Recommended mac mini for backup server ?

QFive
QFive
in SecuritySpy

We have 30 cameras on a mac studio for our primary system. I want to have a second system in my detached wood shop as a backup. I'd likely only include 10-15 of the cameras.

Would a basic M4 mac mini w/ 16gb memory likely be sufficient?

I was hoping to see a good refurb deal but no mac mini's for some time now.

Thanks,

Comments

  • JoshADC
    JoshADC

    I’m running 10 cameras full-time in Security Spy on that exact base M4 mini, and sometimes max out my 12 camera license if I’m trying out different cameras, and it just idles. I’m also running Frigate NVR with eight of those cameras in Docker with its own separate detector, a little baby LLM in Ollama, and using it as a desktop. It takes having camera feeds open and hitting the LLM pretty hard for the memory pressure to come out of the green. That’s a long-winded way of saying I think you’d have zero issues.

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited February 17

    Agree with @JoshADC. An M4 would easily cope with this. If you want to save some money, grab a used M1 or M2 mini from eBay, just make sure it has 16 GB RAM rather than 8.

  • QFive
    QFive

    Thank you both.

  • photonclock
    photonclock
    edited February 22

    I'm running 8 4K cams on a bottom of the line Mac Mini M4, and it's CPU/GPU utilization is practically idling 24/7. And I have other apps running on it at the same time (an app I wrote that creates timelapse videos of the camera feeds independent of the main SecSpy app, as well as other developer tools, browsers, etc). The M4 Mac Mini's are awesome.

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