One seemingly simple Mac purchase and the differences it’s made

When I bought my M4 Pro Mac mini, I assumed it to simply be another Mac to buy, use and review.

How wrong I was.

I’ve lost count of how many Macs I’ve bought since I started to write about them. Being a Mac lover, that’s not much of a hardship, and let’s face it, that’s why I got into this lark in the first place. But generally, there’s not much to mention that is truly new or revolutionary.

But the Mac mini was different – very different..

If you’ve read me for any length of time you may recall I originally bought two Mac minis – a base, entry-level mini and a pimped-out one. I did that as I wanted to see quite how capable that £600 Mac mini was before delving into the murky waters of ticking the upgrade boxes.

M4 Mac mini – a serious bit of kit

That cheaper Mac mini (I can’t bring myself to call a £600 Mac cheap – but it’s all comparative, I suppose!) was pretty mighty.

With every iteration of Apple silicon, Macs are getting better and better. There will always be those shouting that Macs are overpriced, and to those, I simply say, each to their own.

Look, I don’t sit here pretending to be anything special or have some monstrous, complicated workflow, but I do work hard on my Macs and have a good idea of not only how much they can handle, but more importantly, how little they complain.

Day after day, hour after hour I can throw whatever I need at my Macs and I rarely have an issue. No spinning beachballs, no fans, no ponderous waiting – they just get on with what they do. For all they look pretty, make no mistake, these things are workhorses.

That basic Mac mini was a perfect example of that. I used it for a few weeks, and I reckon I could have got away with using it as my only Mac and not had too many complaints. It was fractionally slower at the most demanding tasks…but only fractionally, and as for the rest of what I use my Macs for, there was no noticeable difference.

I’m continually told that ‘we aren’t all video editors’ – and I take that on the chin, but as it’s the most demanding thing I do on my Macs, it’s always worth pointing out how they compare and perform. That £600 Mac mini did everything my M4 Pro Mac mini did – just not quite as quickly. But the point is that for £600 you could carry out pretty professional, high-end workflows and have few pain points.

So, if it was that impressive, why did I trade up?

Me and the M4 Pro Mac mini

I’m not going to shy away from the elephant in the room – part of it was vanity.

Part of my decision to move to the Pro was based on that self-inflated ego I have – that inner voice telling me that I’m a serious pro, therefore I need the best.

There – I’ve admitted it! But I think there was also some reason and logic for my decision to use the M4 Pro Mac mini. The minutes I save on the Pro Mac mini on the more demanding tasks over a week and a month start to add up. Honestly, in my case, I think it made sense…but only just.

The other main reason I went Pro, though was because of what I’m going on to talk about next.

Getting the memory right on Apple silicon Macs is hugely important!

It’s all about the memory

If you’re still working on an Intel Mac and are thinking about dipping your toes into the era of Apple silicon Macs, I have just one word of caution for you – and that is memory.

Above all else, get the memory right when buying your Apple silicon Mac.

Out of all the upgrades you can choose for your new Mac the one you need to spend the most money on is the unified memory – or in any other lingo the RAM. I’ve used Apple silicon Macs with only 8GB of RAM and they’ll be ok for a time but it doesn’t take that much to start to find their limits. Get the memory right, though, when you buy an Apple silicon Mac, and it’ll last you for years.

With the non-Pro Mac mini, the memory tops out at 32GB which is fine, but I knew in the long run my workflow would only be getting more complicated, and I knew it would be the memory that would give out first. With the Pro chip, you can go up to 64GB of memory.

Taking a dose of my own medicine, I spent an extra £400 on upgrading the memory on my M4 Pro Mac mini, and it was one of the best choices I’ve made in a long time. The final specs I chose for my M4 Pro Mac mini were;

• the upgraded Pro chip with a 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU (£200)
• 48GB of unified memory (£400)
• 10GB Ethernet port (£100)
• 1TB of SSD storage (£200)
  

That meant my Mac mini cost me £2300 but I also knew I wanted it to be my main Mac – my daily workhorse. That meant it was going to replace my M1 Max MacBook Pro, and so it would have a fairly tough act to follow.

I did wonder whether a lesser M4 Pro chip could compare with a technically superior M1 Max chip. Although my M1 Max had twice the grunt when it came to video encoder and decoder engines, it was still older technology. I was going to put my faith in Apple’s engineers and that the M4 iteration of Apple silicon would not show itself up.

After all, the M4 chip is based on the 3nm process which allows Apple to pack more transistors onto the chip which results in increased performance and efficiency.

It turns out my faith was well-placed! Even though my M4 Pro Mac mini only has a single video encode and decode engine it handles my video work pretty much every bit as well as the M1 Max MacBook Pro.

Think about that for a moment, and it’ll begin to sink in just how meaningful that improvement is. Three years on, and I was able to spend around a third less on a Mac that was almost as quick.

More than the Mac

These Mac minis are desktops which opens up the possibility of adding a few tasteful and useful accessories to your Mac that’ll make it even more powerful and more productive.

Although I chose 1TB of SSD storage, if I had my time over, I’d only go with 512GB instead. External SSDs are not only cheaper but also more convenient – for me at least.

In the studio, I utilise the full grunt of the Mac minis’ Thunderbolt 5 capabilities and have an Acasis enclosure permanently plugged in. Currently, I have 4TB of Samsung 990 Evo Plus in it, which means I can archive all my current year’s B-roll on there for rapid access when I’m editing – it’s so convenient having that archive to hand yet without taking up precious space on my Mac’s internal SSD.

It’s a more affordable solution as well – the Acasis Thunderbolt 5 enclosure I chose costs £220 and the 4TB SSD £291 – so about £500 all in. If I’d chosen 4TB of Apple SSD, well, that would’ve cost me £1200! It’s arguably a fraction more convenient having it built in, but not by much, and certainly not at that price!

And I can tell you first-hand that editing from them is seamless and quick and in my workflow at least I can’t spot the difference between working from the Mac’s SSD or the external SSD.

Apple’s upgrades have always been where they make money, but with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 5, they’ve given us a viable way out!

There are two other advantages to using an external SSD as well. If the external SSD goes bang, assuming you’ve backed up, it’s a quick and painless fix, and the other big advantage is the flexibility it gives me. I’m such a fan of external SSDs that my entire workflow now relies on them and I routinely have two of them on the go all the time.

I start an edit at the studio on the T5 enclosure and then copy it to another Thunderbolt 4 enclosure I have, which I use with my MacBook Pro at home. It’s the most effective workflow I’ve ever had.

And there’s more

I mentioned that with any Apple silicon Mac, your first priority must be the memory. For anybody using their Macs for any kind of creative workflow, I’d suggest getting at least 24GB of memory and more if you can possibly stretch to it.

With the storage and memory taken care of, you are pretty much there when it comes to configuring your Mac mini. I chose to have the 10GB ethernet port on my M4 Pro Mac mini – and now I’m glad I had that foresight. That means if I’m at home and need some B-roll, I can access my NAS where I have everything backed up.

Yes, I know I could use iCloud or Dropbox, and I have over the years, but with a NAS it means my data is even safer as I’m not relying on any external servers – only I have access to it. I’ve only just started to use a NAS but already I’m seeing the benefits. It’s not for everyone but it suits me and my needs.

The only other area of weakness of the Mac mini is the I/O – but again, with some searching, I’ve found solutions for that as well. Initially, I had been using an Ivanky hub which worked well enough but it was designed to be used with a MacBook Pro. Using it with the Mac mini meant I was using two of the three Thunderbolt 5 ports on the back.

Now I’ve found a better solution though. As it happens it also comes from Acasis and it’s their Thunderbolt 4 21-in-1 docking station. It gives me back the missing SD card reader and a host of USB-A ports as well. Of course, there’s loads of USB-C ports, an HDMI option, an ethernet port plus 3.5mm audio in and out jacks.

The M4 Pro Mac mini was already an awesome option, and with a little thought and searching I’ve managed to take it to the next level. It’s suddenly become a capable beast that handles anything I can throw at it and now I have all the I/O I could ever need as well.

I actually have so many options now that one of the Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac mini is unused and neither of the USB-C ports on the front of it is being used either.

I figured as I’d chosen to work on a desktop, that I may as well embrace it and make the most of that decision.

And there’s been one other hidden benefit of using the M4 Pro Mac mini that I hadn’t seen coming – and that is my desk setup. I now have the prettiest and cleanest desk set up that I’ve ever had. It’s so inviting that I look forward to getting to work at it every day.

I know I work best in a clean, uncluttered set-up, and the Mac mini has given me that option. The Mac is so small that it takes up virtually no space. The Thunderbolt 5 drive I mentioned lives out of sight behind my desk, and the NAS is on the floor, again out of sight. I’ve also gone back to single-monitor life. My Studio Display is all I need, and I’ve noticed a lot of other creatives going that route currently.

With only a single display, it focuses me to concentrate only on the task at hand – multiple displays tend to be a great excuse to drift and wander.

Until I started to dip my toes back into desktop life, for the past three years, my main Mac had been an M1 Max MacBook Pro. It was and still is an amazing Mac and proved to me just how fast Apple silicon was.

But I used the MacBook Pro more like a desktop than a laptop – rarely did it ever leave my desk. I used a Magic Keyboard with it, a mouse and a trackpad, and it was always hooked up to my Studio Display. It was a good enough set-up, but not particularly space-efficient or aesthetically pleasing! There was too much clutter.

I know that sounds fairly superficial, but I work best and most creatively in a tidy environment.

I bought the Mac mini out of interest – and to review. Never did I think it would be responsible for changing the way I work, making me so much more productive and look forward to working every single day.

The Mac mini has opened up an entirely new way of working and I’ve never felt so alive, creative & vibrant about work.

The Mac mini has indeed changed everything.