A New Computer and Addition

Back in December I bought a new Mac Mini M4 Pro to replace my laptop. My daughter needed a newer computer and she preferred a laptop. Rather than update her computer, which she only uses at home really and with google and adobe applications only, didn’t need a NEW computer. So, I gave her my macbook pro and I got the mac mini. I went this direction because I realized that I was rarely going anywhere with my laptop. I was taking my Ipad instead. So, why spend the extra on the laptop when I could save money and get a great little computer. So the mac mini was it. This is my third mac mini I have owned. I really liked the other ones I have owned.

It has been a great computer so far. I went with the base M4 Pro. I didn’t spend extra for more memory or hard drive space. I was leaning toward more hard drive space because I tend to fill up hard drives. The memory wasn’t an issue because the base model has 24GB and that is quite a bit more than the 16GB I had in my macbook pro. The newest M4 is also great.

The computer is very fast. It starts up in no time at all, and so far all applications start up super fast and process very quickly as well. I mostly am running just word, excel, plex, and chrome. Nothing that takes huge amount of processing power. But I also sometimes run Adobe software like Photoshop and Illustrator. I use those just the other day and they also ran really fast. When working on editing pictures and then saving them there was no real lag at all. Even when I had multiple layers and files that were 2-3GB it saved quickly and all the edits run really fast as well. So, that is nice.

With regard to the hard drive space I got an accessory. Back when I was deciding what to do about the mac mini and whether to pay for an upgraded HD I came across an ad online for the company Raycue. At first I was concered this was a scam, but then found many online articles about the company and they seemed legit. They had announced an accessory that sits below the new mac mini and adds regular USB ports, card readers, and a few other things. So, it was bascially a hub but it was designed to match and work with the new mac mini. And best of all, it had a slot for an external SSD. So that means the hard drive space would be solved. It was a pre-order and it was on sale and I jumped on it. Then the waiting game happened.

Well, it came in! Here is the unboxing and look of it:

Here is the box front and back:

Very nice looking box. Very Apple looking. You can see that it has fins to allow the venting to still take place well.

Once opened you can see it comes with a USB C connection cable, a USB C to USB A cable, a screwdriver, and an extra SSD screw.

You can see all the great ports – USB A, USB C, HDMI, SD and Mini SD card reader, and a headphone jack.

Here is the SSD I ordered – Crucial by Micron for the win!

I went with 2TB since that would be MORE then I will ever need here.

The SSD mounts under the circular plate you see in the above picture that says RayCue on it. That is where I experienced my only issue with this product. The plate is held on with 2 philipshead screws. The screwdriver they supplied was a flathead. No worries I have plenty of small screwdrivers. So, I got one and took one of the screws out with no issue at all. Then the second was was already slightly damaged, and when I tried to unscrew it I started to tear up the head of the screw. I stopped and was able to get it out with a small flathead screwdriver, very carefully, but that was a bit of an annoyance.

Once the plate was off the SSD went in with no issues:

And then the plate went back on and the mac mini was placed on top and all the cables were hooked up and here is what we have:

And I love it so far. I had to format the SSD (of course), and now I have WAY too much storage space on this machine. And it is still tiny. To give you an idea of how big it all is, it is 2.625 inches tall x 5 inches x 5 inches (66.6mm x 127mm x 127mm). I could easily carry it around and it would take up less space than a laptop (of course I would need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse when I got where I was going, but still).