Any BF deals on Mac mini?

[Black]

Lew Zealand wrote:
My mom currently uses the same Mini as Mr. rgG but with 3GB and an SSD installed "for web sites and email." Certainly those updates help it be rather a fast machine for those uses but you have to consider that it is EOL at this point. My mom is one time zone over so immediate hardware assistance to replace the Mini itself is not immediately available (I'm considering replacement options at this time). You have more flexibility for quick turnaround in case of a major hardware failure.

As long as the Mini is regularly backed up, adding a 120GB SSD for $40

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820226678&cm_re=Mushkin_Enhanced_120GB-_-20-226-678-_-Product

and 3GB for $27

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20W...M2DDR3GBK/

isn't a bad investment even for an 8 year old Mini.

^LIKE^

[rgG]

Lew Zealand wrote:
My mom currently uses the same Mini as Mr. rgG but with 3GB and an SSD installed "for web sites and email." Certainly those updates help it be rather a fast machine for those uses but you have to consider that it is EOL at this point. My mom is one time zone over so immediate hardware assistance to replace the Mini itself is not immediately available (I'm considering replacement options at this time). You have more flexibility for quick turnaround in case of a major hardware failure.

As long as the Mini is regularly backed up, adding a 120GB SSD for $40

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820226678&cm_re=Mushkin_Enhanced_120GB-_-20-226-678-_-Product

and 3GB for $27

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20W...M2DDR3GBK/

isn't a bad investment even for an 8 year old Mini.

How hard is it to take these old mini's apart? I am getting lazy in my old age.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

I know some people are proud about nursing along old computers but an A1176 (Macmini1,1), even upgraded to the max, is like driving a moped on the shoulder of a highway. An iPhone 5S is 64 bit and has higher Geekbench results than a Core Duo mini (not 64 bit).

The low end Late-2014 mini is barely better than a road apple, not quite double the Geekbench scores of the iPhone 5S. At least it can be configured with 8 GB of SOLDERED- RAM (an extra $100 for RAM that costs $20) and should be able to install any new version of OS X through 2019.

All of the Late-2012 Mac mini models are typically more than 22% faster than the low end Late-2014, and have user upgradeable RAM.

[rgG]

Well, I had some time this afternoon, so I tried to figure out what was making the mini soooooooo sloooooooow. I "refreshed" FireFox and that seemed to help, but I think the main problem may have been a corrupted TM backup. It looked like TM hadn't been able to make a successful back up for a couple of weeks, and because of that it would try to make the hourly backup, but it wouldn't work but it would try, and try, and try, forever and I think that was really bogging things down.

So, I unmounted the TM drive, turned TM off, remounted the drive, turned TM on, and it finally finished a backup. He does not need hourly back ups, so I installed a program that lets me limit it to once a day in the middle of the night, which is plenty for his back-up needs. Hopefully this will make the mini usable, for now.

Maybe I will run across a 2012 by accident.

[Lew Zealand]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
I know some people are proud about nursing along old computers but an A1176 (Macmini1,1), even upgraded to the max, is like driving a moped on the shoulder of a highway. An iPhone 5S is 64 bit and has higher Geekbench results than a Core Duo mini (not 64 bit).

The low end Late-2014 mini is barely better than a road apple, not quite double the Geekbench scores of the iPhone 5S. At least it can be configured with 8 GB of SOLDERED- RAM (an extra $100 for RAM that costs $20) and should be able to install any new version of OS X through 2019.

All of the Late-2012 Mac mini models are typically more than 22% faster than the low end Late-2014, and have user upgradeable RAM.

We're not talking about a Mac Mini 1,1.

"he just uses it for web sites and email"

A 1.83 C2D Mini with $70 of upgrades is more than capable of performing this job without needing a newer machine. The biggest concern is the longevity of older parts, which is legitimate.

[p8712]

rgG wrote:
Well, I had some time this afternoon, so I tried to figure out what was making the mini soooooooo sloooooooow. I "refreshed" FireFox and that seemed to help, but I think the main problem may have been a corrupted TM backup. It looked like TM hadn't been able to make a successful back up for a couple of weeks, and because of that it would try to make the hourly backup, but it wouldn't work but it would try, and try, and try, forever and I think that was really bogging things down.

So, I unmounted the TM drive, turned TM off, remounted the drive, turned TM on, and it finally finished a backup. He does not need hourly back ups, so I installed a program that lets me limit it to once a day in the middle of the night, which is plenty for his back-up needs. Hopefully this will make the mini usable, for now.

Maybe I will run across a 2012 by accident.

FYI Gmail runs perfectly well with no security issues in my install of 10.6.8 and Firefox 42 (the latest version) works well.

[rgG]

p8712 wrote:
[quote=rgG]
Well, I had some time this afternoon, so I tried to figure out what was making the mini soooooooo sloooooooow. I "refreshed" FireFox and that seemed to help, but I think the main problem may have been a corrupted TM backup. It looked like TM hadn't been able to make a successful back up for a couple of weeks, and because of that it would try to make the hourly backup, but it wouldn't work but it would try, and try, and try, forever and I think that was really bogging things down.

So, I unmounted the TM drive, turned TM off, remounted the drive, turned TM on, and it finally finished a backup. He does not need hourly back ups, so I installed a program that lets me limit it to once a day in the middle of the night, which is plenty for his back-up needs. Hopefully this will make the mini usable, for now.

Maybe I will run across a 2012 by accident.

FYI Gmail runs perfectly well with no security issues in my install of 10.6.8 and Firefox 42 (the latest version) works well.
Yes, here, too, but it wouldn't let me use Mail to interface with Gmail.
I haven't tried the work around mentioned above yet, but I intend to. Gmail says that the older version of Mail is insecure and denies access.

[decay]

to some retired folks, like my dad, "websites" means Farmville on Facebook, which is a resource HOG (Adobe Flash).

he uses an aluminum Mini with an optical drive (whatever year that is) still on 10.6.8 because mom needs AppleWorks. * sigh *

it's not always easy to make things work as they should.

[p8712]

rgG wrote:
[quote=p8712]
[quote=rgG]
Well, I had some time this afternoon, so I tried to figure out what was making the mini soooooooo sloooooooow. I "refreshed" FireFox and that seemed to help, but I think the main problem may have been a corrupted TM backup. It looked like TM hadn't been able to make a successful back up for a couple of weeks, and because of that it would try to make the hourly backup, but it wouldn't work but it would try, and try, and try, forever and I think that was really bogging things down.

So, I unmounted the TM drive, turned TM off, remounted the drive, turned TM on, and it finally finished a backup. He does not need hourly back ups, so I installed a program that lets me limit it to once a day in the middle of the night, which is plenty for his back-up needs. Hopefully this will make the mini usable, for now.

Maybe I will run across a 2012 by accident.

FYI Gmail runs perfectly well with no security issues in my install of 10.6.8 and Firefox 42 (the latest version) works well.
Yes, here, too, but it wouldn't let me use Mail to interface with Gmail.
I haven't tried the work around mentioned above yet, but I intend to. Gmail says that the older version of Mail is insecure and denies access.
FWIW, I have 1 gig of ram lying around that'll fit that mac. You're welcome to it. PM me if you want it.