Should I sell my Mac Mini?

[Jeikobu]

I have a late 2012 Mac Mini. It’s only on El Capitan and it moves slower than a grandpa slug. I asked about if I could get it running well again a long time ago in this thread, and while I’d have to review it again and see if I’ve tried every suggestion, so far nothing I’m doing is working. I’m just kind of fed up with it all, and I’m honestly wondering if I should just see if I could sell it and put that money towards a new and better computer. It’s concerning if I can’t even get it to run well on a very outdated OS. Do you think it would be worth trying to sell it? I’m still having trouble finding out what it’s going for, although this thread seems to shed some light.

[Cornucopia]

If you hadn't already, you could beef those up w more RAM (8, possibly 16GB) and a replacement SSD as storage (e.g. 256GB). That should also be able to get you up to Mojave or Catalina, if you are lucky*. It would still be sluggish compared to new models, but would be acceptable for routine apps (browser, email, office, mild arts).

If you need zippier performance, best to bite the bullet & move on.
Not sure what you can get for them.


*sometimes upgrades work, sometimes not. Sometimes it works for a while and then a minor update will brick it. Have had all 3 happen to my late2012 macminis here on campus.

Note that BigSur is NOT compatible with those models, so you have no further upgrade path.


Scott

[Rain26]

If it gives you more headache, I say sell it and invest in a newer one but before you do check your budget and how much you could get from selling your device

[Cyrax9]

I'll second what others have suggested, which is to bump the RAM to 16GB (can do that for ~$100, possibly less,) and install a decent SSD. 90% of the issues I see with 2012 Mac Minis are a result of their ancient 5400RPM HDDs never being upgraded. If you want to run something newer than El Capitan on your Mac Mini, you should be able to upgrade to Catalina (10.15) if it's really a late 2012 Mac Mini. (Click the Apple Logo and "About this Mac" to be sure, the model before the 2012 stopped receiving OS updates awhile before the 2012 models did.) Also it's technically possible to run Big Sur on the 2012 Mac Mini, but don't expect miracles out of it, and be prepared to do a bit of work reading up on how to install Big Sur on unsupported Macs.

Other stuff you can do to get some more life out of your Mac Mini include taking a can of compressed air and blowing any dust out of it, and replacing the thermal paste on your CPU/GPU die. I've noticed that this makes a bit of a difference on older hardware, and can often reduce the amount of time the fans have to be spinning to keep temperatures sane. Unfortunately as you haven't posted more detailed specs for this specific machine, I cannot provide better solutions more tailored to your specific Mac Mini. The 2012 Minis are pretty popular even with limited support though, and the new M1 Minis are insanely fast at a fairly reasonable price, so you might want to look into what you could get for your 2012 Mini and put it toward one of the new M1 models.

[orsetto]

As a Mac user since 1989, my advice is this:

If you plan to stick with MacOS, and can afford to buy a new Mac and a couple of software upgrades, sell your 2012 Mini and buy a new one. For better and worse, Apple no longer gives a second thought to backwards compatibility. Up until ten years ago, that was one of the best things about using a Mac: the amazing backwards/forwards compatibility. But Apple pretty much dropped that shortly after your Mini was made: since roughly 2013, Apple hasn't cared squat about anything they sold more than two years ago. Whenever they jump forward now, everything old gets orphaned. So its a really bad investment to try and upgrade/max out an eight year old Mini: theres no guarantee it won't get left in the dust overnight. Apple is in the midst of its biggest Mac reinvention ever right now. Going forward, the OS will be optimized for the radically new M1 processors. Anything without an M1 CPU is going to rapidly become obsolete in terms of OS upgrades and web browsers.

The only good reason to remain on an older Mac model is if you need to maintain compatibility with older legacy hardware or software that is either unavailable now or can't be migrated over to the new system. For example, I keep a couple of 2009 Minis and a grey G4 tower to run old film scanners and proprietary software packages. These have their place and purpose, but don't work well (if at all) for common web tasks or the latest apps. If you aren't locked in to any legacy stuff, its best to move ahead in sync with where Apple wants to go. Where Apple wants to go now is "Back To The Future", to the era when they used a different CPU architecture from everyone else on the planet. This does not bode well for older Intel-based Minis and MacBooks.

[Luvied]

As a Mac user since 1989, my advice is this:

If you plan to stick with MacOS, and can afford to buy a new Mac and a couple of software upgrades, sell your 2012 Mini and buy a new one. For better and worse, Apple no longer gives a second thought to backwards compatibility. Up until ten years ago, that was one of the best things about using a Mac: the amazing backwards/forwards compatibility. But Apple pretty much dropped that shortly after your Mini was made: since roughly 2013, Apple hasn't cared squat about anything they sold more than two years ago. Whenever they jump forward now, everything old gets orphaned. So its a really bad investment to try and upgrade/max out an eight year old Mini: theres no guarantee it won't get left in the dust overnight. Apple is in the midst of its biggest Mac reinvention ever right now. Going forward, the OS will be optimized for the radically new M1 processors. Anything without an M1 CPU is going to rapidly become obsolete in terms of OS upgrades and web browsers.

The only good reason to remain on an older Mac model is if you need to maintain compatibility with older legacy hardware or software that is either unavailable now or can't be migrated over to the new system. For example, I keep a couple of 2009 Minis and a grey G4 tower to run old film scanners and proprietary software packages. These have their place and purpose, but don't work well (if at all) for common web tasks or the latest apps. If you aren't locked in to any legacy stuff, its best to move ahead in sync with where Apple wants to go. Where Apple wants to go now is "Back To The Future", to the era when they used a different CPU architecture from everyone else on the planet. This does not bode well for older Intel-based Minis and MacBooks.

totally agree with that. I also recommend selling your mini.

[sophisticles]

The only problem I foresee is getting someone to actually buy a 9 year old computer, I don't care what kind of computer it is or how much you were asking.

As you pointed out, it's practically useless for most current computing needs, i wouldn't by a 2012 computer, Apple or not, for even $50.

I agree just buy a new M1 based system, if you are going the Mac route, but give up on the pipedream of getting any money for your old system.

[orsetto]

The second hand Mac market is different from the second hand Win PC market: there are more Mac users needing various older archaic systems, and fewer Macs were made than Windows machines so the supply/demand equation isn't the same. Hence old Mac computers always retain some residual resale value, usually (but not always) more than what you'd get for a comparable-era generic Windows PC.

The most coveted older Macs are the ones with older connections and older boot firmware that allows running the older pre-Lion OSX versions capable of supporting the Rosetta PowerPC translation extension. These were discontinued circa 2010: a 2012 Mini might be a tougher sell, because its neither here nor there in the Apple compatibility timeline (too old to run the latest OS, but too new to run the legacy OS). Nonetheless, an intact functioning 2012 Mini can still fetch over $100 on eBay, perhaps double that depending on exact CPU, RAM and HDD specs. If that doesn't seem worth the hassle of selling, just keep the old Mini as a spare emergency computer (or donate it and take a tax deduction).