Mac Mini M2 upgrade is in the cards, but I have a question regarding storage ...

TuckerdogAVL

TuckerdogAVL

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I currently have a 2014 MacMini and am glad to have not upgraded to the M1 (with the M2 now available). I'm sure the lower end one would meet my needs, except for a question I haven't been able to solve. I currently have 800+gb saved on my SSD drive that came with the 1TB Mac Mini 2014. How the heck do I upgrade to a MacMini M2 with 256 or 512GB? I don't want to go 1TB if I don't have to spend the money. I haven't saved the desktop or documents in the cloud, which apparently is 565 GB of the current 800+ that's stored. Photos are in the cloud (at only 23gb) and applications take up 72gb. So, can I get there from here?
 
Once you go Silicon you change your software habits, one is Pure Silicon apps can work on M1-2 machines with no problem! Two is Universal apps that can work on M1-2 and Intel Macs at the same time! That's why most of Apple apps are still Universal because of the Intel Mac Pro they still sell! Three is use the web site RoaringApps.com/url] to see if your apps are ready yet!

Over the last few years IMHO has shown me MANY applications haven't even gone to Universal yet! This shows me many Intel applications are fly by night applications that are to supported anymore! I know this hard sell but I have come to this conclusion and don't even support there users anymore! I know on Mac book Air M1 I only use Unreal or pure Silicon applications in this Mac! This has helped keep the app usage go easy on M1!
 
Satcomer, That's not what he was asking. What to do with 800+ GB of data.
Have you considered using an external SSD to store what you seldom use?
4-8 TB externals are pretty cheap at Costco or Sam's Club. Other places, including Amazon, I'm sure will have similar prices.
 
SGilbert said:
Satcomer, That's not what he was asking. What to do with 800+ GB of data.
Have you considered using an external SSD to store what you seldom use?
4-8 TB externals are pretty cheap at Costco or Sam's Club. Other places, including Amazon, I'm sure will have similar prices.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm asking ... so, do I transfer everything to an external to make the switch? Do the apps transfer okay? I guess the question is, just how easy is it to do? I mean, I have 1TB "in the cloud" between Dropbox and Apple, but I really don't like the process of getting things out of the cloud when I want them out - permanently. The double negatives "if you remove this document than the document won't be available other than not here." :) I'm joking, but sometimes it seems that is what is going on. I accidentally used Dropbox to "just simply" back up to it (since that's how they present it: just do this and all awesomeness will be y ours) and it was a NIGHTMARE to get things back. We still have a laptop that has everything in the cloud (needed to repair due to an expanding battery) and I just gave up and learned how to use it. I still never know where things are going ie HD>Downloads>Icloud>downloads.... vs Downloads.

So, back to the question at hand. yes, I have quite a few redundant ex HD already, and I'm even using TM still... but I assume that if I attempt to transfer 1TB of stuff on SSD to a MacMini M2 with 512GB I'm going to get no for an answer. Do I have to manually move everything, maybe except the 72gb of Applications? Perhaps I get the computer experts to do this?
 
TuckerdogAVL said:
That's what I'm asking ... so, do I transfer everything to an external to make the switch? Do the apps transfer okay? I guess the question is, just how easy is it to do? I mean, I have 2TB "in the cloud" between Dropbox and Apple, but I really don't like the process of getting things out of the cloud when I want them out - permanently. The double negatives "if you remove this document than the document won't be available other than not here." :) I'm joking, but sometimes it seems that is what is going on. I accidentally used Dropbox to "just simply" back up to it (since that's how they present it: just do this and all awesomeness will be yours) and it was a NIGHTMARE to get things back. We still have a laptop that has everything in the cloud (needed to repair due to an expanding battery) and I just gave up and learned how to use it. I still never know where things are going ie HD>Downloads>Icloud>downloads.... vs Downloads.

So, back to the question at hand. Yes, I have quite a few redundant ex HDs already, and I'm even using TM still ... but I assume that if I attempt to transfer 1TB of stuff on SSD to a MacMini M2 with 512GB I'm going to get no for an answer. Do I have to manually move everything, maybe except the 72gb of Applications? Perhaps I get the computer experts to do this? This is the only thing that is stopping me...
Click to expand...
 
You need to use an external HD to transfer little used docs &/or pics/apps/etc. NOT as a back up, but as a storage drive---then DELETE from your Mac to free up space.
Most of what you move will be easily retrievable; however a very few will lose their 'link' and you should leard what can & cannot be moved really quick.
Point here is---you need more room!

(A pity here is that Macs used to be easily upgradeable---not any more, sad to say. You must spec a new purchase as you forsee future use to be.). This might help your decision: https://appleinsider.com/articles/2...dio-imac-mac-pro---what-you-get-for-the-money
 
Yeah, what I figured I would do is use Externals for all the usual suspects. I already have movies offline, and back up photo.libraries. And all the archived iMovie stuff. What gets confusing as well, as it appears that anything I have saved offline through dropbox shows up as being on my computer. So, it's difficult to actually figure out how much storage is being used on the computer. I go to drop box and it says xyz is there; I go onto the computer it says dropbox/folder/xyz. However, under storage "available" and "cleanup" I see dropbox/folder/xyz appearing as being on the mac and taking up space.
 
SGilbert said:
PHEW! Took awhile to get here, but finally did. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yeppers. Doesn't solve my problem, however ... if you save "online only" you can delete from the computer and dropbox then does act as an external. Phew. Got there through the back way :)
 

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One suggestion with M1-2 Apple created APFS format sense all new Macs are on electronic storage. So IMHO with traditional sin drives use only HFFS+ format sense APFS is only for electronic storage!
 
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Satcomer said:
one suggestion with M1-2 Apple created APFS format sense all new Macs are on electronic storage. So IMHO with traditional sin drives use only HFFS+ format sense APFS is only for electronic storage!
Click to expand...
Hi. I have a 2TB External just sitting doing nothing. It had a back up from the MacMini from 2021 when I had a very bad crash updating from High Sierra to Monterey. So, I just erased and reformatted as Journal, Extended after reading about the APFS and trying to figure out whether it would work to transfer whatever from the MacMini 2014 Intel to a new MacMini M2. However, I still would have to figure out what to keep on it, and what to put on the new one, as it would most likely be 512. The current Mini has 880gb of a 1TB used on it. Mostly what is Id's as documents, though from what I see, the documents are imported movie files for iMovie.

I have three iMovie libraries and one id's as iMovie.Archive.library and that ExHD has about 80gb left on it. What I thought I'd do is transfer all the project/event files to an external to start with, maybe partition the 2 TB (But not partition it if there's going to be an issue with M2). I have a TM backup on a 1TB, and two other HD, 500gb and 700gb (Have no idea why it's that size, but I think it came out of a laptop and we put it in a case to use as a HD. Strange size). And they're about 70% filled.
PS The ExHD that is being used for the Backup is APFS; everything else is Extended. And I'm not able to upgrade to Ventura. The computer is just too ancient in Apple's eyes.
 
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