Getting a M2 Mac Mini for Photoshop

[Chana97]

I am considering of buying a M2 Mac mini base model which is 8GB/256GB for photo editing and lot of sources say that it won't be good enough. I do not edit large files for now and even if I had it's very rare. I'm currently using a Windows Pc and it's getting slow when I started to using that. I just want to edit photos and that's the main reason, and I usually don't work with large files. What should I do?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Go big or go home on the RAM and HD space. That is bare bones minimum which you will suffer with going forward.

[D Fosse]

This is even below bare minimum, simply not workable.

With Apple silicon, the graphics processor (GPU) uses shared system memory. And the GPU will use a lot! There will only be 2 or 3 GB left for Photoshop after the OS, the GPU, and other processes have taken theirs. That's not even enough to open Photoshop, let alone run it.

You might get it to work with 16 GB, but 32 should really be considered minimum.

And a 256 GB system drive will fill up faster than you can say "scratch disk". Don't even think about it. 1 TB minimum, 2 TB better.

[Lumigraphics]

I have a 16GB/256GB M1 mini but... I'm a long-time Mac tech, used to work for Apple, and I know how to make it work. My biggest problem is lack of hardware support for two Thunderbolt displays (that was added with the M2.) I have Lightroom Classic and Photoshop running pretty much always and sometimes VSCode if I'm scripting.

I do not recommend this kind of setup unless you know what you are doing with it, though.

[Chana97]

Thanks for your ideas. But I have a M2 air base model (not for photoshop) for my personal work. I tried PS with it and I didn't get any trouble so far. But it uses the battery so much than I can't imagine. That's why I thought about switching to Mac mini M2.

[Chana97]

Thanks for your ideas. But I have a M2 air base model (not for photoshop) for my personal work. I tried PS with it and I didn't get any trouble so far. But it uses the battery so much than I can't imagine. That's why I thought about switching to Mac mini M2.

[Lumigraphics]

I have an M1 mini and its reasonable but you want at least 16GB of RAM. I would NOT recommend a 8GB machine.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/apple-m2-pro-with-10-core-cpu-and-16-core-gpu-512gb