Memory is not user upgradable.
SSD is user extendable, either within the box or external addition.
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frontpageyoungliu posted May 06, 2025 01:19 PM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
frontpageyoungliu posted May 06, 2025 01:19 PM
Select Stores: Apple Mac Mini Desktop w/ M4 Chip, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
+ Free Store Pickup$450
$600
25% offMicro Center
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Great buy though- excellent value. Very pleased with mine from last time - which serves as a very capable 'desktop replacement' - and uses only 2-4.5W of power consumption during real-world use, driving two large format displays (at/near 4K). I barely even use my desktop PC anymore because it uses ~100W to do the same thing, and it's no faster or smoother than the M4 Mini for general use.
1 - It has "only" 256gb of storage. Yes, it sucks. USB4/Thunderbolt external NVMe/SSD will be a cheap addition, or get the aftermarket internal chip upgrade.
2 - It's still expensive. Ok, provide a link to machine that has comparable performance and capabilities in a similar form factor for this price.
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I'm just wary about switching everything from PC to this Mac mini. I suppose I could run both at the same time until I figure it out. I see this deal comes around now and then so I'll research for the future.
Any reco's on YouTube videos on switching from PC to Mac? I really am behind on my photo and video editing and want something that is good for that as my PC is now too slow. TIA.
Office365 should have Mac downloads as well. MS has written Office for the Apple M chips so it's running on native code.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank ganachain
You can either go with retail drives or roll your own with an enclosure and NVME drive.
If you're looking for the fastest R/W speeds, check this article for a discussion of chipsets in enclosures. It lists retail drives as well. Certainly there is discussion on diminishing returns on drive speed and whether you'll notice 1000MB/s vs 3800MB/s but if you want to max out the speed you're going to get over TB4, this article describes the enclosures/chipsets that will allow it.
https://dancharblog.wor
This guy (r/NewMaxx) did GREAT work categorizing the NVME drives into categories so you can make an educated pick too.
https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...id=
Here's another list from r/NewMaxx with Apr 2025 list of drives and prices
https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...id=
I just picked up a 2TB Crucial T500 (~$150) and a WAVLINK 40Gbps PCIe NVMe SSD Enclosure (~$60 - lists ASM2464PD chipset in the description) for about $200 total (from the digital river in Brazil). 1TB would be $150 for the T500. This will be 3800MB/s on the Mac mini TB4 ports in the back.
another interesting note - in the linked dancharblog article with the ASM2464PD chipset info in my previous post, they have links to ASM2464PD drivers at the end of the post so if you buy an external enclosure and roll your own or you buy a retail SSD with an ASM2464PD chipset, you can update firmware to account for any issues you run into.
As for learning curve, there is a small one but Mac has always been intuitive -- less so now than in the past, but still easy to understand. That said, to get the most out of the OS and native apps features you'll want to subscribe to at least the minimum iCloud data tier which is $12 a year -- oddly charged .99 per month.
Thanks!
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As for learning curve, there is a small one but Mac has always been intuitive -- less so now than in the past, but still easy to understand. That said, to get the most out of the OS and native apps features you'll want to subscribe to at least the minimum iCloud data tier which is $12 a year -- oddly charged .99 per month.
I was able to price-match at BBuy and also purchased a Best Buy Plus membership for an additional $50 which gives me 60-days returns on this and other purchases. So in the unlikely event I don't gel with Apple, after a month or so I can return the Mac Mini.
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