Thinking of upgrading my Mac Mini core to the new 2018 Mac Mini. How much RAM would you recommend, 16GB or 32GB? The difference from 16GB to 32GB is an additional $400
Will the Apple Migration assistant work to completely transfer everything needed from the old core to the new core?
I read the other thread about the merits, etc. and critics of the new Mac Mini, and just would appreciate your answers to the above please.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Cheers,
Sam
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
2
If you’re only using it for the Roon Core, the base level model with 8GB of RAM is probably enough. And you can always upgrade it later and more cheaply if you need to. Don’t know about Migration Assistant; I used it once, years ago, and it seemed to work fine.
I believe the migration assistant is for people coming from windows. To migrate from an older Mac you would use a recent time machine backup and restore it to the new machine during the setup process.
Carl, thanks for the correction. Use Time Machine to restore the new Mac to the same state as the old one, but specifically Roon should be restored from a previous Roon backup from the restore option on the login screen.
Always buy as much as you can afford, though Roon would be fine with 8GB if that will be the exclusive function of the Mac mini.
kneville
(A feral ghoul cannot abide a chicken. )
7
The current version of Migration Assistant is for Apple->Apple or Windows->Apple transfers. Though restoration from a Time Machine backup will work for the transfer, as others have stated, Time Machine backups of the Roon database are not recommended. So a Time Machine restoration to a new Mac would include your Roon database (unless you choose to exclude it from Time Machine backups, which you can do) but would probably not be functional on the new machine.
So if you used the Apple Migration tool, and transferred all data, accounts, programs, would that not work for Roon? Our would you do migration assistant without the program option and clean install Roon on the new core? Thank you, Sam
No, you have to use the Backup feature from the Roon options. I’ll get my mini next week so I’ll try myself.
Few people who used the Migration Assistant tool got errors such as Kernel Panics.
I chose 8 GB and I hope that would be enough for Roon & DSD upsampling, if possible. I’ll use the Mac as a media center : to download 4K UHD Torrent files and display on a Panasonic OLED TV.
If you really want to have the same system on the new mini i would clone it from a fully updated Mojave clone image. At least as a first attempt - that’s what I did and don’t recall any roon issues. But i came form a 2013 mbp 13”to a 2018 mbp 15” pre mojave back in July.
You can certainly try the migration assistant but definitely steer clear of time machine restore.
Best is a reinstall of roon and restore the database from a roon made backup on Usb