Is 8gb ram enough on apple silicon mac mini

Playground Hardware
#1

Im about to migrate my channels media server system over from an ancient 2010 mac mini to an apple silicon either M1 or m2.

I have been unable to explore things like adbtuner, androidhdmi, olive tin for channels, chrome capture , etc. because my machine is stuck on high sierra and is way out of date. Its time to upgrade - long overdue.

Are these solutions memory intensive? Are those that are running this stuff on mac mini with apple silicon, do you need more than 8gb ram? Are they swapping out ssd memory all the time?

Thanks for any insight….

#2

I’ve been running a 2020 M1 Mac mini with 8 GB of ram for 3 1/2 years now and it has been flawless as a Channels DVR server. I also use it as my main desktop. I do some audio editing and run the usual things, Apple Music, Numbers spreadsheets, web surfing, mail, etc. Channels itself never uses more than 2% of the machine’s resources. Having lots of programs running at the same time, however, has brought me up to around 85% of memory usage. I myself have never had an issue where I have run out of memory, but I have read some articles that others have had issues with only 8 GB of ram.

Admittedly, my Channels set up is fairly simple. I have two HD Homerun tuners and most of my content comes from over the air, Pluto TV and Samsung TV. The server records to a direct attached storage OWC RAID5 enclosure with 4 6TB WD RED drives. I should also mention that I’m running a Plex server on the Mac mini alongside Channels.

I think you would do just fine with the base machine at 8 GB. However, if you have the opportunity, I would bump it up to 16 GB just to be on the safe side.

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