Switching from Mac Pro to Mac Mini

October 29, 2009

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.

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.