Introduced 20 years ago, it has just had its second major redesign and a huge boost in capability. Now used for cloud and colocation services, and widely as a server and desktop of choice.
mini
From the start of the fourth cycle in M4 Macs and the smallest ever, through the omission in macOS VMs, and QuickLook shortcomings, to the stealth firmware update.
Set up from unboxing in under 2 hours, its CPU cores perform better than those in the M3, differences that are magnified.
Running threads at different frequencies on the same core type can’t save energy and extend battery endurance. That’s where 2 core types come in handy.
How power efficiency is just as important to desktop Macs as it is to notebooks, and the story of the Mac mini in power from 2005-2023.
Running a Mac as a server supports all the features of HFS+ and APFS, services such as Content Caching, and spares us from learning Linux. But does it work?
Is the next Apple Event in October, for the release of Ventura, and maybe more Apple silicon Macs? What’s going to be missing from macOS 13, and what happens to Catalina now?
Progress benchmarking performance of internal SSDs in M1 Macs: tests of 400 files totalling over 130 GB written and read in less than 50 seconds. And results.
A new version of Stibium which performs series tests raises further questions about benchmarking SSDs on Intel and M1 Macs. And is an X5 worth the extra cost?
A new version using Mach absolute time brings accuracy to a few microseconds, and a Help page. Tests progress well, and continue to make interesting comparisons.
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