Yes, I am downgrading from the ultimate Mac Pro to tiny Mac Mini. I purchased the 8 core Mac Pro more than a year ago and it has served me well. It has two graphic cards, 10GB of RAM, RAID card with 4 x 500GB as RAID10 and a SSD for boot drive. Although there can be some improvements, it is basically every audio/video/graphic designer’s dream machine. Since I am none of the above, I thought it was overkill for me. With recent Mac Mini’s revision,adding dual screen capability and performance improvements, I decided to give it a try for two weeks.
Daily Usage (dual 24 inch Monitor)
Comparing the raw power of a Mini to Pro is not a fair comparison, so I will compare them in daily usage scenario. Any given time of a day I have, these applications open on all of my Macs.
- Safari
- Quicksilver
- iStat Pro
- Skype
- Adium
- NetNewsWire
- CSSEdit
- Coda
- iTunes
- Server Admin
- Remote Desktop Connection
- iCal
- OmniFocus
- TextMate
- DropBox
It’s not much compared to some other people, but it’s not a short list. Even with the Mini, it has never used up more than 50% of RAM and 40% of the CPU with 50 degrees in celsius. When I am watching HD video in full screen, Mini uses up 70% of Ram and 90% of CPU with 65 degrees in celsius. It is small but it can definitely do the job.
Power
Since I operate many server and Minis in the DataCenter, I always keep my eyes on the power consumptions. On the previous post, I have added some numbers showing the power usage on different Minis. Mini scored 14 watt when idle and 34 when watching Hulu HD. Mac Pro uses more than 160 watt when idle and 200 watt when watching Hulu HD. That is lot’s of cost saving for my daily use. The only downside of using Mini is that I would need to turn on the heater to keep my room warm.
FYI. During the college days, I used to run stress tests on my desktops to keep my room warm.
Data Safety
Being a storage engineer, I keep all my data redundant with extra backup. When I used my Mac Pro, I had all my data stored and time machine targeted in RAID 10 which can handle up to two disk failures at the same time. On top of that, I have external hard drive plugged every month to make monthly backup. (Ever since my external died on me while I was reinstalling OS on my only machine, I am really paranoid about data redundancy.
Currently, my Mini is making all the frequent backup to slow performing Time Capsule. I just don’t trust my Time Capsule, so I make DVD backup every month and same to the external hard drive. I always prefer RAID 10 over any kind of storing method but I have to stick to what I got for now.
For regularly accessed documents and developing codes, I got my own Snow Leopard server with AFP access and for the non essentials, DropBox.
Defending my Decision
Mac Pro used to be my dream machine during the days I had the first generation Intel Mini and the Macbook Pro REV.A. After owning it for awhile I realized its too much for normal users. People in the Audio/Graphic/Video industry will never make the decision I made but for me, this is it. I may get 27 inch iMac because my neck hurts using dual monitors, but that is because of the screen real estate not due to the performance. I love Mac Mini.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
To be honest, thats the same thing i thought about lately. I dont own a Mac Pro, but i own a QuadCore 3Ghz Hackintosh with 8GB RAM, SSD drive, 3TB HDDs and powerful gfx card. Power comsumption around 150-200 Watts without my 2x monitors. Thats roughly 120Watts less than a mac mini which in my country is atleast 200 EUR (about 250USD) extra for power consumption. (if you run it 24/7)
As i am only a software developer, thats 250 USD i could easily safe each year as i dont really need more than a Core2Duo 2,53Ghz as the mini offers.
Also as i want to purchase another mini to act as a home server together with a good nas, overall power consumption of all 3 devices would be less than 100Watts, with the current hardware it would be well over 200 Watts.
The only downside is that i would still need to keep the pc to play some games from time to time so i wouldnt get any money back and the 500 spend on a mini would need some time to be saved with power…
So i cant really decide, as my PC runs approx. 15 hours a day the difference in power consumption costs wouldnt be too much, maybe 100-150 EUR a year which is 8-12 EUR a month.
If id sell the PC for a mini, savings would be immediate, but then again the mini cant play games very well
Mac Mini is very interesting little machine. It lacks the power and the expandability, but people love them for their design and usability.
I haven’t even thought about running a game on it, but it is currently powering my dual 24inch monitors. My first intel Mac Mini’s fan went crazy when I used it with one 24inch monitor. Mini’s graphic has improved dramatically since it’s first released, but it is still laptop based hardware.
What about getting a Mini and use it as your main computer to do all the work. Use the gaming machine only when you need to. You will save your money on both Power consumption of the machines and Air Conditioning.