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Downgrade from M2 to M1?

Last year I ditched my trusty iMac 27" (2009 model) after 11 years of use, and bought a new 2023 Mac Mini M2. Unfortunately I chose unwisely, going for the smallest SSD (256GB) and thinking that a 2TB Satechi add-on device would fit the bill, rather than paying Apple the £850-plus difference to upgrade to 2TB on-board. The limitations were quickly evident; recording audio to an external drive results in glitches and frequent crashes, and it's a clumsy process to be continually moving files to free up space. New 2TB model now out of reach financially but there are a few 2020/2021 2TB M1 Minis out there for reasonable prices. Question - am I likely to notice a difference in the speed? Nothing I do is particularly processor-heavy (mainly Cubase and Sibelius music software) and I was perfectly happy with my old iMac 27 for years, so I'm thinking I'd probably be OK. But if I'm overlooking anything..would welcome opinions. Thanks

Mac mini, macOS 14.6

Posted on Aug 25, 2024 3:37 AM

Top-ranking reply

Servant of Cats

Level 6

16,054 points

Posted on Aug 25, 2024 6:23 AM

I would suggest keeping your M2 Mac mini and adding an external SSD. You probably want to skip SATA SSDs, as you can now get faster USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2) / NVMe SSDs for only a little bit more money.

If you need a SSD that runs at internal speeds, you could look into a NVMe SSD in a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure or a USB4 40 Gbps enclosure.

E.g.,

A Crucial X9 Pro connects via USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2).
An OWC Express 1M2 connects via USB4 40 Gbps (but can fall back to USB 3.1 Gen 2).
An OWC Envoy Express connects via Thunderbolt 3.

The Crucial X9 Pro is preassembled. With the OWC SSDs, you can either buy a preassembled SSD, or buy just the enclosure, and install your own separately-purchased NVMe M.2 blade SSD.

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32 replies

hcsitas

Level 6

12,686 points

Aug 25, 2024 8:02 AM in response to lesparapluies

My answer to that is no, it would be a downgrade in every way...

Aug 25, 2024 5:17 AM in response to woodmeister50

Yes it is indeed a USB hub with an NVMe slot, connected straight into the Mac's USB-C ports. Seemed like a good solution at the time.. about £200 instead of £850. but as you say it is very problematic, shame as it looks good and having the extra ports is useful

hcsitas

Level 6

12,686 points

Aug 25, 2024 6:58 AM in response to lesparapluies

Be aware that any external solution for direct recording will disappoint compared with direct to internal. Sticking with your M1 purchase is best. All you need to do is reorganize and transfer your data to external to free up space and then create a schedule to transfer your internal recordings to external every now and then.

In other words, you don’t need to spend a penny for the best solution, just rejig what you have for purpose. Just do it 😁

Aug 25, 2024 7:29 AM in response to hcsitas

hcsitas wrote:

Be aware that any external solution for direct recording will disappoint compared with direct to internal. Sticking with your M1 purchase is best.

In other words, you don’t need to spend a penny for the best solution, just rejig what you have for purpose. Just do it 😁

The OP doesn't have a M1 Mac mini. The question was about selling a M2 Mac mini with 256 GB of internal SSD space and spending money to buy a M1 Mac mini with more SSD space.

hcsitas

Level 6

12,686 points

Aug 25, 2024 12:31 PM in response to lesparapluies

FWIW, I have both the M2 and the Intel 2018 mini and except for blazing fast startup (which to me smells like fake innovation), I haven’t seen any difference for routine tasks. In fact, the 2018 WiFi is superior and way better value IMO.

I say,

M2 - M1 = 0.

Q.E.D.

Aug 26, 2024 2:29 AM in response to lesparapluies

Regarding the Satechi and all other USB hubs, I believe but cannot prove that their problems arise from them not having their own power supply.

Many hubs have got a socket for a 5v power supply and using it would possibly prevent the connection issues that seem to plague them.

I have a couple of Atolla 4 port USB 3.0 hubs which cost under £10 each and have a socket where you can plug in a phone charger to supply power. I also have a cheap £4 plugin card reader.

Atolla 4 Port Hub

SD Card Reader

The Satechi is impressive looking but I don't think it is capable of using an external power source. For its capabilities it is extremely overpriced.

Aug 26, 2024 2:48 AM in response to woodmeister50

Yes I can see what you mean. Unfortunately that's always going to be the case as one of my USB-C ports is driving the second display, which only leaves one, so without some kind of hub I'm not going to have any spare ports available if I use the 2nd one for an external SSD. Incidentally I wasn't aware that the boot drive could be an external one, so that's food for thought too. I'm not sure if the 2nd display will work through a hub, will check that out

Aug 26, 2024 4:01 AM in response to hcsitas

Thank you, I suspected as much. To be honest the only reason I ditched the iMac 27 was that it had long since reached the ceiling as far as updating the OS and various programs were concerned but I was perfectly happy with the performance

Aug 26, 2024 6:49 AM in response to Servant of Cats

So, it would seem that the way forward would be to get a Thunderbolt hub, run both displays from that, and use the freed up USB-C port on the M2 to attach an external SSD which would then be the main recording disk? The Satechi could still function as a storage device but from one of the "normal" USB ports. I have a 10-way powered hub plugged into one of the USB-A ports which carries things such as printers, dongles, MIDI interface etc and that doesn't give me any trouble. It's specifically the Satechi which does, and I can see the reasoning clearly that that one is effectively another hub. One further question if I may - am I correct in assuming that the 2 older-format USB ports on the M2, as well as being physically different from the USB-C / Thunderbolt ports, are also slower?

Aug 26, 2024 6:55 AM in response to Servant of Cats

I don't really think that's an issue, for 2 reasons: The audio recording I do is seldom more than a few tracks, with no plug-ins. At the moment I'm getting audio drop-outs even just recording a mono click track, which shouldn't tip the scales by any standards. Also, the type of work I do worked perfectly well on my iMac 27, and, going back even further on my G4! I really do think it's an issue with the Satechi, but thanks for the advice and I will run the check

Aug 26, 2024 8:50 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Ian R. Brown wrote:

Don't worry about the speed of the USB 3.0 ports because though they are much slower than Thunderbolt, they are more than fast enough for anything you are doing. . . . I use mine on the iMac to connect an old USB 3.0 HDD (not SSD) which is used for editing multiple tracks of 1080p and 4K video with no problems.

A mechanical hard drive isn't fast enough for USB 3.0 to be a bottleneck.

A NVMe SSD is.

For a NVMe SSD, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 enclosure will be cheaper than a USB4 40 Gbps or Thunderbolt one, and that may justify going with the USB 3.1 Gen 2 enclosure. There's no need to further cut speed by plugging that USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSD into a USB-A (USB 3.0) port instead of into a USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 2) one.

Aug 25, 2024 4:38 AM in response to hcsitas

Good point you made, thanks. I think I just miss the 2TB of the old iMac, not having to think about running out of "local" space. Naturally I do have back-ups of all drives too.

Aug 25, 2024 6:12 AM in response to lanstrad1

Thanks, that's all very helpful and much appreciated

Aug 25, 2024 6:43 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Thanks for the info, all useful stuff. But.. an external enclosure with an NVMe.. isn't that what I've already got with the Satechi USB-C? Or is the problem that the Satechi is poor quality?

Aug 25, 2024 7:38 AM in response to Servant of Cats

That is correct, yes, the question was whether to ditch the 256GB M2 and go for a 2TB M1

Downgrade from M2 to M1?