2012 Mac Mini with 16gb of Ram

rpmartinez
rpmartinez
in SecuritySpy

Hi, I know it's 11 years old now but would you recommend a 2012 Mac mini with 16gb of Ram for 5 cameras?

I ask because there's some for sale on eBay for less than $200

Comments

  • jay
    jay

    I used this Mac mini, but it was 7 or 8 years ago now.

    I can't recommend it with today's tech, 4K cameras and H265... 2012 mini will really struggle. Couple of months ago I picked up an M1 for $521 on eBay… Only eight gig though, but it handles eight cameras, 15 FPS, effortlessly! Good luck.

    Jay

  • pcgaasbeek
    pcgaasbeek
    edited January 2023

    If your cameras use H.264 compression, the 2012 Mac mini can be a good solution. Look at the SecuritySpy System Requirements Calculator in the Help section and "include Legacy Macs": it states the 2012 Mac mini i5 will be suitable for 19x 4MP H.264 cameras with 15fps

    I have recently installed a Mac mini 2012 with 8GB RAM and a new SSD with five 5MP cameras. It runs smoothly. Only keep in mind that your cameras support H.264 and the 2012 Mac mini will support up to macOS Catalina (OSX 10.15).

    In case you want to use 4K cameras (=8MP) and H.265, you should look for a newer Mac. The 2018 Mac mini or the M1 Mac mini are good options.

    ps: if you look for a 2014 Mac mini, make sure it has 8GB or more because the memory can not be changed

  • rpmartinez
    rpmartinez

    Hey the cameras I plan on purchasing are 4MP and support both H.265 and H.264. Since , I plan on using the cameras with Scrypted, I have no choice but to set the cameras to H.264 so the 2012 Mac Mini should work fine for me. But, I do wonder how much longer Ben and his team will support Catalina.

  • Ben
    Ben

    The 2012 Mac minis were a good batch, especially the 4-core versions. Although they are showing their age somewhat, they could still be a good solution for moderate numbers of cameras at moderate resolutions. The comments about H.264 vs. H.265 above are correct: the hardware-accelerated video processing capabilities in these Macs supports H.264 only, so using H.265 is not a good idea as only a few H.265 cameras could max out the CPU.

    These Macs can run macOS 10.15 (Catalina), whereas SecuritySpy currently supports systems back to 10.13 (High Sierra). We have no immediate plans to change this, and if we do up the minimum requirement in a year or two, we're still highly likely to retain support for macOS 10.15.

    I would strongly recommend using an SSD rather than a HDD, at least for the system (one great thing about these Mac is that you can open them up and upgrade components - see this iFixit guide). For SecuritySpy's recording drive, you have a few options:

    • Install a large internal SSD and partition this with a small allocation for the system and a larger one for SecuritySpy (you can use one big partition for everything, but it's better to keep things separate so that system storage activity doesn't interfere with SecuritySpy storage activity and vice versa).
    • Use an external HDD or SSD connected by USB 3.
    • If you're brave, there is actually a way to install a second internal drive in these Macs!

    In summary, don't expect stellar performance, but I would say that a 16 GB 4-core 2012 Mac mini with internal SSD would work well for H.264 cameras and SecuritySpy for several years to come.

  • pcgaasbeek
    pcgaasbeek

    You can also use OpenCore Patcher to install macOS 11 Big Sur or macOS 12 Monterey on a Mac mini 2012. Comes with a clear install app. Is not difficult and works fine.

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