Should I invest in a new Mac Mini or upgrade my current one?

Yes, this one https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FGNR3LL/A/refurbished-mac-mini-apple-m1-chip-with-8%E2%80%91core-cpu-and-8%E2%80%91core-gpu?fnode=082c5a43c488d6ccff4609e11dc38bcd20a4a79d8096d0e733f8a46318b440abaff9312f3b04fc20db29df61ec281fa206a6f690d8a4fcc910e7768b85baef42ac77372fc9b1424bd49d4995ca540ba1

I thought I was clear that the OP's choices were either TB2 or USB3. I did not mention TB3 due to the expense plus the necessity of a TB3-TB2 adapter ... and even with the adapter there is no assurance you could boot a TB2 Mini from a TB3 external drive. One also has to be careful about checking the specs on USB4 drives, as they do not all support backward compatibility with USB 3.x or earlier.

I had the following in mind when I wrote my earlier post. Depending on the exact combination of enclosure + drive the price range is $102-$177 for a 1TB external USB 3.2 SSD. Since the OP's 2014 Mini supports only USB 3.0 the USB 3.2 (5Gbps) enclosures are a good match; a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) enclosure would not provide any increased benefit with the OP's Mini.

A USB 3.2 (5Gbps) enclosure like one of these:

• OWC MiniStack enclosure
• OWC Mercury Elite Pro
• OWC Express (least cost although least desirable)

With a good SSD like one of these:

• 1TB OWC Mercury Elektra 3G
• 1TB Samsung 870 EVO

That 2014 Mac mini has a really really slow 5400 rpm Internal Hard Drive.

All of the later Mac mini's (2018, M1 and M2) have really fast SSDs.

For example, the drive speed of my 2018 Mac mini's SSD is 20 times faster.

Probably not your Mac. If your Mac works as slow as stated then you may have some software issue. Getting a newer machine will not address that. Run the free app Etrecheck and post here for review. Also, be sure you are not running any anti virus programs (not needed) as they can slow the Mac down.

Any new Mac will run circles around the 2014 Mac mini, including the latest Mac mini M2. Additionally, you should be budgeting for a replacement device by the Fall of 2024 as Monterey is expected to be dropped from support at that time. And the 2014 can only run up to Monterey. When Apple drops an OS from support, this usually starts a cascade of 3rd party products also dropping support for the OS. This includes Microsoft (usually one month after Apple releases the next OS) and Adobe.

Now, without knowing the details of your 2014 mini, there is a good chance that you have a 5400 rpm rotational drive in that unit. Compared to today's SSDs, they move at a glacial speed. Disk performance alone on the new machine will put you into another level of speed. Also, if you have a rotational disk on that 2014, make sure you have a reliable backup. The machine could be up to 10 years old (depending on when purchased). That is a long time for a drive to be spinning. Verify your backup. Keep it up to date.

The drive alone is not the only improvement. RAM, the M-Class chip, Apple's integrated graphics, all put the 2014 to shame. Applications like Office run very well on M-Class devices. Word, Excel, etc, should all launch with one or two bounces in the Dock (launches after an update will take a little longer as the app is verified). While I know you are not doing video, the M2 is up to 10x faster on encodes than a 2017 Intel Mac. So compared to a 2014, it might be 25x faster (? - have not tested that in a head to head).

Finally, there is the timing of the purchase. I know nothing about when Apple is going to release products. However, if we watch their product release cadence, you might be able to make a guess. Last week Apple released new iPads and one of them has the just announced M4 chip. This is the first time an M-Class chip was introduced in a product other than a Mac. On the Mac side, Apple is currently selling a confusing array of Macs with M3 (MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac), M2 (Mac Studio, Mac mini, Mac Pro), and M1 (Air if you have access to the EDU store). It is safe to bet that many Macs will eventually be released with M4 chips? Sure. When will this happen? No one knows. However, if you are in the market for a Mac mini, make note that the M2 mini was released in Jan 2023. It has been on the market for over a year. But... if we look at previous release patterns, we waited 4 years from the 2014 to the 2018 and then 2 years to the 2020 M1, followed by 2.25 years for the M2 mini. Your guess is as good as mine regarding when the mini gets its next update. If it is about every two years, then there will be no bump until Jan 2025. Or, Apple could release it in June during the developer conference.

But if you are not a power user, and you have a need now, then a machine in hand is better than suffering with what you have. If you have access to an Apple Store, stop in and test drive the machine before you purchase.

While everyone's experience varies, I can pretty much guarantee that the difference between the 2014 and the current Mac mini will be like night and day. Todays' Macs are exceptionally powerful. Even the M1 models from 2020 are still very relevant.

The maximum possible speeds you current drive can achieve even when new were 70-80MB/sec. And that is still glacially slow.

Your performance may improve if you remove Intego/Net Barrier and Carbonite.

A new macMini will be current generation and supported going forward for many years. Even the base model will run circles around your 2014 Mini. Configurations start at $599.

Or you could consider upgrading the 2014 Mini with an external SSD; or replace the interal 5400rpm drive with an SSD - either of which will speed it up significantly but you will still be capped at Monterey. Figure on $100-$200 for a good SSD whether internal or external. (BTW, replacing the internal HDD requires a complete teardown of the Mini and is not for the inexperienced user or faint of heart. It's much easier just to use an external SSD.)

ps. On your late-2014 macMini you would use an external Thunderbolt2 or USB3.x SSD. Thunderbolt2 drives are getting hard to find but USB3.x drives are readily available. You would install macOS on the external drive and boot from it instead of the internal 5400rpm HDD. After switching over to the external SSD you could reformat the internal 5400rpm HDD and use it for extra storage.

What are you doing with the mini?

if only Office-like and internet, i don’t think you’d gain more with a new mac mini.

if you do video or audio work (pro, not just iMovie or garage band), then the $3k vs $200 decision may be worth.

if office is slow, as suggested, there may be a culprit. A clean install and selective reinstall may be a good way to go to give your system another couple of years.

MartinR wrote:

ps. On your late-2014 macMini you would use an external Thunderbolt2 or USB3.x SSD. Thunderbolt2 drives are getting hard to find but USB3.x drives are readily available. You would install macOS on the external drive and boot from it instead of the internal 5400rpm HDD. After switching over to the external SSD you could reformat the internal 5400rpm HDD and use it for extra storage.

OWC has a couple of external SSDs that can adapt to different interfaces. One can connect via Thunderbolt 3 or by traditional USB. The other can connect by USB4 40 Gbps or by traditional USB. They're both expensive – so not ones I'd recommend for a Late 2014 Mac mini, unless the owner of that Mini was planning to get a new Mac where he or she would be doing heavy-duty work (like working on filming a Hollywood movie) in the near future. Then the idea would be to buy the SSD for use with the new Mac, and just temporarily use it for the old one.

Most TB3 SSDs cannot fall back to USB, and the cost of the equipment required to connect a bus-powered TB3-only SSD to a TB2-equipped Mac is prohibitive compared to the advantage that would be gained. So the OP may want to skip them.

That leaves USB 3.0 / SATA SSDs and USB 3.1 Gen 2 / NVMe ones, both of which are available at pretty reasonable prices, and either of which would be a huge improvement over a 2.5" 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive.

Etrecheck states Netbarrier application is gone but the extension still remains. I would remove that.

iCloud isn't billed as a backup service for anything but iPhone backups.

But to the extent that you keep photos in iCloud Photos, and files in iCloud Drive, and don't accidentally delete them (on any of your devices), there's some protection there. If some catastrophe happened to your Mac that didn't affect your iCloud account, you could connect a new Mac to the same iCloud account.

You might want to get another local backup drive or two, and keep two or three sets of local backups. Stagger them in time, and keep one off-site (or at least away from your computer) between updates. (Backups that are stored all in the same place are vulnerable to being taken out together by a fire or by a thief.)

No amount of money or "upgrades" will help if your mini has just started going slow. There must be something about your setup that is causing the problem.

However, if your mini is performing well but you just need something faster, even the basic M2 Mac mini will do tasks (video rendering and exporting etc.) at least 4 times faster.

Download and run the free version of EtreCheckPro, from > https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html

Then port the Report, as per > How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community