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Which Macbook and mini as home media server/backup target (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Good day to all of you, the time has come to retire my mid 2012 MBP as my main machine. For context, it is a 13" 2.9GHz i7 model, with 16 GB of RAM, 4 TB of storage from an HDD/SSD combo with a DataDoubler, and it's been an overall great machine. However, it is beginning to have trouble turning on more regularly. It will power off and go unresponsive until I open it up and pull the battery. This machine has been outstanding to me over the years, except for this problem. I am looking at a Macbook Air 15", or the 14" Macbook Pro. I can get a Macbook Air 15" with M3, 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and in Midnight for $1699 locally. Or I can get a Macbook Pro 14" with M3 Pro, 18 GB RAM, and a 512 GB SSD for $1799. I am concerned about the lock-in with memory on the new Macs. It is very much like an iPad in that I have to buy everything exactly like I want it, and that's it. Is 16 GB or 18 GB of RAM enough to last me several years? I know Apple says that RAM on their new devices isn't the same as normal RAM, but I struggle with that assertion. Use cases are various Office apps, a ton of Excel work, Photoshop, some video editing with iMovie, media conversion with Handbrake, maybe some Parallels Windows 11 work since there are some apps that still are Windows only. And I may have to use QEMU for this task, we'll have to see. I'm no stranger to virtualization.

Next, a similar question, I am looking at using an M2 Mini as a backup NAS/TimeMachine target with external disks (replacing my ancient TimeCapsule), an iPhoto (Photos) backup target, iTunes/videos/music host, migrate some Docker containers from Raspberry Pis, Android backup target, and an AirMessage host so that I can talk to family easier on Android. The only Mac Minis I can find locally are 8GB RAM. Similar to above, this bothers me. Is 8GB enough for what's gonna be a machine thrown in a closet and let to run all these tasks? I had an Intel mini (early 2009?) doing similar tasks years ago, but a power surge got it and i never replaced it.

Thank you for your time.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don't sweat the RAM. The M series really are different than the intel forebears. You'll be fine with all of your considered options.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Thank you much, that's my biggest worry.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Lets have a look at the memory speed on your 2012 Mac:

RAM: 25 GB/s
HDD: 0.1GB/s
SSD: if it's a really good one, 0.7GB/s. If it's a cheap one, might be closer to the HDD

Now compare that to the latest MacBook Air:

RAM: 100GB/s
SSD: 5GB/s

And aside from bandwidth, there are also latency improvements that are even more impressive.

These are the numbers that you are actually going to notice in every day life - they are far more important than CPU speed. They are also far more important than wether or not the software you're using is native or emulated - because modern emulation usually works quite well (I run intel software all day every day on my M1 MacBook Air, which is a lot slower than the computers you're considering).

The SSD being an order of magnitude faster than on your old 2012 model also means a lot of things that historically needed to be stored in RAM, no-longer need to be in RAM. That's particularly true for Photoshop and iMovie which both will use all of the memory you have, and use swap if they need more than that. In practice, you won't notice when they use swap - because what used to be a three second beachball in Photoshop is now zero seconds.

Another thing to consider is modern versions of MacOS will compress some of your RAM which is incredibly effective. Windows and Linux do that too — it's an industry standard now and not just to save memory. If you can store 2GB of data in 1GB of RAM, that effectively doubles your memory bandwidth (because compressing and decompressing takes zero time with a good memory controller). Software memory, it turns out, is usually extremely compressible.

Like you, I had 16GB on my 2012 MacBook Pro, and I still have 16GB today on my Apple Silicon Mac. It was all I could afford in 2012 and I wished I could have more. These days I can afford more, but I just don't see the point in paying. 16GB is enough now*.

(* although if you want to play with generative AI, then you'll want more RAM)

The primary difference between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is the GPU, but it doesn't sound like that will be an issue for you. I recommend the MacBook Air - not just because it's cheaper, it's also smaller, lighter, bigger screen, etc.

Regarding the Mac Mini, no I don't think 8GB isn't enough. Keep in mind the core operating system itself uses about 4GB of your RAM... so an 8GB Mac will have 4GB for the software you run, and a 16GB Mac will have 12GB available for your software. Personally I've configured Docker on my Mac to use 8GB on it's own... but it obviously depends what containers (and how many) you are running.

8GB probably would be just enough, your docker containers sound smaller than mine, but my feeling is it's a little too close for comfort and you would likely regret it in a couple years time, when you run something that needs 16GB.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I retired my trusty 2012 Mac mini a year ago. It just got unruly. The M2 mini is fantastic and I paired it with a Synology 920+. I don't think the RAM is critical unless you are moving lots of data all of the time from the local machine. I think SSD/NVME cache is where it's at.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I am currently using a M2 mini with 8gb of ram for Plex/Jellyfin/SSH and Time Machine and the ram is plenty! But I am happy I went with 512 for the faster storage chips

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I definitely want more storage, and will be using external disks with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

just a suggestion since you seem to be reasonably tech literate. instead of a Mac mini NAS you may want to consider an x86 NAS with windows or something like unraid. Or if you really really want a Mac mini, maybe consider a used Intel Mac mini.

native windows or virtualization will be more reliable on intel/AMD rather than ARM. then you could RDP from your MacBook to use the windows apps.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

This is a valid point, but I also want to keep it on macOS for the AirMessage apps. And it feels like the Intel Mac's are all on life support right now. But a used Mini is much cheaper on eBay than a new one!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

This. Once you go unraid for a NAS you’ll never go back. It’s awesome, even on old hardware.