New Mac Mini slower than my 4 years old iMac

My Intel iMac (20" display) four years old is out of order (I think the Power Supply was gone), and I bought the new entry level Mac Mini.
When I started using it I noticed that it's much slower in several tasks than my old iMac (when restarting, when opening applications, when working with an app with another appl in the background, etc. etc.). I was concerned about this, but then I asked some friends that have Mac minis and they said that it's normal.
Why? Why a computer with a new i5 Intel processor can be slower than a four years old iMac Core 2 Duo? Is it because of the slow drive (5200 rpm)? Or what is the explanation? If this is normal for the mini, I'll try to fix my old iMac as soon as possible.

Don't downgrade to Lion. For what it's worth, my experience with Lion and Mountain Lion has been almost the exact opposite than what CaptH reported: I find ML to be much faster and more reliable, both on my late-2012 Mini and my mid-2007 iMac.
Your perceived speed issues are almost certainly a result of the slower-spinning hard drive in the Mini as Shootist007 pointed out earlier. Go ahead and disable Spotlight if you want to, but once the indexing is complete (which can take a few hours – or even a few days if you have a lot of data) it shouldn't be a problem unless you are continually connecting different large external drives.
Get the latest Combo Updater and install that. If you have some minor OS issue, that should solve it. Do a normal Software Update / check the Mac App Store for updates after you install the Combo Updater. Get it here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1640
If you continue to be bugged by the slower speed, see if your local Apple Store will allow you to exchange it and a little extra money for an equivalent model with a Fusion Drive. Or go to Other World Computing and purchase their kit to add a second drive, and use it to add an SSD in the second drive bay:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMM11D2/
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/OWC.INSTANT.481.2
Also, RAM is super-duper-uber-cheap right now. If your Mini has only the stock 4gb of RAM, you might be pleasantly surprised by the improved performance by doubling that. I have 16gb in my Mini, it cost me well less than a hundred bucks, and it makes everything better including graphics performance. But if you don't do something to work around that slow 5400rpm hard drive, it will always be the bottleneck in your system.

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New mac mini slow?

Hi, is it normal that the new mac mini (i5 gheepst model, uphradet to 8 gb ram) is slower than my macbook pro 13, 2010 modell (2.4ghz core 2 duo)? When i try to open programs from dock it is very slow on the mini.. My mbp runs snow leopard, and the mini lion.. Is this normal?

Cheesypoop, I have exactly the same problem. I was using an old Mac Book black version and my girlfriend is using the newest MacBook Pro with Leopard. I have the feeling that both of them perform better than my new Mac Mini, same model and memory than you. The only difference with my other laptops is the OS, so maybe that's the problem. Lion is very nice but doesn't perform as well as it should.
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(and by the way... anyone else has problems with a loooong delay after pressing right click over one of the icons at the dock?) It tooks up to ten seconds to show the pop up window! It only happens the first time I do it. After that it works as it should, almost inmediatly.

New Mac Mini slows my internet down to dialup speeds?

I recently purchased a new Mac Mini along with a new 27" Mac display. As soon as I hooked it up and turned on WiFi, my in home interent connection (wired and unwired) slowed down to .019Mpbs! I tried bypassing the router and hardwiring the Mac Mini directly to the modem, tried hardwiring to the Lynksys modem...still very slow. As soon as I turn Wifi off on the Mac Mini, and remove the Mini from the network, all my other devices speed right back up to 2Mbps. I have several iOS devices in the home, a MacBook Air and a PC.
I have seen other's comments on other boards about bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. I am using both of these, but manipulating these settings has not helped.
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Ok, i was faced with this issue back in 2010 with my first Mac Mini. May i ask who your current internet service provider is? Mine was BT at the time and the router they provided was a 2wire! I am almost 100% sure that the router is at fault here! If it was your ISP that provided you with the router then call them to see if they can help. If you purchased it from a vendor then you will need to make contact with Linksys. What you need to ask for who ever it may be is a firmware update for your specific router in order for it to support a Macintosh. At the time of this this dilemma, BT could not help as my 2wire router did not have a firmware update available in order to support my Mac! I then made contact with Apple Support and they suggested i install a download manager. Please note that the DM manager i installed was tailored to fix this specific issue, other DM's most likely will not work! Was not the best solution but never the less this solved the problem! I wish i could tell you the name of this software but unfortunately i do not remember. However i am sure Apple Support can point you in the rite direction if you explain this scenario to them! I was on that network for a very short while, a couple of days i think so am not sure if this fix is a good longterm solution. However this may be the only solution you have unless you purchase a new router!
Best of Luck!

Specs of new Mac Mini worse than the old Mac Mini?

I just looked at the new Mac Mini, released today I think, but it seems that you can no longer select SSDs, and the highest-spec Mac Mini had TWO SSDs available - not available anymore!
Also, I waited for this update with the hope that MORE RAM would be available - I really want a 32GB machine to run as a slave, and I need LOTS of RAM for this machine, but there's no option for that without buying the Trash Can Mac Pro, which has all sorts of features that I DON'T need.
What is the go with Mac Mini specs going BACKWARDS?
Also, any advice would be great. I'm considering having a PC made for my slave computer, but I'd rather not do that, PCs suck. lol.
Thanks!

The new Mac mini does support 'flash' storage aka SSD storage. The difference is that the Apple listed options for the new Mac mini for flash aka. SSD storage now use the PCIe interface and not the old SATA interface. PCIe is much faster than SATA.
The new Mac mini does support a 'Fusion' drive, this is Apple's 'hybrid' drive approach which combines a traditional hard disk with a 128GB of Flash storage. Since the new Mac mini does support a Fusion drive and a Fusion drive includes a traditional hard disk we can safely deduce that the new Mac mini does have at least one traditional SATA drive bay.
What is not yet clear is how many PCIe flash storage connectors it has and how many SATA connectors it has. It could be for example that the 1TB flash storage choice is actually made up from 2 x 512GB, however since the new Mac Pro also lists the same PCIe flash storage choices of 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB and the new Mac Pro only has a single PCIe SSD connector it is highly likely the new Mac mini also only has a single PCIe connector.
While it would be nice if it still had the option of two SATA drives and also a single PCIe flash drive, I think it is more likely that there is only one SATA connector. This makes internal RAID1 less practical, not only would it now be very hard to get two matching capacity 'drives' but even if you did they would be at vastly different speeds. One can still use external RAID storage.

External backup drive will not mount on new mac mini. still works fine on the old one. new one is running mavericks

I just bought new-to-me mac mini running OSX mavericks.
Trying to migrate from old mac mini using simpletech external hard drive.
It still mounts on my old mac mini (system 10.5) but will not mount or show up when I plug it in to the new mac mini running mavericks.
Any ideas?

BDAqua wrote:
What exactly shows in System Profiler>Hardware>USB for those drives?
Boot from the Install Disc & see if they show up, not grayed out in Disk Utility.
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
We were thinking along the same lines. While at home I dug up a firewire enclosure and put a bootable GUID formatted drive in it (that I had in one of the usb enclosures) and started her computer holding down the option key and then chose to boot from the external firewire. All usb drives are now mounting upon connection. I asume that her drive has bad sectors on it (even though the SMART status says it's OK) and is not loading all the drivers properly for USB to mount. I was suspicious from the beginning that the OS was corrupt when she first had me look at it. It was at that point that I booted it in target mode, connected to my Macbook Pro, and then CCC'd to a usb drive that I had. I then had a couple of difficulties installing the new OS. Should have known......
I am now going to put a new drive in it for her and she'll be up and running.
Thanks so much for your help and thoughts that got me thinking as well.
pax

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The Apple 'Pro speakers' that were designed by Apple and Harman Kardon, use a proprietary 2.5mm mini jack connector and they would need an adapter to work.
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Brand new 2012 fully loaded iMac is slower then my two year old iMac when using Final Cut.

Just got a new 2012 iMac with 32GB RAM 3.4 Ghz and 3TB Fusion Drive and 2GB Graphics card.
Now Final Cut runs even slower than it does on my old, lesser iMac. What gives?
How Do I optimize the speed in which the video files are played?
I'm using Final Cut 7.
Files are all 1080 Pro Res.
All files are running off of my desktop (locally).
I press play and it is delayed a second before playing on the timeline.
I thought this fully loaded machine was to help me edit faster.
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are you sure all your files...render files...scratch disk, etc were all pointed to the FW800 drive?
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IMac 27" i7 is slower than my 3 year old PC!

Had a new 27" iMac for a few weeks its performance running 10.7 is dreadful, it also runs very hot even though the CPUs never hit 25% and it has stacks of ram. I have tried the obvious fixes. It runs Ubuntu 9 like lightning.
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RRFS,
Some caches help, others do not. System cache is actually there to speed your system. Browser cache is too, but is more easily corrupted.
Modifying system caches can actually slow you down, if you aren't backed up, and misdiagnose what actually is happening.
As for anti-virus, I agree some are really a pain. Sophos and ClamAV are the least intrusive. You do have to be wary, as the Flashback malware behaves almost like a virus, though some would quibble with that:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3261
igsz,
The fact Ubuntu runs well, sounds like you have a a problem with some installed software that either is too old, or shouldn't be installed on your machine. As I've indicated to RRFS, backing up your data should be your first priority:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1992
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New Z710 Win 8.1 is slower than my 8-year-old AMD!!!!

Hi...
I got my brand-new Z710 a week ako. I haven't finished setting it up yet & I've already got weird problems... My AMD PC, which is running win 7 pro (64b) boots to the login screen 2x as fast as the Z710 - no lie - both units side by side. That simply shouldn't be. I wasted my money on the z710 if this is the speed it runs at with an i7 & 8G Ram. I understand that I've got to get used to W8.1, but regardless... I got an error 0xc000021a yesterday, the wireless link decides whenever it wants to connect... I've done a little searching & there are a number of articles that talk about taking out the "Intel-Dynamic-Platform-Thermal-Framework" being at fault & to take it out - except I can't find it. I called Lenovo support & they seemed fixated on my wireless & trying to blame my router when the z710 is the only one having connectivity troubles. Going hardwire doesn't make it any faster.
I don't recall having this much trouble with a new laptop out of the box. Not sure if anyone has any ideas or thoughts on this? I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do next.
Any feedback appreciated!
Thanks,
RR.

Hi…
Hopefully this message goes through. Apparently, my Lenovo community login user name is suddenly not valid anymore. I’ve been on a number of forums over the years & I gotta say this one is one of the tougher ones to use.
I don’t have traditional BIOS in this machine - it’s that “UEFI”. I went through it & there’s really not much in there. It took a while to figure out how to get in - can’t imagine how fun updating it would be if that were possible.
All the windows updates ran, updates for the video went through… don’t have any other peripherals attached yet & hadn’t started loading any programs yet because of the trouble.
Sine my initial post, I’ve been staying off wifi, got my programs loaded & getting far less crashes. That said: IE just crashed this morning just trying to open it.
At work, I deal with process control computers & servers - have to deal lots with I.T. & their contractors & ya, they give us new & recycled machines all the time - built from images that aren’t always up to date, so - video drivers 6 months old, etc. but for a brand new OEM machine, this thing should be a lot more solid & certainly quicker than the old AMD.
I’ve done some other reading/investigating… another popular theory is to create a new admin account & blow away the original. Not sure how that works, maybe I’ll try it… I did that once on my W7 o/s I it created more trouble than it solved.
Very frustrating to get a new machine to have it not work right & can’t even get the manufacturer to help you. On the Lenovo site there appears to be some software diagnostic tools available - maybe one of those could help…
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RR.

What should I do: Buy a new mac, or try upgrading my 3 year old Mac

Hello, I have a question that I would be grateful for some feedback on.
Background:
I bought the original 2006 white MacBook Core Due (NOT core 2 duo) 2.0 GHz with a 60 GB hard drive and 1 GB of ram. I am still using it. I am running snow leopard.
Symptoms:
My hard drive is almost full, I can barely run 2 apps (eg Mail and Firefox) at the same time without a serious slowdown. I am a budding photographer and my entire iPhoto library is on an external drive as well as my iTunes library. My computer cannot handle RAW photo editing, so I am forced to shoot in JPEG. I am a student at the University of Toronto for Computer Engineering, so I will need some power, but, being a student, I am not rich.
Question:
Do you think that if I upgrade my ram to the max of 2GB (for my model) it will make a large difference? Also, I could upgrade my hard drive to a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive. All this could be done for under $200.
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If anyone out there has done the upgrades I have mentioned, I would be grateful to hear from you about your experiences.
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if you can, wait until the next update to the macbook pro line. i have a late 07 macbook and was close to buying a new 13" mbp with the free ipod, but i would rather wait for the new intel chips that are more powerful and use less power.

New Mac Mini Intel Duyo Core...soooo slow??

Hi - I just replaced my G4 tower (which had a 1Ghz upgrade) for a duo core 1.66 Ghz Mac Mini. Since I have had the G4 for 5 years I was expecting to be happily surprised at how fast the new Mac Mini is....
But, man this thing is sooo slow. It takes longer to launch applications, I get the spinning wheel all the time, and often I just have to hold and click on the menu items and wait fro the menu to drop down. Could it be because I simply did a migration from the G4 and it would be faster to install the applications separately to the new Intel system? I don't run anything intensive, just MSWord, GoLive, Entourage, and Safari mainly.
I ran an xbench (www.xbench.com) report and ended up with a 48.
Maybe I was expecting too much from an $800 computer, but it is slower than my 5 year old desktop. In fact I think if there is nothing obviously worng with it I'll be sending it back and hold out for a G5 instead.
Anyone had similar issues?

Word, GoLive and Entourage are PowerPC applications. On a Macintel, they will run under Rosetta emulation, which means that they will be slower than on a comparable PPC Mac (given the fact that the Core Duo is faster than about any G4, performance should be somewhat similar with standard apps - maybe still a bit slower with more intensive apps). And apps running under emulation tend to have higher memory requirements. If you run both three apps (Word, Entourage & GoLive) simultaneously, then the slowness you experience isn't very surprising. Adding RAM would probably make things a bit faster.
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Or, since all of the applications you mentioned (except Safari) are not, and will not be Universal before some time, you could return the Mini and get a PPC Mac, maybe a G5 tower or a refurbished iMac (G5) ...

How can I authorize my new Mac Mini to use downloads in my iTunes account?

Hi. How can I authorize my new Mac Mini to access music on my old itunes account?

Choose Authorize Computer from the Store menu at the very top of the computer's screen.
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Unable to backup to external hard drive with new Mac Mini

I have been using a 1TB iOmega MiniMax external hard drive to backup my Mac Mini that was running on OS X 10.6.8. I recently replaced the Mac Mini with a newer model running on OS X 10.9.5. I successfully recovered all my files from the backup hard drive onto the new Mac Mini. However, since then I am not able to do either an automatic Time Machine backup or a manual backup. I'm wondering if I need to update the iOmega MiniMax driver to be compatible with the newer OS X. So far I have not been able to locate any updated drivers. The new Mac Mini is able to recognize the old data that were previously backed up, but will not complete a new backup. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks for the help. When I got the new Mac Mini, I was able to restore all my files from the iOmega HD backup. But since then each time I try a TM backup I see the in work wheel spinning (in Finder) but no backup is made. No error messages are given. I will try the trouble shooting list you sent. Thanks again.

Slow Macbook pro, ~1 year old; Really HUGE Page Ins and Page Outs size, think 400 GB In vs 100 GB Out

Hi everyone, I have a macbook pro and it's so slow. After scouring the internet a lot, and CCleaning my computer 359802 times and using Onyx, I finally realized why it's so s low.....my Page Ins and Page Outs are so big. I have attached a screenshot that illustrates this.
I am not sure how my computer ballooned to this size, but it makes sense why it's like a turtle and is slower than my 4 year old Sony.
Can someone help me?? I am not sure what processes to get rid of and I feel like Google Chrome is taking up huge amounts of my Ram. I mean yeah I open Google Chrome and run like 8 tabs and have Word and iTunes open, but my 4 years old Sony could run faster than this and I used to open like 12+ tabs on Chrome while running Word, Excel, Powerpoint, iTunes, and VLC on my Sony. Which was nowhere near as powerful as this computer. Supposedly.
My computer Specs are:
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM
Intel HD Graphics 384 MB
Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4
I would really appreciate any advice to get this down to normal.....since I hear most ppl have page ins and page outs in the MB or even KB. Right now I'm running Google Chrome, Word, Ppowerpoint, iTunes, and Adobe PDF Reader. I don't think this should be too unreasonable of work load.
Thank you

The problem is not that your page ins are big, as that value resets when you reboot the system. However, your page outs are are almost 25% of your page ins, which means you can use more memory for the applications you run. A page out is done when memory is full, and the system needs to add something else to memory, so it writes some memory to the hard drive to make room. The guideline to add more memory is 10% to 15% page outs greater than page in's, and yours are more than that.
Your MacBook Pro can handle up to 16GB of memory. You might want to consider upgrading to 8GB, which would double what you have today. OWC and Crucial are two sources for quality memory. $42 for 8GB from Crucial, and you can usually find a % off coupon on retailmenot.com.

New Mac Mini is Slow, Upgrade RAM?

I have a new Mac Mini. Considering the cost, it is surprisingly slow. It has 2GB of RAM and I think that may be the problem. What sort of speed increase can I expect with an upgrade to 8GB? The main problem seems to be swapping and switching between applications.
Is a RAM upgrade likely to fix this issue?

Wait, what? Someone actually listened to advice from someone who has been developing software for 33 years!?
Yeah, RAM matters if you're doing something like video editing or 3D graphics or even some sort of heavy Photoshop. Or if you are running numerous Chrome tabs at once or something like that. But it would have to be heavy use indeed if you're running into slowdown with 8 gigs.
What filesharing apps do, basically, is this: they have a buffer in memory, which might be a few megs. They fill that buffer up, then they write that buffer to disk. This is so it's not thrashing your disk all the time with tiny writes, but on the other hand, you wouldn't want it to download a gig before writing to disk: what if the computer crashed and you had to download all that data again?
Once you have 8 gigs, the MOST BANG FOR THE BUCK BY FAR is an SSD drive. In fact, I have a Windows gaming machine with 4 gigs from 2007 that still runs most of what I need just fine, and an SSD just drove the performance out the roof. You want a second larger drive on the thing, which is where you store non-speed-critical apps and all your data, and then a 100-200 gig SSD is where you put your OS and speed-critical apps, and loading it from there is far far faster than off of a conventional hard disk. This isn't something you'd want to install yourself on a Mac Mini though.
Cheers!

New Mac Mini slower than my 4 years old iMac

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