Need to rebuild home studio. Mac Mini content...

[marsonic]

Thing is, there's a huge amount of file swapping and caching between RAM and SSD going on with those silicone machines.

Windows and every Unix-like OS (Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, etc.) have been doing this for decades. It's called swapping or paging. Other OSs have done it too.

It was actually a big deal not that long ago when it became normal that you didn't have to use as much swap space because RAM got cheap.

Now, they all do it on NVMe drives (assuming you've installed an NVMe drive or bought a computer with one). So, even that's not really different between PCs and Macs. And, no, the write endurance is not really a problem in practice. Modern SSD endurance is rated in "disk writes per day", meaning that you'd have to swap basically the whole free space of the drive from RAM to disk several times per day for it to really have an effect.

Macs do have a relatively small advantage when swapping due to the fact that their disc controllers report a write as finished when the data is written to volatile cache rather than actually writing to the flash storage itself, and that disc cache is faster than the actual NVMe storage. But...that's actually a serious design flaw in their storage, not an advantage. In this exact case, it does mean swapping is a bit faster on macs than PCs. But, it's still nowhere near as fast as RAM, which is still about 2 orders of magnitude faster.

Unfortunately, it also means that a power loss has the potential to cause significant data corruption, depending on exactly when it happens. That doesn't matter for swapping, but it does mean that a power loss that comes soon enough after macOS tells you that you're done copying or saving a file can make it so that you'll have to pay a good bit of money to apple-specific data recovery experts to ever open an older version of that file again (or you have to recover from backups). Yes, it can affect system files.

That article is part of the big ball of lies Apple is using to try to justify 8GB of RAM in entry level machines that they claim can be used for professional applications. It's fine for office/life things. It can be okay for music if your demands are light. It's not okay for graphics, video, or intense daw sessions.

Reminder - I am an Apple user. I like my M2 Pro Mini quite a bit. But, in this case, Apple and some of their "access journalists" are just flat out lying about macOS being different, that some of their design decisions are actually good, or that some of what they're doing is somehow "new".

 

[Sascha Franck]

Windows and every Unix-like OS (Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, etc.) have been doing this for decades. It's called swapping or paging. Other OSs have done it too.

I know - but from all that is known, ever since their unified memory thing, data throughput is seeing new highs.

 

[marsonic]

I know - but from all that is known, ever since their unified memory thing, data throughput is seeing new highs.

I could be mistaken, but AFAIK, that's only between the CPU and the GPU, and less so for the nerfed non-pro/max/ultra versions of the chips (also, AFAIK, that's a bigger problem with M3 than the previous versions). Even the theoretical maximums aren't the "revolution" that Apple's marketing would imply (which anyone can discover by reading and understanding the fine print - though I admit it's not the most straightforward thing).

RAM to storage (which is what matters for paging) is not substantially different except because of how Apple over/incorrectly-uses disc caching. And even the faster CPU-GPU connection isn't a "win only" kind of thing....PCs still beat them in some GPU-bound tasks depending on exactly what you're doing, regardless of this particular technical advantage.

Again....I don't necessarily think these are bad computers, and I own one. But, blindly trusting Apple's marketing to inform your purchasing decisions is a mistake.

 

[Sascha Franck]

But, blindly trusting Apple's marketing to inform your purchasing decisions is a mistake.

Very defenitely this. And I certainly don't do that. Apple has f***ed me straight up the bum multiple times already, so there's very little goodwill from my side (I just absolutely don't feel like switching DAWs anymore).

 

[laxu]

Yeah with Apple you can always expect:

• The first gen product has some issue that hampers it. M1 with only HDMI 2.0 is a good example.
• The base spec is shitty to push you to upgrades or a higher tier product. Need more than 1 external display? MB Air is out.
• Upgrades are deliberately made impossible and repairs require swapping half the system.

As much as I think they make good hardware, the bean counters are making them worse.

 

[marsonic]

As much as I think they make good hardware, the bean counters are making them worse.

I very much think that they've passed into making crap hardware. It's just that computers are soooo good in general these days that the flaws aren't that big of a deal to most people and the OS can make up for it when it comes to actually making purchasing decisions.

I'm not totally sure of this, but I think they might make exactly 3 products in their entire lineup that I think are worth buying, depending on your needs: the M2 Pro Mini, the M2 Ultra Studio, and the cheapest iPhone in the lineup. Everything else seems to make too many compromises on something. There's definitely a laptop or two that should also be on that list, but I don't know which ones because I don't like laptops. There's probably also an iPad that ticks the right boxes, but having owned a few, I don't find any value at all in tablets.

 

[laxu]

I very much think that they've passed into making crap hardware. It's just that computers are soooo good in general these days that the flaws aren't that big of a deal to most people and the OS can make up for it when it comes to actually making purchasing decisions.

I'm not totally sure of this, but I think they might make exactly 3 products in their entire lineup that I think are worth buying, depending on your needs: the M2 Pro Mini, the M2 Ultra Studio, and the cheapest iPhone in the lineup. Everything else seems to make too many compromises on something. There's definitely a laptop or two that should also be on that list, but I don't know which ones because I don't like laptops. There's probably also an iPad that ticks the right boxes, but having owned a few, I don't find any value at all in tablets.

IMO the best products Apple makes are the 14" and 16" Macbook Pros. Those are legit great laptops for hardware. The separate Apple Trackpad is also a great device that I use every day.

The MB Air is a step down in pretty much every way and a terrible deal in Europe where Apple prices have gotten kinda ridiculous. I bought a M1 14" MBP on sale for my spouse for about similar money as a 13" MB Air + relevant RAM and disk upgrades would cost.

The Mac Mini is kind of a "laptop in a different box" type product, the Mac Studio is "laptop hardware that doesn't quite scale into a full blown desktop", especially for GPU performance. The lack of upgradeability on both is a major stupidity whereas on a laptop it's at least a bit more forgiveable, though disk space should be just a removable M.2 drive...

For the mobile devices I agree that the base iPhone and iPads are probably the best buys and going for the higher end models it just doesn't get that much better.

I'm still using a 12.9" 2017 iPad Pro and don't see a whole lot of reason to upgrade. For phone I moved from an iPhone 12 Mini to a Samsung Fold 4 because the foldable basically combines my phone and tablet needs in one thick device. I got a great deal on the Fold (Fold 4 + Galaxy Watch 4 + Galaxy Buds for about "new iPhone 13 Pro" money at the time) and it's been very nice, but certainly not perfect. I don't see myself going back to Apple until they have a foldable of their own.

 

[Sascha Franck]

The MB Air is a step down in pretty much every way and a terrible deal in Europe where Apple prices have gotten kinda ridiculous. I bought a M1 14" MBP on sale for my spouse for about similar money as a 13" MB Air + relevant RAM and disk upgrades would cost.

Hm, same spec'ed MBA vs. MBP (14"), as in 16GB, 2TB is 2,569 € vs. 2,919 €. Considering the MBP features an M3 CPU, even with those 350 of a difference calculated in, it should be a no-brainer (in favour of the MBP of course), but personally, I really, really love the idea of a laptop with zero moving parts inside.

Fwiw, while the prices for both the lower end MBPs and MBAs have even been somewhat going down (of course not much, I mean, this is Apple...), it's really getting crazy with their 16"s. Baseline model with a piss poor 512GB drive is 3k already. And if you really feel like maxing it out (M3 Max, 128GB, 8TB), you're ending up with 8,529.

Well, anyway, fortunately, as I'm not into video editing at all, both the MBA/13 and MBP/14 would be more than sufficient for me. MBA/15 might in fact be another contender, but as I'd always connect an external monitor at home, I may not need it (ok, my eyes certainly aren't getting better, so 15" might be an advance on the road).

Whatever, what's really winding me up is their super ridiculous RAM and SSD upgrade prices. There's just no way to justify those, not at all.
And all that to possibly end up with a computer that they might as well render a door stop in just 5 years.

 

[marsonic]

IMO the best products Apple makes are the 14" and 16" Macbook Pros. Those are legit great laptops for hardware. The separate Apple Trackpad is also a great device that I use every day.

The MB Air is a step down in pretty much every way and a terrible deal in Europe where Apple prices have gotten kinda ridiculous. I bought a M1 14" MBP on sale for my spouse for about similar money as a 13" MB Air + relevant RAM and disk upgrades would cost.

The Mac Mini is kind of a "laptop in a different box" type product, the Mac Studio is "laptop hardware that doesn't quite scale into a full blown desktop", especially for GPU performance. The lack of upgradeability on both is a major stupidity whereas on a laptop it's at least a bit more forgiveable, though disk space should be just a removable M.2 drive...

For the mobile devices I agree that the base iPhone and iPads are probably the best buys and going for the higher end models it just doesn't get that much better.

I'm still using a 12.9" 2017 iPad Pro and don't see a whole lot of reason to upgrade. For phone I moved from an iPhone 12 Mini to a Samsung Fold 4 because the foldable basically combines my phone and tablet needs in one thick device. I got a great deal on the Fold (Fold 4 + Galaxy Watch 4 + Galaxy Buds for about "new iPhone 13 Pro" money at the time) and it's been very nice, but certainly not perfect. I don't see myself going back to Apple until they have a foldable of their own.

I agree with a lot of that. I just have zero desire to ever use a laptop again, and I see no reason to reward Apple's garbage-tier storage design by paying them for more of it. I also don't care about GPU performance - if I did, I'd build another PC.

Minis and Studios are the same basic hardware, but they do still cool themselves better than Apple's laptops, which can still show some thermal throttling, at least in synthetic tests. IDK whether it comes up in real life because I don't care about laptops.

If I were still gigging as a DJ or needed to work while traveling (e.g., while physically on planes) or in stupid locations like coffee shops or "on location", fine, I'd buy a laptop. But, the tiny screens and garbage keyboards, the entire idea of trackpads, and the ergonomics of putting a laptop on a desk are too much of a compromise for me to ever pay for again by choice.

I realize it doesn't apply to everybody, but I haven't needed a laptop since I graduated college, and I'm very happy about it.

 

[marsonic]

Whatever, what's really winding me up is their super ridiculous RAM and SSD upgrade prices.

Like I said, I don't care about their storage prices because I think the design is unforgivably bad and don't really use my internal storage anyway. But, yes, the RAM prices are absolutely stupid. There's no reason they're not using commodity DIMMs except so they can earn more on the margin for creating more eWaste and larger repair costs out of warranty.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Like I said, I don't care about their storage prices because I think the design is unforgivably bad and don't really use my internal storage anyway.

Unfortunately, I want a laptop, so I have to care about those prices.

 

[marsonic]

Unfortunately, I want a laptop, so I have to care about those prices.

I'd honestly probably put an external SSD on the lid with pedalboard tape.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I'd honestly probably put an external SSD on the lid with pedalboard tape.

Maybe super flat SSDs the size of a MB lid /w an angled USB plug would be a fantastic aftermarket thing.

 

[marsonic]

Maybe super flat SSDs the size of a MB lid /w an angled USB plug would be a fantastic aftermarket thing.

I think OWC actually advertises the sticky tape version of upgrading storage.

Yeah, they do....

https://media.owcnow.com/image/upload/w_600,c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,dpr_2.0/owc-envoy-express-lifestyle

 

[Sascha Franck]

I think OWC actually advertises the sticky tape version of upgrading storage.

Yeah, they do....

https://media.owcnow.com/image/upload/w_600,c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,dpr_2.0/owc-envoy-express-lifestyle

TBH, while I'm a big fan of all sorts of life hacks, this will never be among them.

 

[marsonic]

TBH, while I'm a big fan of all sorts of life hacks, this will never be among them.

I don't blame you. It's silly compared to just putting a couple m.2 slots on the board.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I don't blame you. It's silly compared to just putting a couple m.2 slots on the board.

Thing is, I never got the idea of making laptops slimmer and slimmer and then still some.
At least keep offering one line of machines that a) are servicable and b) don't suffer from all kinda things related to the stupid size reduction (such as throttling, no user accessible parts and what not).
I still have that old white plastic Macbook from 2008, and what I did was to rip out the optical drive and replace it with an HDD/SSD frame. So, even in 2012 or so (which is when I modified it) I already had 2TB of diskspace in it and even today there's still 1.5TB - on two SSDs!
I remember buying it, too. Bought it with 1GB/RAM and 80 (I kid you not) GB HDD. On the way back from the Apple dealer I stopped at a generic computer store and bought more RAM, a bigger HDD and two torx drivers. Opened it up and replaced the original parts as the first thing after unboxing. That was my first Apple computer and I never even booted it with the original RAM/HDD, go figure.

 

[marsonic]

Thing is, I never got the idea of making laptops slimmer and slimmer and then still some.
At least keep offering one line of machines that a) are servicable and b) don't suffer from all kinda things related to the stupid size reduction (such as throttling, no user accessible parts and what not).
I still have that old white plastic Macbook from 2008, and what I did was to rip out the optical drive and replace it with an HDD/SSD frame. So, even in 2012 or so (which is when I modified it) I already had 2TB of diskspace in it and even today there's still 1.5TB - on two SSDs!
I remember buying it, too. Bought it with 1GB/RAM and 80 (I kid you not) GB HDD. On the way back from the Apple dealer I stopped at a generic computer store and bought more RAM, a bigger HDD and two torx drivers. Opened it up and replaced the original parts as the first thing after unboxing. That was my first Apple computer and I never even booted it with the original RAM/HDD, go figure.

Same.

I used to go buy my new MBPs based on the delivery date of the RAM that was going to go in them (other than the many warranty replacments I wound up getting). It was also easy to always replace the optical drive with an OWC Data Doubler because out of all the MBs and MBPs I owned, not a single one of them ever had a working optical drive.

Though, to be fair, I did the same thing with my last PC laptops too. All the upgrade prices were atrocious compared to aftermarket if you were capable of using a screwdriver.

I think it's even more egregious with their "desktop" machines. The idea that I have to go to a HEDT-level computer just to have PCIe slots and still can't upgrade or replace RAM and Storage is an insult. It was almost enough to keep me on PC (my current one is my first Mac since my 2011 MBP died in like 2015).

 

[Sascha Franck]

because out of all the MBs and MBPs I owned, not a single one of them ever had a working optical drive.

Oh my, don't even tell me. "Super" drive they say? Most pathetic BS ever. I had 2 failed ones in one year. Fortunately the service tech always replaced them while I was shopping (must've been the most common failure ever, a mate of mine even had 3 broken ones), but when the second replacement drive started to randomly quite reading CDs/DVDs, I opted out and got that drive bay instead.

Outside of using macOS (which, btw, I absolutely hated first, but it seriously grew on me) and some Apple software (in my case Logic), dealing with that company is a completely fun-free affair.

 

[marsonic]

Oh my, don't even tell me. "Super" drive they say? Most pathetic BS ever. I had 2 failed ones in one year. Fortunately the service tech always replaced them while I was shopping (must've been the most common failure ever, a mate of mine even had 3 broken ones), but when the second replacement drive started to randomly quite reading CDs/DVDs, I opted out and got that drive bay instead.

I'm jealous. When I got a DOA SuperDrive in my first Macbook (after growing up on an Apple IIe and then several PCs from dos through win xp), they said it would be a week to the depot and back to replace it. Same thing with every other dead SuperDrive over the next several years. It was easier to buy a USB one than be without my computer for a week, so I just never did it. Eventually, I stopped asking.

Coincidentally, I've only ever bought 2 external optical drives - the first CD/DVD+/-RW that I ordered the day they said it would take a week and then eventually one that would read (maybe write, never had the need) blu-rays a handful of years ago. I absolutely got my money's worth out of that $150 or so (total).

Outside of using macOS (which, btw, I absolutely hated first, but it seriously grew on me) and some Apple software (in my case Logic), dealing with that company is a completely fun-free affair.

I actually bought that first optical drive so I could install Logic back when it came in a box. I've never really gotten along with it, though. I'm experimenting with it again because it's so cheap and I got curious (even though my license is no longer valid). There are definitely things to like about it, but I'm just about certain it's not for me (thanks to the very generous 90-day trial) due to a handful of little details.

I've also specifically avoided os-specific software whenever I could. There are a few things that have to change (e.g., KeyboardMaestro on macOS vs. AutoHotKey on Windows), but for the most part everything I do with music is reasonably OS-independent, just so I can switch if I need to.