I seem to remember that there’s a way to make a Mac make use of some Hard Drive space as additional RAM. Always felt a bit clunk/ slow to look into that back when Hard Drives spun around real fast. Now, with SSD, might that be an option?
I’m no longer editing video and so the additional storage and possible RAM expansion makes me look hard at this item. Or items like it.
Any way to expand the RAM using this kind of a device?
As best I can tell sliding the Mac mini into that enclosure just connects the USB-C ports to the enclosure hub and the SSDs that you slot in. You don’t really need a fancy enclosure to add external storage unless you like that all in one look. You could plug in an external SSD drive today if you wanted.
That I am aware of, from casually, following some of these discussions a while ago, there is no way to add true RAM. Better to trade the device in and use that credit to buy a new one that suits.
Is intel of M1?
You don’t need more RAM on the newer Macs
The drive speeds are so high that you have no need for more RAM as swap outs are meaningless.
The Mac can swap to disk if needed and the SSD is fast, but that should be a last resort. It’s still much slower than real RAM and not great for the SSD.
Open your activity monitor and see what’s using memory. If it’s your browser, configure background tabs to go to sleep when not in use. If it’s other apps, quit them completely (instead of just closing their window) when you’re done with them.
It’s a travesty that Apple shipped 8 GB minimum RAM with some machines.
If all else fails, maybe sell it or trade it in for a newer machine, or a refurb M2 / M3 with more RAM?
And that case won’t do you any good. It’s not even Thunderbolt, just USB-C, so it will be very slow (compared to SSD speeds) and much much much much slower than RAM.
Edit: Actually, it’s unclear about Thunderbolt. Says it’s 40 Gbps, but the measured SSD throughput is pretty slow. It’s probably fine as backup storage, but not RAM replacement.
The OP’s title says “Mac Mini M1 2020”, so it’s an M1.
The base model M1 Mac mini could be had with just 8GB of RAM, which was pretty borderline even then. The machine can run the latest operating system (Sequoia and the upcoming Tahoe), and today Apple doesn’t ship any Mac with anything less than 16GB or RAM.
8 GB of RAM is more than adequate for an M1 for everything but heavy pro use.
This not the Intel era.
Nothing external will match the internal flash speed as far as drive speeds except some of OWCs big rigs.
Needing lots of RAM is a hangover from the Intel era.
MacDoc - Computers for the Best of Us since 1985
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Some of the above needs to be clear about whether the question is RAM (random access memory) or persistent storage (usually badly named SSD - solid state disk). Totally different things. Persistent storage is where your files live. It is persistent in that it doesn’t forget when the machine is turned off. RAM forgets.
Apple silicon has come with multi-chip packages that include the RAM bonded along with the CPU into the one package (unified memory) for a while now. This is impossible to change. The limitations on memory are also a result of the number of memory controller channels the CPU has. The M1 was limited to 16GB maximum. Whilst one might like to complain about this, the design results in significant performance gains that cannot be achieved with traditional socketed RAM.
Persistent storage is usually in the form of soldered in SSD chips. Difficult to upgrade, but not totally impossible. But very unlikely to be worth the cost on an old model. The new Mac Mini OTOH comes as standard with a paltry SSD size and costs an extortionate amount to upsize when ordering. So much so that there is a market for third party upgrades. This is possible because the new Mini sockets the SSD. Although it is a proprietary connector and interface.
If you need more persistent storage, an external USB-C SSD can be an effective answer. But even here you get what you pay for, and cheap ones can and do fail, taking your data with them. Which leads into the need for a proper backup system no matter who you are.
MacOS performs some useful tricks with RAM, including compressing data when it can. So much so that for ordinary users 8GB is actually quite reasonable. It works significantly better than the equivalent memory on a Windows PC. If you are getting into content creation, 16GB is better. But for ordinary browsing, email, documents, and personal photos, 8 is fine.
I’m a soldering champeen when it comes to normal video and audio connectors. Wired up a 24-pin Hirose back in the day. That nearly killed me. This? Nah. I’ve seen YooToobes videos on people who take a razor, remove the heat-sink cap, heat gun to desolder all at once, clean up, insert new chip etc. Not my gig.
The normal computer things, I’ve done those already. I use Mozilla Firefox. Doesn’t offer me the option to put unused tabs to sleep. Which is a shame. I always quit apps properly opposed to just hitting the red “close window” button.