Mac Mini Maintenance

There is no SMC Reset or PRAM Reset for the Apple Silicon Macs. Technically it is possible to clear the NVRAM from an Apple Silicon Mac using the command line, but you should avoid trying to configure any NVRAM settings as it may brick an Apple Silicon Mac since the older Intel settings don't work.

From recovery mode (need to add "sudo " to the beginning if performing it while booted normally but if you can boot normally, then there is probably no reason to clear it in the first place):

nvram  -c

Unless you have this Mac in a very dusty environment or have pets that shed, you probably don't have to worry about clearing out any dust.

The most important thing for you do to is making sure you always have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data. There are a lot of new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD that don't necessary involve a hardware failure. It is very unlikely you will ever be able to recover data from the internal SSD in the event of a boot problem.

All of that stuff other than clearing vents is a lot of work with nearly no useful purpose. About the only thing I ever do is an occasional reboot which is usually taken care of with macOS updates. With computers, it is basically don't try to fix something that isn't broke.

As with you, I do the same with minimizing boot drive to just apps and as little data as possible with most all data on external drives and with multiple backup schemes. My thought is if the computer goes belly up, in general you just need to restore apps and settings to the new computer which is quick and simply plug in the data drives.

Mac maintenance (except backups) is usually overkill and a waste of time.

...that said, I do about the same as you said often after a major upgrade or minor point update. But just as a hobby and a way to remind me how those actions usually should work if they are really needed. (BTW once after a simple SMC and PRAM reset the Mac mini 2018 semi-bricked and I finally had restore it with another Mac, maybe a less drastic fix would have been OK but then it was my last resort ...do not fix it unless it is broken...).

I do not empty the caches because AFAIK a safe boot does almost the same and I don't like to manually fiddle with macOS internals unless really needed. I used to do the occasional Terminal daily-weekly-monthly permissions command when it was possible in some ancient OS X version. In an old Mac mini late 2009 I cleaned the vents when I had to open the case to replace the broken HDD (three times until the last one is a 1 TB SSD which is much faster in OS X 10.11.6).

So after all, the Mac should do the maintenance by itself and the user should just, erm, use it. That's how the rest of my family does it. But they do ask me if they need help with their Macs.

TonyP53 wrote:

...Wondering if your reserved approach 'don't fix it if it ain't broke' applies to even doing a safe boot from time to time....

The only time I ever do a safe boot is for diagnostics to determine if some 3rd party update has created an issue as no 3rd party drivers or extensions are loaded.

FWIW, my machine runs 24/7 as I have it set up in the evening to do all my backing up and it only gets rebooted whenever there is a macOS update.

Google Translation:

Agarsv wrote:

Good afternoon What should be the result of entering nvram -c in the terminal? I enter recovery mode and nothing happens. No answer.

As long as no error, then the command completed successfully so the NVRAM was cleared. Just reboot.

I add Sudo and it gives me an error. Mac mini m2

That is because "sudo" is not needed in recovery mode...perfectly normal to have an error.

Добрый день! А какой должен быть результат ввода nvram -c в terminal? В режиме восстановления ввожу, ничего не происходит. Ответа нет. Sudo добавляю, пишет ошибку. Mac mini m2