MOTUnation.com

Good morning!

I just want to share my recent experience with those that have 2012 Mac Mini's...

About 5 months or so ago, I updated my Mini 2.6 quad core / 16gb / 256 ssd to Catalina. Shortly after that I noticed the fans were running audibly loud when the computer was in idle with no apps running...the worst!! I tried all the software tricks to no avail. I accepted the fact my 2012 Mini was on it's way out and began my quest for a new Mac. The other day I went to insert (for the first time) an SD card into the slot on the Mini. The card didn't mount, and when I took it out of the Mini, a bunch of matted dust came out with it. I did this action a couple more times until the card mounted. I then decided to open up the Mini and see how dirty it was inside. Pretty damn dirty! I grabbed some compressed air and a micro fiber cloth and cleaned her out, the turned her on. ZERO FAN NOISE. Unreal that I hadn't cleaned this thing out in years! I opened one of my more taxing projects and am blown away at how quiet it is. I tripled checked to make sure than fans are still working, which they most certainly are. Of course, the Mini is much cooler to the touch as well. So if your Mini is gasping for air...give this a shot. Peace and love!

Good advice. Do you still have a mechanical hard drive or have you upgraded it to an SSD? With the 2TB Crucial M500 costing less than $200, doesn't make sense to keep that spinner in there.

Hi Mike,

First I'd like to say, THANK YOU! For all your wisdom through the years here...Priceless.

I bought the server model with a 256gb SSD, which made sense at the time. I was considering installing a much larger SSD and using it for my projects and some VI's in hopes I would gain a performance bump up. I will say that my boot times used to be under 20 seconds, now it's closer to under a minute. Each OS upgrade surely contributed to that, no? My OS drive has about 36gb left...