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A new MacMini 4 Pro for LrC – some lessons learnt, and an issue resolved.

So … I did succumb, and I did purchase the Mac mini 4 Pro with 24Gb RAM and 500Gb internal SSD, and the Satechi Mac mini M4 Stand & Hub with SSD Enclosure with 2Tb of NVMe SSD storage which I liked the look of in the previous post

What have I learnt, what could I have done differently – if anything?

I’m pleased I purchased the Mac mini 4 Pro, I got a remarkably good discount on it (c.£300 from Amazon (breaking a golden rule), and was able to pay for it over 4 months at 0% interest. A good buy. The processor just swallows up anything and everything I throw at it, and with the 24Gb RAM, I believe I’ll be future proofed for quite a few years!

The SSD both internal and external (in the hub) however has caused some issues and consternation, which initially caused me to think I should have gone for a much larger internal SSD, but thankfully (as explained below) I’m now quite relaxed about that decision and 500Gb is definitely sufficient for my needs.

The Satechi Hub is not a Thunderbolt hub, and if I’d been prepared to wait (or pay a lot more for one that was not so aesthetically pleasing), the connection between the Hub and the Mac mini could have been faster – but to be honest the data transfer rate using the USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) has not proven to be a problem. The 2Tb Crucial NVMe SSD storage in the Hub is not being used intensively and so data transfer rate has not been a problem. The ports on the front of the Hub are all in use to serve music, movies and other stored media, and the SD-UHS-II card slot has been well used to import images from my camera.

The Mac mini’s Three Thunderbolt 5 ports are connected to the Hub, an external G’Drive SSD drive for Images, and a connection to two external G’Drive HD Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloning drives. The Headphone jack connected to a pair of Logitech powered speakers. Magic!!!

[PS I treated myself to a Pioneer Blu-Ray Player as well because my old SuperDrive was not working with the new Mac mini hardware.]

Did I learn anything from the purchase? Well, yes – but it was nothing to do with the hardware!!

As I was editing images in Lightroom Classic, I discovered that I couldn’t save a Catalog Backup to a folder on my iCloud Drive. There was plenty of space for the file, so what could be going on?

It took me a couple of days to get to the bottom of the problem, and one that was quite unexpected.

The problem was that the System Data on my internal drive was growing to a ridiculous size, to the extent that there was not enough space on the Internal Drive of the Mac mini to do the save to the iCloud Drive. So, a couple of things had to be addressed. Why was the System Data growing so large, and should I review where some of my Lightroom files were being stored. This was the first thing to be considered.

I moved the Lightroom Classic Catalog Backups folder from the iCloud Drive to the external SSD drive in the Hub, I also reviewed all the other peripheral files and folders that Lightroom was using and either moved them to the Internal SSD on the Mac mini, or to the External SSD in the Hub.

The folders on the external SSD in the Hub – none of these require “fast” access and so are “happy” to sit on an external drive with data transfer rates still at up to 10Gbps.

These folders are located on the internal SSD of the Mac mini and are ones which could benefit from the fastest data transfer rates.

It is also important to make sure you’ve changed all the preferences in Lightroom Classic to match the “new” configuration …

So that’s got Lightroom Classic sorted to give me the best performance on the new kit, but still I had an issue with System Data in General > Storage on the Mac mini. For a while I thought “shall I just upgrade to Tahoe (from Sequoia) and perhaps it’ll go away, but having upgraded my Mac Book Pro to Tahoe I was astonished to see that even with 2Tb of Internal SSD storage, System Data was eating as much it could of that storage. Obviously something wasn’t right.

The solution which I discovered eventually after extensive use of Perplexity was counter-intuitive and one that I would never have worked out.

I needed to switch-off synchronising of my Desktop and Documents Folders – this meant some re-organisation of file store which was in itself long overdue, and then switch on Optimise Mac Storage!!!

Surprisingly System Data will gobble-up local disk storage if you switch this off. Switching it on gets everything back into a sensible state of order.

So … I applied these settings to both the Mac mini and the MacBook Pro (even though it had loads of Internal SSD space), and System Data shrunk on both systems to a manageable level.

Who’d have known that! Thanks Perplexity.

[Addendum: After upgrading the Mac mini 4 to Tahoe this morning (15/12/2025) the System Data shrank again to c.67Gb – this was also recommended in the Perplexity threads as a “if the above doesn’t work … try a re-install”]

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A Mac setup for Lightroom Classic (2025)

I’ve been seriously tempted to splurge some dosh on getting a Mac Mini. Without doubt, if I was starting from scratch TODAY, this is the system I would start from – alongside a Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse.

But what specification would I choose, and what other accessories would I purchase. That’s the second part of this post.

After doing quite a bit of reading, and watching several reviews (see references at end), I have determined that for me (and I stress, for me), that the first decision that can be made is that the M4 Pro chip is way over the top for me, so that just leaves RAM and Disk Storage as a decision to make.

My MacBook Pro (2021 – M1 chip) is doing just fine, and that’s the real reason why spending money at this time is just not a sensible option, and it has 32Gb RAM. I often have several applications open at the same time when editing photos as well as Lightroom Classic – Topaz, Photoshop, Safari, and others. Having the “headroom” to know I can easily swap between them without delay (once they’re loaded) is important. So the first decision is an easy one – my MacMini should have 32Gb RAM.

The other decision to make is how much SSD storage do I need. When I purchased the MacBook Pro I imagined this would be a machine that would last me a very long-time, and so I decided that maxing up on internal storage “would be a good thing”. Wrong on a number of counts. Firstly, I really hadn’t worked out in my mind how I would use iCloud storage (I have 2.2Tb of storage – currently even in an Apple Family scenario it’s only 1.2Tb “full”). Secondly I had no sight of the incredible innovation in offline fast SSD disks, including those using NVMe technology (more later).

I recently purchased this 1Tb external SSD from Crucial for c.£99 – it does read/write at incredible speeds of 2,100 MB/s – certainly fast enough to read or write an image bearing in mind that my fast SD cards only r/w at 300MB/s. So having a large amount of internal SSD storage now doesn’t seem so essential – especially given Apple’s insanely high upgrade costs. So instead of the 2TB of internal storage (I must have been mad!) in the MacBook Pro, I think 512Gb SSD would be ample.

So we would have this Mac Mini, 2024 costing TODAY from Apple – £1199

  • Apple M4 chip with 10‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
  • 32GB unified memory
  • 512GB SSD storage
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑C ports, headphone jack

If I wanted to save cash, I would drop the SSD to 256Gb and save £200.

The next piece of kit I’d need would be a monitor. What do I particularly require? Good colour reproduction comes top of the list, with Adobe RGB compatibility as a possibility, Thunderbolt connectivity (better than HDMI for working with the Mac systems) and a good working relationship with Mac hardware.

Although the Dell Ultrasharp range would be a very sound choice, as would monitors from Asus, I’ve been very happy with the BenQ monitor I purchased to work with the MacBook Pro as a desktop system, so I would stick with them and with Wex Photovideo who I purchased the monitor from. Some in the range have a specific M-mode to ensure the best mirroring from a MacBook display. It makes sense to get that compatibility if available, even with the Mac Mini.

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The monitor I have is the BenQ PD2725U 27 inch 4K UHD Thunderbolt 3 Monitor and it cost me then £899; the price has now dropped to £698 (on Amazon). However there are other BenQ monitors in the range and you can explore the BenQ and Wex Photovideo sites to see the current ranges and see prices on Amazon. You might also take a glance at this one – the MA 270U – which has a good review, or this one – the SW242Q (if you want a 24″ monitor).

So you have the Mac Mini, a monitor, keyboard and mouse, what else? Well although the MacMini is well equipped with ports, none of them are USB-A ports, and there’s no SD-Card slot – two deficiencies that I would have to rectify.

I can do that in one of two ways. I could use a docking station like the one I use with the MacBook Pro – the CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub – which is just great (but currently unavailable but look at any in the range from CalDigit, Sabrent, OWC or UGREEN), or an alternative which is in many ways much more aesthetically pleasing (ie tidy) – a MacMini Hub, of which there a couple, but take a look at this one – I love it!

There are others on Amazon. None of them are Thunderbolt 3/4 yet, so I might wait a bit – they will be more expensive when they arrive, but could be worth the wait, because you can install that NVMe SSD RAM in them – a really cost-saving move for more storage. [Even if you can’t wait and have run out of storage, this Hub should be a good purchase – but it doesn’t appear to be available yet in the UK.]

The alternative is to buy an NVMe Enclosure and put a SSD NVMe card (from Crucial or Samsung) in it and hook it up to the MacMini directly. That’s a really earth-shattering and cheaper alternative to Apple storage, but again make sure you’re looking at 40GB/s transfer or Thunderbolt 3/4. I can recommend UGREEN kit.

Video Reviews of Mac Mini

The last one almost echoes my thoughts, but I think her original decision to go with 24Gb RAM on the MacBook Pro, was wrong!!