How does a Mac mini help?

I recently returned to the Mac scene. I bought a refurbished Mac mainly to make certain th at I really wanted to change. It runs slower than I am accustomed to. What is a Mac Mini and what would it add to my iMac?

We'll need the specs of the iMac to make a judgement, how old is it?

A Mac Mini is a computer in its own right, so wouldn't directly add anything to your iMac, as I understand it.

I have one which I use as my media server, hosting all my music and a chunk of video, too. With AppleTV and Airport Express units I can server video and sound all round my house. You could use your iMac as a server too, of coarse. In my case I have a MacBook Pro as my main computer and that isn't turned on all the time.

Not sure how long you've been away from the Apple/Mac scene. But a Mac-Mini is simply a small footprint/compact desktop computer. Mac-Mini's have been around since 2005.

- Nick

It's been 15 years since I've had a Mac. When I was on the phone with the sales person I understood that a mini could add productivity to my computer ( speed, memory). Thanks!

louishen said:

We'll need the specs of the iMac to make a judgement, how old is it?

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Other than the specs shown in my profile, I don't know how old it is. It's a 2012 model. I've had it for about 6 months.

It runs slower than I am accustomed to.

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Can you expand on that a bit? What are you accustomed to that you are comparing to the iMac? In what way is the iMac slower? A bit more detail and maybe we can make your experience with the iMac better.

Also, have you added any utility software to the iMac? Things like cleaners, speed up software, antivirus, etc? 99% of them aren't needed or useful, and they can seriously impact performance.

I'm not sure how buying an additional stand alone computer will make a existing stand alone computer any faster.

debs01 said:

It's been 15 years since I've had a Mac.

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Ok…understandable. I didn't realize it had been so long (15 years).

debs01 said:

When I was on the phone with the sales person I understood that a mini could add productivity to my computer ( speed, memory). Thanks!

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Maybe what they were saying was…a newer Mac-Mini would be better, faster, etc. compared to the current model Mac you have.

If your current iMac is a 2012 model…I'm not sure getting a newer Mac-Mini will have a whole lot of benefit. Especially since your current 2012 iMac has a quad-core CPU…and all of the new Mac-Mini's have dual-core CPU's.

So it could sort of depend on what you do on your computer to justify getting something newer.

- Nick

honestly i can help you a little more and so can everyone here in general.

Click the apple menu it's the apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen and select about this mac then click more info it should give you all the details that we need in order to help you.

like o.s hard drive size and memory and processor then let us know please thank you

I've got a Mac Mini, as you can see under my name. It's plenty fast and I haven't had any hiccups with it yet. As others said, it's a standalone machine; I hooked mine up to my old keyboard and monitor. I personally use it for my main machine, as I'm not doing anything heavy (graphics editing, music production, or anything like that).

As others have said, I think the person on the phone was recommending a mini because it's the cheapest of the Mac desktop line, assuming you have a mouse, keyboard, and monitor already. I bought it specifically because I was switching from being a PC-only user, and didn't want to sink a lot of funds if I didn't like the experience, which is why the clerk may have been recommending it. I fact, the Mini is Apple's "introductory" machine, no?