All this for $275? Is it really worth it?

[Grateful11]

I can get this one for $150.

"2012 Mac mini i7 130gb SSD main drive, 1TB secondary drive, 16gb Ram Fresh and load of Catalina OS."

[Gareth]

Jerry® wrote:
I own a late 2012 mini. How come I can’t run Big Sur on it?

It's not officially supported by Apple: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp833?locale=en_US

But it looks like people have found workarounds.

[Gareth]

Robert M wrote:
Peter,

Nope. An older flavor of Thunderbolt doesn't equate zero value. Just dandy when used with that machine and machines of similar vintage. Used, they're still going for over $100 bucks.

Robert

Maybe some specific model is? The Belkin model seems pretty easy to pick up for about $60-ish. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=thunderbolt+F4U055&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&rt=nc&_odkw=thunderbolt+dock&_osacat=0&LH_Complete=1&_udhi=100&LH_Sold=1

I think Thunderbolt 3 has really driven the price down on these. There are used TB3 docks for under $100 as well (which are backwards compatible also if using the Apple adapter).

[Robert M]

Gareth,

The adapter is fine for data but it doesn't pass power. That means, bus-powered devices connected to a non-powered dock won't work. Saw the Belkin for about $100 to $125 recently.

Robert

[N-OS X-tasy!]

richorlin wrote:
However, that’s a late 2012 Mac Mini. The latest OS you could put on that is Catalina. Should run well. Offer $175 without all the other equipment.

The ad indicates it's running Big Sur.

[Will Collier]

Grateful11 wrote:
I can get this one for $150.

"2012 Mac mini i7 130gb SSD main drive, 1TB secondary drive, 16gb Ram Fresh and load of Catalina OS."

I'd take that right now.

[Gareth]

Robert M wrote:
The adapter is fine for data but it doesn't pass power. That means, bus-powered devices connected to a non-powered dock won't work.

That's true that the adapter doesn't pass power, but almost all the TB3 docks are self powered anyway (since one of the features is often to power your laptop from the dock). I've actually use a TB3 powered dock with the adapter to connect TB3 bus-powered devices to my TB2 Macs (i.e. TB3 NVMe drives).

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=richorlin]
However, that’s a late 2012 Mac Mini. The latest OS you could put on that is Catalina. Should run well. Offer $175 without all the other equipment.

The ad indicates it's running Big Sur.
There are "tricks" to run Big Sur on some older machines.

[sekker]

Gareth wrote:
[quote=Robert M]
The adapter is fine for data but it doesn't pass power. That means, bus-powered devices connected to a non-powered dock won't work.

That's true that the adapter doesn't pass power, but almost all the TB3 docks are self powered anyway (since one of the features is often to power your laptop from the dock). I've actually use a TB3 powered dock with the adapter to connect TB3 bus-powered devices to my TB2 Macs (i.e. TB3 NVMe drives).

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=richorlin]
However, that’s a late 2012 Mac Mini. The latest OS you could put on that is Catalina. Should run well. Offer $175 without all the other equipment.

The ad indicates it's running Big Sur.
There are "tricks" to run Big Sur on some older machines.
https://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,2676584