Upgrade mac mini duo 2 core

Your link 'macOS High Sierra - Technical Specifications' says I need a mac mini mid-2010 or later, 2GB of memory and OS X 10.8 or higher. The mid-2010 mac mini has a Core 2 Duo, like the 2009 model, and 2GB of memory. This site, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini, says I can expand the memory in the A1283 model to 8G, "4G supported by Apple" (not sure what that "supported by Apple" bit means). Hardware-wise, it seems that I should be OK for High Sierra, although the aforementioned link says mid-2010. In fact, I don't see much difference in the hardware specs between 2009 and mid-2010 except the 2010 processor is running at 2.66GHz instead of 2.0GHz and the OS is 10.6.4 instead of 10.5.6. According to the Wikipedia link, 10.5.6 (Leopard) is upgradable to 10.11 (El Capitan).

This link, https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/, says I should be able to upgrade from Leopard to High Sierra by first upgrading to El Capitan.

woodmeister50: Yes, I'm trying to avoid completely wasting my time, but for testing I don't need something very powerful (although I do need the latest OS version). I'm willing to take a risk to try what I've asked about. I can get a refurb mac mini for $130. Even if it doesn't work out, I'm not out much money. Seems worth the risk to me unless experts in this community tell me it can't be done for thus-and-so reasons.

Yes, that's a possibility quite apart from the actual hardware itself. Experiences here? Does a upgrade install do that? Has anyone had an upgrade install refused because of model number or some such things?

OK, I've decided to upgrade a bit to a mid-2010 mini which, according to rudegar's link, will support the upgrade to High Sierra. This one also comes with 4G memory and 320G hard drive and 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo -- a significantly more capable machine for only $30 more. I doubt I'll need to upgrade anything for testing purposes. When I get it I'll see what I can do getting it to High Sierra and post results.

OK, will do after I get it to High Sierra (no sense spending extra $$$ on this jalopy until I can confirm this step). This is just a test platform for me to play with, so I understand the limitations on performance. If we decide to create a guinea pig user in-house we'll get the new core i5 2.6GHz, 8G ram model.

Mission accomplished! I had a bit of a delayed start because the fellow I bought the mini from forgot to ship the power cord, but it was only $9 at the local computer store. I've got it upgraded to High Sierra, but rudegar is right, I'll be needing more memory. It is significantly and painfully slower with High Sierra than it was with the original Snow Leopard, although it seems that the more an application is used the faster the response gets (caching?).

One last question on this topic. Before I could upgrade I had to register a credit card with my Apple ID. Is this always needed for Mac computers? Really? Do all school, university and business Mac shops have a credit card registered with each of their users/workstations? This will likely be an issue with my lobbying my office to convert to Mac. I'm rather astounded at this. Are people without credit cards simply out of luck with respect to getting a Mac? How about Third World sales?