How much Mac Mini do i need for PT12?

[Steven O'Neill]

My 2010-ish MBP has died. As such I’m shopping for a new host. While an iMac would be preferred, their prices have moved out of my budget (and used/refurbs aren’t really much cheaper). As such I’m considering a Mini and am looking for help in determining exactly how much Mini I’d need to run PT12. For reference, my MBP was running ProTools 10 with 16 gigs of ram and that was more than enough power for what I do. So here are my “big” questions:

1) Do I really need an i7 or will an i5 suffice moving to PT12? This is a big factor in keeping the price down. For the record I’m not a pro. I write and record 4-5 songs a year, tops. The most CPU-intensive stuff I use may be an occasional/brief soft-synth part (which I can always just record to an audio track), EZ Drummer, and a TL Space reverb on a track or two. I get that an i7 “future-proofs” me somewhat, but I’m the type who doesn’t need or care to update every time one is offered. In fact once my system is running solid I’m content with not changing a thing for the life of the system, leaving it frozen in time if you will.

2) If I can pull it off w/an i5, would 32 gigs of ram be money well spent, or could I pull it off with 16 gigs like I did w/my old MBP running PT10?

3) I definitely want to go SSD. I’m wondering if 256 would do or if I should spend more for 512? For reference I’d only be using this computer to run PT. I play rock/pop, which means I don’t need tons of storage for a library of synth sounds or whatever. The only thing in my world that may take up significant space would be my DrumCore library.

4) If apple is shipping the Mini with Catalini, which to my understanding isn’t compatible w/PT at this time, would I be able to install an earlier compatible OS?

So to recap, I’m looking to spend more money only where it will truly count given my needs. While my sessions typically use around 24 tracks, there isn’t constant audio at all times on all 24. I do use a fair amount of plugins in real time but they’re typically low-CPU, like eq’s, compression, delays, sansamp, etc. The big CPU suckers were mentioned above and are used relatively sparingly. I appreciate the time of anyone who can weight in here. Thank you.

[WinTaper]

Really you need to closely look at what you have now... how much free disk space do you have on your MBP. Whats the processor load for your projects on the MBP. And of course check the memory load. When getting a new machine I’d want at least double the free space and half the load on CPU and RAM.

And remember, on the Mac mini, memory is upgradable but storage is not.

256GB storage isn’t very much, and in spite of what one might think, external storage is much slower than the onboard drive. I’d go at least 512GB on-board. You’ll probably need more externally.

Unless you run no soft synths at all ever, I’d get 32GB ram... but you could start with 16 and upgrade (you’ll end up removing the 16 and paying for a full 32 replacement)

As far as the i5 vs the i7 I am not sure. Way back when the i5 had no multi threading and was much lower than an i7. I do not think that is the case anymore. I know the i5 multithreads now. You would have to do your homework.

New machines ship with Catalina, you won’t be able to avoid that. Pro Tools has gotta get their act together on that eventually.

Hope this helps...

-Dan

[Sardi]

You can downgrade the Mini to Mojave so that’s not an issue.

Honestly though, an older Mac Mini would do what you need it to do easily. Maybe look at a second hand 2012 model with i7 CPU. Max RAM is 16GB and you can install an internal SSD in those models.

I have 2 of those machines and the load I put on them is a lot higher than what you’re doing and they don’t break a sweat.

But, if you want to buy new, even the base model Mini would be more than adequate. Just bump the RAM up. 256GB is fine for a boot drive. Bung an ext. SSD via USB3 or if you’re willing to spend more for TB3, an ext. NVME drive will get you similar speeds to the internal drive.


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