How much memory should I get on a new m4 mini

I am upgrading my i7 MacBook Pro to a M4 Mac mini and run windows virtually (parallels desktop) for several applications. The MacBook has been my work computer for way too many years and it lags like crazy when running a VM. My main uses, which I generally have multiple running simultaneously:

Flow models for engineering applications (VM)
Data processing apps with files under 1GB (VM)
Blender 3D modelling (generally boolean stuff, so CPU heavy calcs rather than GPU heavy) (Mac)
QGIS Mapping (Mac)
Python (Mac)
Excel / Word (Mac)
Various Adobe apps (Mac)

For the new computer, I am planning on the M4 Pro with the upgraded 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU. My main question is would I see a benefit from upgrading the memory from 24GB to 48GB? Do I need to go to 64GB? I am looking for a significant upgrade from my current set up.

Posted on Nov 2, 2024 12:03 PM

Top-ranking reply

varjak paw

Level 10

180,328 points

Posted on Nov 2, 2024 3:39 PM

Give that you're running two complete operating systems in parallel, I'd recommend you get as much RAM as budget allows. You can't upgrade it later, so best to buy what you can. 48GB certainly and 64GB in my opinion would not be excessive, though expensive.

Regards.

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16 replies

skfrost Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 10, 2024 1:08 PM in response to VikingOSX

How does the USB-C SSD work? The programs are not ARM64 builds so is there a way to make them work (even if it is slowly) on the mini?

How much memory should I get on a new m4 mini