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Internet speed

My ISP offers 500 mbps. Is my Mac Mini, late 2012, capable of receiving that speed? If not, what is the max speed it can achieve?

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Aug 22, 2021 8:44 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 22, 2021 10:11 AM

“It depends.” The gigabit Ethernet port can receive at gigabit speeds (twice what the ISP provides) (as correctly mentioned above), but other hardware on your Mac (such as a hard disk drive and not an SSD, for instance) might limit how fast your Mac can download data continuously. Smaller downloads such as web pages and such that don’t involve writing a whole lot to your storage will run quickly, even with a hard disk. If you’re not using wired gigabit Ethernet but rather Wi-Fi, different Wi-Fi networks have different limits. The ISP will usually provide Wi-Fi with the appropriate speed, but not always.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 22, 2021 10:11 AM in response to Barry Glasgal

“It depends.” The gigabit Ethernet port can receive at gigabit speeds (twice what the ISP provides) (as correctly mentioned above), but other hardware on your Mac (such as a hard disk drive and not an SSD, for instance) might limit how fast your Mac can download data continuously. Smaller downloads such as web pages and such that don’t involve writing a whole lot to your storage will run quickly, even with a hard disk. If you’re not using wired gigabit Ethernet but rather Wi-Fi, different Wi-Fi networks have different limits. The ISP will usually provide Wi-Fi with the appropriate speed, but not always.

Internet speed

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