Mac mini M1 constant crashes and slow performance

Restart in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Safe Mode will also eliminate Third Party Software, extensions and drivers from loading.

It will only load the Minimum amount of Core Apple Processes to allow the the computer to function at a reduced Level of Performance 

Does the issue present in this mode ?

Sometimes a Safe Boot followed by a Normal Boot will just put things right.

If not - there could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac. Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

To avoid a session of Q&A, Q&A  and Q&A  

Download the Application Etrecheck  ( External Link ) directly from the Developer.

The Application is Not a " Silver Bullet "  and is  only a tool to examine the Hardware / Software used on this computer 

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer Hardware / Software used on this computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

Remove any of the following

In no special order 

Commercial VPNs , Third Party Security Software , Third Party Disk Cleaners / Optimizer 

You have BitDefender installed or at least part of it anyway.

System Extensions:

    [Running] com.bitdefender.vpn.neprovider - version 3.1.1 (Bitdefender SRL)
        Application: /Applications/Bitdefender/Bitdefender VPN.app - version 3.1.1

Since it is a System Extension you probably can no longer remove it since you are running macOS Sequoia. See if BitDefender has an uninstaller so you can completely uninstall & remove it. If not, then you will need to perform a clean install of macOS by first erasing the disk followed by reinstall macOS. When you restore from a backup I doubt this System Extension will be able to be loaded, but you can be sure by restoring from a backup without selecting Applications or system Settings (not sure if the Settings would contain this extension).

Consumer VPNs do not give you the privacy or security you think they do. VPNs are only good for securely accessing an employer's network & resources which usually requires a VPN client provided by the employer's VPN server/firewall.

https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

There is also a lot of items that need to be cleaned up which could be causing a problem (I removed the other references from the EtreCheck report so you can see exactly which files need to be removed:

Clean up:

   ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

    /Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.Epson_Low_Ink_Reminder.launcher.plist

    /Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.esua.launcher.plist

    /Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.eventmanager.agent.plist

    /Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.ecrp.launcher.plist

    /Library/LaunchAgents/com.epson.pma.launcher.plist

        /Applications/Epson Software/Epson Ink Replenishment Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/pma.app/Contents/MacOS/pma

        Executable not found

Pretty sure the problem is the number of external drives connecting over USB / USB-C and you are likely pushing too much data at the same time to all those disks. If one of those disks has a hardware fault it can ruin your day. Spotlight will scan the drives unless you exclude them from Spotlight. That is something to consider if they are just backup disks, etc. The high performance was when running CCC to clone / backup disks and when Spotlight was indexing all those disks. Simply too much data moving around for your M1 Mini.

Depending on how you have the 7 drives plugged in. i.e. 7 drives plugged into a USB hub plugged into one USB-C port would be less performant than two USB hubs and splitting the drives between them. That way you are using two Thunderbolt lanes of high speed data versus one with congestion like a traffic jam.

More performant Mac's have more bandwidth and data lanes to push large amounts of data over multiple disks. You are pushing that M1 Mac mini quite a bit.

But what you really need is to consider buying a NAS - Network Array Storage. Synology or QNAP have excellent products and you can install 4+ HDD's into the NAS of equal size. Granted you still need to backup, RAID is not backup. A regular external drive to backup critical files or cloud backup like BackBlaze which you already have installed. Having a second NAS you can replicate onsite or offsite or a 3rd offsite is what I would do with business data. If you think your storage needs are only going to grow. Then you may consider 45 HomeLab NAS designs. The HL15 has 15 drive bays, the HL8 has 8-bays and the HL4 has 4-bays.

Utilizing a NAS will offload the work your Mini is performing. The NAS has its own CPU, RAM, and storage. It's a computer that is serving your files. It would be useful for everyone in the household or coworkers in an office. You can setup network Time Machine on the NAS.

The 45 HomeLab NAS solutions are PC's running Linux and using ZFS file system which can scale to Zetabyte sizes. ZFS is the most bullet proof filesystem I've ever used. The web based console to control and configure the NAS is called Houston UI but since it's just a PC running Linux you can install alternative software such as TrueNAS and TrueNAS Scale. Both are really good UI for managing the NAS. The Synology & QNAP NAS products are similar but more consumer retail focused while the 45 HomeLab solutions are beefier and can run server containers like Docker, Kubernetes, LXD, Virtual Machines, etc. The 45 HomeLab NAS products are the nephews of the larger rack mounted 45Drives.com products. I think BackBlaze uses 45 Drives or did when they first started out.

45 Drives Storinator NAS disk shelf. Imagine thousands of 8' racks full of these 5U drive shelves. Sun had a product like this, they nicknamed The Thumper.

Granted, nothing is cheap. In the meantime, test all those HDD's to ensure they are not failing. Cause that will crash the OS sometimes. S.M.A.R.T is rarely smart about anything. I've had disks fail with no errors from S.M.A.R.T.

You are welcome

One can start from top and work your way down

Or, to just to the quick - use the Etrecheck application and post the full report

Whatever works best for your needs

FYI - Had ( Past Tense ) M1 Mac Mini unto about Oct 2024

I worked fine from macOS 11 to every single newer version including macOS 15.1

That was when it was traded in for the M4 Mac Mini

This is an exceptional setup.

Running 7 different External Drives outside of the Internal 1 TB SSD with, what appears to all at the same time

This seem to reinforced by >>

Heavy CPU usage - Some processes are using an unusually high amount of CPU.

System modifications - There are a large number of system modifications running in the background.

Runaway user process - A user process is using a large percentage of your CPU.

Heavy I/O usage - Your system is under heavy I/O use. This will reduce your performance.

Plus >> Secure Boot: Reduced Security

So yes, I might expect this behaviour

disk0 - APPLE SSD AP1024Q 1.00 TB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes) 

1 - disk4 - TOSHIBA HDWR180 8.00 TB

  External USB Up to 5 Gb/s USB

 2 - disk5 - Elite Pro FWU3 eSATA 4.00 TB

  External USB Up to 5 Gb/s USB

3 - disk6 - TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 1.00 TB

  External USB Up to 5 Gb/s USB

 4 - disk7 - Mercury Elite Pro Quad B 4.00 TB

  External USB Up to 10 Gb/s USB

 5 - disk8 - Mercury Elite Pro Quad D 4.00 TB

  External USB Up to 10 Gb/s USB

  6 - disk10 - Mercury Elite Pro Quad C 4.00 TB

  External USB Up to 10 Gb/s USB

   7 -  disk11 - Mercury Elite Pro Quad A 8.00 TB

  External USB Up to 10 Gb/s USB

David Ris wrote:

Thank you. It helps to know that this is unrelated to the steady stream of OS updates.

Given the recent problems with my Mini, I've been considering the same upgrade. I'm hoping to stabilize it again so I can get some more mileage out of this one.

Right and so would I want to stabilize the unit .

David Ris wrote:

Oh, I do wish. I don't have the cash flow for that system. Or even the M4 Mini at this point.

My first move is to go from 6 external drives to 4. (the 7th drive is rarely active; it backs up some Lightroom files on demand only.)

So assuming that I stick with the current system -- which items do I try to fix first?

I do appreciate your help.

I would like to express my gratitude to both @HWTech 👍 and @James Brickley 👍 for their valuable contributions and potential solutions to this situation.

Although the M1 Mac Mini is Apple’s Silicon-based computer, it was the initial release of Silicon-based computers in 2020.

Therefore, I recommend saving your money for a more powerful and current offering that may better meet your current requirements.

Before making a purchase, consider your future computer needs and plan accordingly. 

EtreCheck version: 5.7.2 (5247)

Current version from the Developers is

Yup I see it

Thank you

It is going to take some time to review it , as this is one looooooonnnnggggg report

What I am imaging you retrying to do maybe betters suited with .. . .

Yes you have asked for this suggestion but . . .

Mac Studio (2025)

Far more powerful and betters suited for your needs ?