I Have seen videos that say we can't increase the ram on a Mac min, but I am curious if it works like a regular computer, if we can attach an external hard drive to store some of the memory to free up space. Sorry if it's a dumb question just need to know what I can do with it.
MacBook Pro
you can use an external hard drive to boot and work with any Mac. Its not going to enhance or replace your ram. If you are using a mechanical hard drive in any Mac then using and booting from an external drive especially if it has an SSD will be noticeably faster.
you can use an external hard drive to boot and work with any Mac. Its not going to enhance or replace your ram. If you are using a mechanical hard drive in any Mac then using and booting from an external drive especially if it has an SSD will be noticeably faster.
RAM/memory and storage/hard drive/SSD are different and serve different functions. The RAM on the 2014 Minis are soldered in place and can't be increased. It is how you purchased it, 4, 8 or 16 GB.
You also had some option on storage when you purchased it. The storage can be increased later but that requires disassemble that likely voids the warrant.
You can connect an external storage device via either USB or Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is faster but ony by a little if yo only have one disk comparted to a USB 3 external storage device.
You can get external storage devices that include a rotating HD or an SSD. Using an SSD is faster than either a USB 3 or Thunderbolt connected storage device.
For apps like iTunes and Photos you can store your library on an external drive.
Also, you should have a separated external drive for backup
Thanks that was helpful. So does the 8GB of memory increase the speed of use? Is that different than the GHz? What do the 1.4GHz do?
The GHz is the speed of the processor on the computer. The baseline 2014 Mac Mini only has a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor which is on the slow side. The baseline only has 4 GB of memory which is marginal. Many apps perform better/faster with more memory.
The baseline Mini with 4 GB of RAM wold only be OK for mail, iTunes, internet and other apps that require little memory or speed.
When an application needs more RAM, than available, it uses the hard disc as additional RAM, but this is slower. So, more RAM speeds up the computer.
The GHz says, how fast the processor is. Well, not really, but in a family of processors it says much.
I don't know about today's processors, but in the time of Power PC with Mac OS only and Pentium with Windows only, they tested the influence of processor clock to the speed. Twice clock means, the speed is about 50 % faster.
Funny thing, that a Power PC with 500 MHz with Mac OS X was faster, than a Pentium with 1 GHz.
The manufacturers made the speed faster and faster, till you would need an own nulear power station. One time they turned back the clock speed and made the processors faster.
So the latest intel with 1,4 GHz are faster, than old ones from 2002 with 2 GHz.
Can you use an external drive with the Mac Mini?
