this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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I've been running a full tower Windows server with a dozen drives for a decade and decided to downsize. This ministack does everything I need at a fraction of the power, noise, and heat.

I use it primarily for Plex but also host a few games servers for buddies. It fits perfectly in my entertainment center.

Spent around $200 on the Mac Mini plus $600 on the drives and enclosures. I'm using SoftRAID for RAID1.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's a pity that also the RAM and SSD are a steal.

250€ to add 8gb RAM and another 250€ to add 250gb SSD. Prices that even ten years ago didn't make sense...

I wish they sold the M2 motherboard with standard DDR 5 and m.2 slots. I'd pay 1000€ for that and i wouldn't even want the fancy aluminum case

[–] jayemecee 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can't you just add it yourself or are they soldered in?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No, unfortunately it's all soldered https://www.macworld.com/article/1677460/mac-mini-upgrade-hub-storage-ethernet-sd-card-ports.html

So when the single flash chip degrades, the whole unit automatically becomes e-waste instead of a simple $25 fix

[–] jayemecee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] InvaderDJ 1 points 1 year ago

In this case they have some justification for the RAM at least. They use a SoC, not a more typical CPU. And the RAM is available for both graphics and system memory, so for some uses, you could do things on a higher end Mac that is not possible on a typical consumer PC.

Still sucks for people like me though. I really want to switch to a mac Mini for my NAS/home server but I can't justify the upgrade cost to get a useful amount of RAM.