and it finally dawned on me to look into swapping the massive 2gb of ram it came with (2011 mac mini) so I'm ordering Ram as we speak and will update how it worked out for me. Thumbs up and a sub from me, appreciate you making the video to help everyone out with this problem. Cheers!!
Hi Goblin! T🌿hanks for the video! It's giving me the courage at 73yold to upgrade my macmini from 2010 that had 4 gb ram and original hard disk. Installed. I did no upgrade but installed ubuntu 20.4 and it is now running as a Logitech media Server! and serving my logitech squeezebox! I think I will upgrade it to 8 gb and an SSD though after I watched the specs on your video! Thanks so much ! Have a great day! 🌿
I wouldn’t have expected Geekbench scores to change much, if at all. The boot test is a better indicator and you should have run disk tests (where the real speed increase comes from)
Terry Carlton I agree, the disk tests would have been better, but I didnt know what would show anything much more useful than the boot and loading safari. I could of run disk benchmarks but its just gunna show the difference between an ssd and hdd which is already huge.
I just found my 2010 Mac mini while cleaning my basement and decided to search for the model followed by 2018 hoping to find exactly this! Thanks for doing such a thorough comparison. Now I have to decide if it’s worth upgrading it if I just want to use it for emulation, possibly in Linux.
I have the same Mac Mini as well, 8GB RAM and a SSD. The system boots to the logon screen in 24 seconds. Not bad at all. Don't use it for much, but it can handle most tasks. Would not suggest one anticipate doing any deep video editing. BTW, I used dosdude's Catalina patch upgrade. Worked, but sluggish. Reinstalled El Capitan and system works as fast as any C2D runs. IMHO
I completely agree that this wouldnt be great for any serious video editing. But for a computer with light computing tasks this is great little unit. Im not surprised that Catalina was slow, apple seems to be ditching nvidia fast and hard and barely supporting it with the cards they do support. Thanks for the info about performance with catalina. :)
Hmm, Catalina runs pretty well on mine and I only have 4GB RAM in it right now with a regular spinner 1TB drive. Thinking about throwing 16GB RAM in it and seeing how it goes. 4GB is making the memory pressure part of activity monitor go yellow or red all the time. Just using WAY too much of the hard drive for cache.
@@skendel Hi ! Mine is Catalina too, and it's very sluggish at 4GB ram. If i upgraded it to 8GB, would the performance be better? Becasue mine lags on RU-vid videos at 720p :(
Thoroughly enjoyed watching your presentation and I have some questions for you and hopefully you will have the time to answer. I have a 2010 mac mini. it has OSX Yosemite. Processor: 2.4 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory: 2GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Startup Disk: Macintosh HD, Graphica: NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256MB. I love this little machine. It has all I need in a computer, don't have to rely on it for web access as I also use a Dell Laptop. The 2010 is exactly like the one you updated in your video. I'm considering doing that with my little gem. I was going to go 4GB and 500SSD. I love my word and iphoto installations. When I talk to apple they advise nothing can be done to speed up my computer but your video obviously contradicts their advice. I'm sure Apple wants to sell new product!! HERE'S MY QUESTION TO YOU: I don't fully understand how these systems work. I don't care about upgrading to the latest apply OS, I like what I have. If I'm unable to access the internet because of my current operating system I'm fine with that, I enjoy using the programs that are installed on the computer but it's slow. I don't mind investing a hundred or so to have a glorified typewriter I'll be tickled pink. I have access to the iphoto program, can use the word processing and printing, I just need to improve the speed. Now I try to type and sometimes it takes several seconds for the computer to respond. I'd appreciate what ever advice you can provide. Thank you.
So you could definitely upgrade it and speed it up as you saw. However with how old the machine is now it may be a better option to look for a used 2012 or 2014 mini, it will be able to handle more than the 2010 can and it shouldnt be alot more than an SSD and RAM I would think at this point. However if you do get ram and an SSD you will see the kind of performance gain you saw in this video so if the mini does everything you need it to, then a ram and SSD will make it do what it can faster.
Hi Great Video! I have this model and have been using mainly for streaming, connected to the TV since it was new. But it is getting painfully slow. This looks like the way I would like to go. Just wondering if any other upgrades are recommended for streaming video?
Thank ya, as for any other upgrades, really theres only the SSD and Ram that you can do with thsi machine. If thats not enough then a newer more powerful machine would be needed. :)
today I upgraded mine with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, High Sierra OSX dual booting (via reFind) with Ubuntu 20.04 ... dual monitor setup - it works great ! (even got the nividia driver working in ubuntu .. so might try some CUDA :) )
Hey goblin. Why did you choose the hardware you did? Just asking as I am looking to do the upgrade. Would you use the same hardware again or have any other recommendations?
Hi Chris, it was all based on the needs of the person it was going to. The 8gb or ram and the ssd were a good choice. A 512gb ssd is large enough for most peoples needs so it works well. A bigger or faster ssd wasnt necessary as its constrained by the speed of the sata connection. We could of done more RAM but I dont see how 16gb would work any better for basic browsing and texteditors. I think the ram and ssd would be good for alot of people. But if you tell me what you plan on doing with your machine I can give you a better thought into what you need.
Got my first ever Mac mini 2010 on September 2018 for $180 8gb Ram and 128 SSd running High Sierra. I wanted to try Mac OS to see if I liked it coming from windows all my life.
Thats about the time I started this project was sept 2018. But I hope your liking it. Its a good little machine, its low on power but its still very capable. what are your thoughts on it?
@@PCGoblin I was impressed Mac's OS very stable rock solid. I really enjoy not having advertising & abruptly Windows updates when I'm doing work. Microsoft Windows was my baby; however, this period of my life, I just want things to work and work well together. I have transitioned over to the Apple's ecosystem slowly. I'm not a gamer and don't want to root my phone anymore. It was fun building PC's. But, now it's about enjoying quality time with family and friends and enjoy the world has to offer.
I just bought this computer from my local thrift-store for $40. It came with 8GB, and I installed 500GB ($22 SSD). RU-vid runs smooth at 720p 60fps. I limit 1080p to 30fps with browser addon. For a 12 year old computer, it's awesome. In conclusion, if you can get it for around $50, you should buy it.
Ok. So I've been debating investing to upgrade the RAM in my mid-2010 Mac-Mini or just put the money towards something newer eventually. It works well enough for basic youtube usage and browsing, etc. but now that i'm getting into some filming and light editing, I've noticed it can't handle 1080p 60fps+ (super laggy/choppy), or when trying to watch a steam and vid chat on the side at the same time on Discord. Was wondering if this is purely the video card letting me down, the RAM, the processor, or everything. I'd think the video card should be capable of 60fps? Will upgrading the RAM to 8GB or 16GB solve my problems? Here's the specs of the machine. MAC MINI (mid 2010) Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Memory: 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB
I’m about to order one of these through eBay it’s my first one. My question is it comes with no cords and I have an Apple TV cord that I was thinking of using on it. Do you think it’ll work or should I buy a knock off original?
hey great vid, quick question. Do you have any idea as to why my processer performance would be so bad? its a mini mac mid 2010 same as the one in the video, how ever with geek bench my single core performance is 339 and multy is only 541 nowhere near the 2755 you got with yours.
Kick it up to at least 8 and you will see a BIG difference. With 4 you are relying on the hard drive as a cache for RAM-like behavior a LOT. I know because that's what my mini is currently doing. Putting HEAVY pressure on the 4GB I have in it.
Did this myself the other day. Muffed it up now the fans run all the time. So make sure if any of you guys give this a shot you’re more careful than me
The fan runs all the time because you didn't get a mod kit with the sensor cable hdd mod in line. When you swap a HDD with an SSD, you lose that part of it. OWC sells a kit that will fix that fan running problem. OR you can use software fan control to slow it down.
Watched your video and ordered mine right away. Mac comes in Monday and RAM comes in later in the week, so excited! I’m going to progressively upgrade mine, upgrade from 4GB to 8GB to 16GB, install SSD. What did you do to reinstall OS X onto the blank SSD?
Evan Hudson Thats exciting! To install MacOS I used diskmaker x to create a bootable usb installer. diskmakerx.com You can also use this method. support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
@@PCGoblin I've never tried it, but couldn't you hold down Option when it boots and tell it to download from the Internet? Or maybe Cmd-R would work (unless that requires the stuff to do it to be on the drive.). Again, never tried either, just spitballing. LOL
I wouldn't waste money going to 8 then to 16 unless you get only 1 stick of 8 to try or can use the 8 in a different machine. If the Mini had 4 slots, it would be ok, but since it only has 2, seems like a waste.
@@skendel It might or it might not, but im pretty sure that would work too. Ive been making drives of the the previous macos version for so long that method never comes to mind. If you dont want to be on the latest then you for sure would need to use the thumb drive.
Thank you for this video,I needed to see if adding more ram would speed my mac up or would I need a ssd. 8gb ram will definitely do what I need. I wonder what would 16gb of ram do?🤔
Good job to help out that family. I'm sure she feels less intimidated with this technology and I'm sure it will springboard some productivity in their lives. Her son can get his resume going! Also, they feel more connected with society and feel they are participating in this modern era. My mum and her Iphone 6s-she feels the same way. I have the mac mini with optical drive 2010. I may do the same. How about an external usb ssd? Cheers from Surrey, B.C.
You can definitely use an external USB, though it will take a bit longer to boot off that. Plus you have something eating up a USB port and taking up space on your desk. Im glad your mum is benefitting from the 6s, thats a great phone.
@@PCGoblin picking one up for $40 tomorrow and then the parts at canada computers. What SSD and DDR brand/versions do you recommend? *sorry if you’ve repeated this a bunch already*
Thats great youre getting one cheap. As for ssd basically whatevers a good deal and big enough. As for RAM owc/macsales.com is probably the most specific for mac but really anything that matches the specs like the ones in the description will work. Id make sure you do at least 8gb of it, 16 is the most and if its not much more id recommend 16gb
I'm wondering if there is a very big increase between 8 and 16GB. I have 4 in mine right now and thinking about getting the 16 set since its like $84 from Amazon using OWC ram. Also, not sure why that was saying early 2010 because those don't exist. The refresh in 2010 was the mid-2010 versions.
I have a 2010 mini server and it had 4gb in it and it could barely run after a little bit. Bumping up to 16gb has been good for me. I would get the 16gb if you can but 8gb would probably be good and will be a noticeable increase over 4.
I have the same Q too as I notice the OWC 8GB modules are the only ones vouched to work in the mid-2010 server outside Apple's official 8GB max spec. I was thinking of just getting one 8GB module to start. I know peeps say you shouldnt mismatch memory and figure 10GB is better than 4!
Just bought a 2010 mini as well as 2tb ssd and 16gb of ram. Really just looking to make myself a reliable computer I can conference call through zoom on am run basic tasks. Do you think this will work good enough to handle zoom calls all day long?
My pleasure. With the 2011 mini server you can add up to 16gb or ram and then you have two bays for 2.5" drives. Other than adding SSD's and/or larger capacity hard drives thats about all you can do. I hope thats helpful. Let me know if you have more questions.
@@PCGoblin is there a limit to the amount of memory the ssd can run in a Mac mini? I'm kind of sour that I can't upgrade to Catalina and I'm considering forcing it if the figures make sense. I've also considered building a Nuc hackintosh from scratch as well.
@@RubenAvila Sorry the slow reply, but there should be no limit of capacity that you can put into the mac mini. If its a sata 2.5" drive it should have no issue seeing it. This goes for 2.5" hard drives as well. As for catalina you should still be able to install it and run it just fine on that mac mini. It just wont be as easy as an officially supported OS. But check this site for more info on it. dosdude1.com/catalina/
I'm looking to do this exact upgrade. The numbers don't look much different but obviously 8gb of ram will work much better than 2gb. Having the new parts will at least keep it running smooth for a while. The CPU is the real bottleneck.
The chromebook is the first thought that comes to mind with a situation like this. However they had a chromebook that died on them and they didnt like the chromebook experience, which I completely understand. But if youre going to be using the mac mini in almost any capacity, upgrading it is a great thing to do. Thanks for watching. :)
I've been running my Mac Mini (mid 2010 w/ 8gb ram) since I bought used in 2011/12. What's the max ram they accept? I will definitely upgrade the SSD after seeing your results. Nice video.
You will be so happy with that ssd upgrade. As for the max ram, it can use up to 16gb. Originally, both the official and actual maximum RAM was 8 GB. However, as confirmed by site OWC, if running OS X 10.7.5 or higher, updated with the latest EFI, and equipped with proper specification memory modules, this model can support up to 16 GB of RAM.
@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="301">5:01</a> mind taking a moment to rerun benchmarks w 2, 4GB (w 8GB in 3rd column) w just SSD upgrade? if I can get away w 4GB & an SSD...it will be the most cost effective short-term!
hey i since dropped in an 8GB stick [w SSD] & benchmarked 4,8, and 10GB: 626, 647, 663. u are right RAM is the bottleneck at 4GB - even tho benchmark is competitive, it thrashes w CPU constantly 35-45% w no apps running. at 8GB mini is able to idle - next bottleneck is C2D so I'm passing on 16GB. for simple tasks, I agree 8GB+SSD works well. I even booted to 10.8 server for kicks and wow it's snappy!
Thank you for sharing this information with us. I am all new to this, I really don't know where to start to make it run faster. what exactly should I replace, What is an SSD? so, should i replace the SSD, RAM, BLUETOOTH AND maybe the CPU?
So an SSD is a solid state drive, it has no moving parts and is basically ram being used like a hard drive so its really fast in writing and reading data. So on this mac mini the only things you can replace is the hard drive and or you can add another harddrive or an SSD, so you could have 2 ssd's, or 1 ssd and 1 harddrive or 2 harddrives or whatever. Then you can also replace the RAM, other than that the CPU, GPU, Bluetooth, etc are not really replaceable. I hope that helps. :)
I'm just sitting on mine... I took mine to mac authority and upgraded the OS to High Sierra but it's slower then the grass growing in 50° weather... Without losing the experience of the upgrade would the ram be enough to make it function... And play movies or do slides easy enough... I'll have to breakdown and buy OS to upgrade the hard drive.... Or will I.. would putting two sticks of 8 gig in this work? And would it be beneficial if I'm not going to upgrade the hard drive at this time? I was trying to use your link and notice they were only 4 gigs each but I was going to go ahead and get the 8 gigs if you can give me a link for that I wouldn't mind using your link so that you get credit
So depending on how much ram you have, that could easily be the bottleneck. If you want to upgrade to 16, amzn.to/36rH9I4 that will give me the credit for it. However 8gb would probably be plenty as well. But definitely cant go wrong with 16. As for upgrading to an SSD, you cant buy the OS as its free. You will just need to make a bootable usb installer and then swap drives and install of the USB stick. :)
I got my Mac mini 2010 with a busted hdd for $15 receiving a 1tb ssd later today will get the 16gb of ram next. Going to use it for office and video editing due to apples software.
Hey man, I just purchased a mid 2010 mac mini refurbished with CTO 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 8 GB RAM 240 GB SSD, and it works fine for word and normal web browsing but for some reason, when I want to watch a yt video or netflix movie/serie that requires 1080p hd, it starts lagging. (something like brooklyn 99 is a problem, but rick and morty is fine) (it isn't my internet, it shows it's loaded and my internet works well). Any idea what I can do to fix this? I don't have any of these problems with my macbook air from mid 2013, with 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, 1,3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB.
Im not sure, but I would try other browsers if you havent. Then you may want to try creating a new user and see if it happens with the new user. What have you tried?
@@MK_619 Gotcha. Id try a new user and see if it happens there. Id also try another browser to see if it works better. Is your SSD getting close to being full by chance?
Good question! Its pretty simple actually, let me explain. This mac mini and I think all intel mac mini's 2014 and older(always verify before actually purchasing for said mac mini) use a sata interface. So any sata drive will work with that. Then this fits any laptop sized hard drive / solid state drive / 2.5" drive. So pretty much all sata ssd's should work in this. Im not aware of any that are bigger than 2.5".
@@Matty-_-Patty00 Im sorry but I have no experience with 3d printing and do not know whats required for that. However a mid-2010 mac mini like this cannot run the latest mac os(10.14). The newest it can run is 10.13.6, other than that I dont know how it would have an issue with 3d printing, but like I stated I know nothing about 3d printing.
Thanks !! I have also a Mac Mini 2010. Now with 4 GB RAM. But ... special ... this Mac Mini here is running on Windows 11 X-Lite .... Everything works well except Sound. I can't find a Windows Souund driver 😞 And YESSS an SSD must be build in !! Hope anybody can help me with a Windows 11 Sound Driver ...
The benchmark ran tests more than just the CPU. Also a disk test would only show how much bandwidth the SSD has and that would be useless in this case since were trying for just better overall system performance and we do see that reflected in geekbench.
As far as I know, its not possible. I know theres hacks to make one work with the 2013 mac pro so there might be for the 2011 mini but you would need to check forums.
I have a 2008 mini can't access the internet because of out dated software an security certificates, of course no upgrades on OS running 10.6 What can i do to make this usable now in 2019 it has been a good unit since i bought new , Thanks
Id love to help with this, Can you give me a bit more information about your mini? If you go to about this mac > system report, that will list the model identifier. Can you give me the model identifier, what processor and processor speed it shows there?
@@PCGoblin Hi thanks so much for your reply, (info) Macmini 1,1 10.4.11 processor 1.66 ghz Intel core duo Running 512mb 667mhz ddr2 sdram This is a good unit bought new i would like to use to watch video (youtube etc.) surf net with maybe chrome or firefox What do i need to replace to upgrade ? I wouldn't mind spending some $ on it instead of buying new , Thanks for your help
@@garyvanbuskirk7014 Hi Gary, Thank you so much for getting me that information. It is possible to upgrade the CPU to a much better intel core 2 duo, but this machine is ancient. I have a mac mini2,1 and I have upgrade the memory and put an SSD into it and its still really really slow. For the amount of money you are wanting to put into this machine I would really recommend getting a 2011 mac mini/ macmini5,1 off ebay instead. Just quickly searching on ebay I found one for $189 that has been upgraded to 8gb of ram and a 240gb ssd which from what you say youre going to do with it, I would guess is big enough for you. However it will go a whole lot faster on those tasks and actually take advantage of the SSD. My experience with a macmini2,1 putting an ssd into it didnt make much difference. The price of the mini I found on ebay seems to be a higher price than most since its been "upgraded". If you wanted to upgrade it yourself it looks like you can get one for about $100. If you still want to upgrade you macmini1,1 , I will still help as I can. Let me know if I can help find a mini or if you still want to upgrade your 1,1 mini. :)
@@garyvanbuskirk7014 I just reread your original question and realized theres nothing you can do to get this mini to upgrade past 10.6. If you see my other response for today it seems like getting a used 2011 mini is probably the best course of action. Im sorry I didnt catch the 10.6 part on your original message at first. But if you have any questions about anything let me know. :)
@@PCGoblin I appreciate your help I have been using mac since the big tube imac came out 20yrs LOL if you could send a link of one you found on ebay under 200 that would be able to run in todays world , or would you be interested in upgrade the cpu on mine ? just a thought , I love the macmini let me know your thoughts, none of the shops in my area IL. want to touch it , am using a macbook from 2012 now an soon needs to be upgrade or relpaced soon . Thanks talk soon Gary
Hi can anybody help me please. I have a Mac mini mid 2011 still running the 2 gb memory that it came installed with. I want to upgrade to 8gb 4 in each slot. But really finding it hard to find the correct memory to purchase. Can you tell me what memory is suitable thanks voltage etc, ? 🙂
Use his links. They will likely show you OWC branded RAM. You can always go to OWC itself or everymac.com and look up your mac there to find what specific RAM you need for it. If you want to go to 8GB, it should probably be around $45 or $50 I would think.
Michael Spranger The safest bet is to get whats already installed but I believe 1333mhz will work as well but ifs going to run at 1066mhz. The amazon link in the description is the same specs that you need.
Hi! I have a problem. It lags on RU-vid videos at 720p and sometimes it cannot do multi tasking. I currently have Catalina, 4GB ram and 480gb SSD. Hoping for a response. Thanks so much!
You probably need a bit more ram, but it may be an artifact of catalina not being supported on a 2010 mac mini. But id try more ram first and not run less than 8gb for sure. 4gb is just not enough for a mac anymore.
@@PCGoblin Thanks for the response! I just have another question, is it okay to put 2 different brands of RAM on Mac Mini? I currently have Kingston and I plan to buy Crucial. Thanks!
@@troypasagui5377 You can but they need to be identical in specs. In these machines theres rarely only 1 stick of ram so its best to just buy two 4gb sticks or two 8gb sticks to put in.
I have no idea since I dont use that. But looking at it Im guessing it would run OK but good means something different to everyone. But the website does state this about its performance "The more powerful your CPU, the more instruments and FX you can run."
Hello 𝑷𝑪𝑮𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏 and all people you all here :D , I will share my report, bet wishes! i5 mid 2011, High Sierra, 8+8 RAM, SSD. Fantastic. Basic tasks in illustrator, photoshop, office. Bad issue: with original El Capitan and HDD, 8 or 12 RAM, the RU-vid 4K videos loaded good, no problem, after the upgrade 4K is difficult to flow good, not all vids load without lag. The temperature is high, it's hot, you can feel the Miami Heat in the airflow and its noise (not loudy) and the chasis is hot too. Considering it is an old model and new tasks demand more hardware, it can be normal: Google Street View + Video RU-vid make the cooler run faster. This is the RAM I installed: www.kingston.com/dataSheets/KVR16S11_8.pdf , I tried display 70" 4K TV and it is not supported (I will try again and with other TVs too)
Thats very surprising to hear. SSD's and HDD do respond differently but ssd's from the last year or two definitely shouldnt be noticeable at all. What SSD did you use and how full was it?
I love m.2 drives. However this is an old machine so it wouldnt have access to pcie 3.0 to get the full bandwidth of nvme drives. Also m.2 drives dont boot much faster if at all compared to sata ssd's. The reason being both drives access the data at about the same speed. The thing most people think makes the drive faster doesnt mean what people think it means. The massive 3000+ MBps read and write is how much it can read or write a second. But most of the time nothing is trying to read or write 3GB+ at a second. What makes ssd's faster than harddrives is because it can basically instantly read or write the IO. VS a hard drive that has to spin the platter around and search for the data or search for a spot to write the data and the closer to the center of the platter it has to go the slower it is. The massive bandwidth on nvme m.2's is helpful for transferring very large files like movies from one drive to another. It would be nice to have 16gb of ram though but overall it wouldn't benefit the person this is going to much to justify the price difference at the time.
@@PCGoblin thanks for replying. I have the same model . I used an m.2 to HDD adapter. I maxed the ram to 16 and and the Mac mini is running better than my 2015 MacBook pro.
@@PCGoblin Hmm. I have done it to my C2D 2006 MBP and late 2009 Mini and they dramatically improved. Actually I still use both of them. Yes , even the MBP! :) Probably yours was a Core Duo with very limited margin for improvement. Your upgrade video is neat, BTW. ;)
@@PCGoblin In my experience iMacs and Minis previous to 2009 are plain obsolete ans Core Solo Minis were awful :). While late 2009 and later ones still kick ass with an SSD and maxed out RAM (I did it with both 2009 Mini and iMac,, as I told before) . Keep up the good work!
Why would you run a CPU benchmark when you're not changing the CPU? You gave this to a woman who is studying, presumably for working in an office environment?? Why? Do you know how few offices use macs? Now she's going to end up in an office in front of a Windows machine and sit there confused. Why didn't you just get an Intel NUC or something?
The CPU benchmark also tests memory but I also ran it out of curiosity to see what all will change in that test if anything. :) But as the tests showed, we did see better CPU perf with every upgrade. As for why a mac mini, theyre cheap, theyre easy, and unlike a NUC it can run Mac, Windows, and linux where a nuc cant. Also we wanted a system that would just work. I dont know what the numbers for macs numbers are but being in the enterprise world talking to dozens of corporations a day, the machine I see used most is a mac and then whatever server were working on through that mac is windows or linux. Also if I remember right I ended up using bootcamp so she has a mac side and a windows side and its very easy to switch between the two.
