Hi. I want to buy an old Mac mini to run nodes. Any thoughts on what the minimum spec should be?
Hi!
Minimum specs might not be the right question. because in theory, 1 node can run with like 300 MB ram, 35 GB disk space and pretty much any CPU.
I think in general, a node should on average have like 200 MB RAM. (which is what will be the limiting factor in most mac devices). 35 GB disk space per node (arguably second most limiting factor in mac).
As for CPU, it is very difficult to say as it varies a lot per CPU type. AMD tends to outperform Intel. Iāve yet to try the M1/2/3 from Apple. A general rule of thumb is CPU benchmarks (PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End). Score divided by 180 is amount of nodes it can run on average.
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Thanks. Will take a look.
I was looking at the new Mac mini yesterday and thought the 2nd hand prices should drop. Might be a few bargains out there.
Here you go, I added some thoughts on what safenode count might be for each era (given the 50%CPU% rule in effect at the moment), make sure for Flash based Mac Miniās you leave 30% of the Storage Capacity free to operate defrag, Garbage Collection and Wear levelling of Media.
Mac Mini Technical Specifications by Era
Based on the provided search results, here is a breakdown of the Mac Miniās specifications by era:
Original Mac Mini (2005-2006)
- CPU: PowerPC G4 (1.25GHz or 1.42GHz)
- RAM: 512MB, expandable to 1GB
- Storage Capacity: 40GB or 80GB hard drive
1 Safenode based on Drive Capacity and Memory
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: Not specified
- Power Specifications: 55W, 65W, or 85W power consumption
Intel-based Mac Mini (2006-2012)
- CPU: Intel Core Solo (1.83GHz) or Intel Core Duo (1.83GHz or 2.0GHz)
- RAM: 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB, expandable to 4GB
- Storage Capacity: 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, or 120GB hard drive
SafeNodes restricted by either RAM Capacity and/or Storage Capacuty as above minus the OS RAM budget
RAM-> 512MB 1GB 2GB 4GB
Storage 60GB 80GB 100GB 120GB
Safenode# 1 2 2 3
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: 512MB
- Power Specifications: 25W, 30W, or 35W power consumption
Late 2009 Mac Mini
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (1.4GHz or 2.26GHz)
- RAM: 2GB or 4GB, expandable to 8GB
- Storage Capacity: 160GB, 250GB, or 320GB hard drive
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: 2GB
RAM-> 2GB 4GB 8GB
Storage-> 160GB 250GB 320GB
Safenode# 0 6 9
- Power Specifications: 17W, 22W, or 30W power consumption
2011 Mac Mini
- CPU: Intel Core i5 (2.3GHz or 2.5GHz) or Intel Core i7 (2.8GHz)
- RAM: 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB, expandable to 16GB
- Storage Capacity: 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB hard drive
RAM-> 2GB 4GB 8GB 16GB
Storage-> 160GB 500GB 1TB 2TB
Safenode# 0 6 12 28
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: 2GB
- Power Specifications: 17W, 22W, or 30W power consumption
M1-based Mac Mini (2020-present)
- CPU: Apple M1 chip (8-core CPU)
- RAM: 8GB or 16GB, unified memory architecture
- Storage Capacity: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB SSD
RAM-> 8GB 16GB 16GB 16GB
Storage-> 256GB 512GB 1TB 2TB SSD
Safenode# 0 12 12 24
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: 8GB
- Power Specifications: 10W, 15W, or 20W power consumption
M2-based Mac Mini (2023-present)
- CPU: Apple M2 chip (8-core CPU) or Apple M2 Pro chip (10-core CPU)
- RAM: 8GB or 16GB, unified memory architecture
- Storage Capacity: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB SSD
RAM-> 8GB 16GB 16GB 16GB
Storage-> 256GB 512GB 1TB 2TB SSD
Safenode# 0 12 12 24
- Minimum OS RAM Requirements: 8GB
- Power Specifications: 10W, 15W, or 20W power consumption
Note that the power consumption figures may vary depending on the specific configuration and usage. Additionally, the minimum OS RAM requirements are based on the official Apple specifications and may not reflect the actual minimum requirements for optimal performance.
I hope this helps.
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Wow, thats amazing. thanks for all the info.
I remembered at the weekend that I have an old iMac in the cellar. From 2013. 8GB RAM and 1TB hard disk.
Launchpad requires Sonoma OS so have had to play around to upgrade the OS. Am nearly there though.
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Apple website has: āƶnly up to āMontereyā, MacOS 12ā ?
Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support
SUCCESS!
I installed and am running Sequioa 15.1 on an āiMac 21.5 inch, Late 2013 with 2.7 GHz Quad Core i5ā, 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
I used OpenCore Patcher. It took me about a day as I had no idea what was i doing. Most of the time the iMac was just unresponsive anytime I tried to do something. Not sure what I did different today to make it all work. The OS needed some extra persuasion to let me run Node Launchpad but I got there.
Trying to keep the usual Mac processes to a minimum so I didnt log in with an apple id. I now have 12 nodes running but using 6.31 GB out of 8 GB RAM
You think I can add more nodes?
Anything I can do to reduce RAM being used by other apps that are running unncessarily in the background?
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Isnāt this what Autonomi is all about? Dragging out an old maching that has been gathering dust in the cellar for 5yrs but still has a working 1TB HDD, tweaking it a bit and running nodes on it.
Am now up to 16 nodes, and RAM use has dropped a little. Now below 6GB. Maybe the hard drive will be the limiting factor.
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Was not a āMac Miniā as posted, was an āiMacā you worked on.
But had a look, looks like one could - maybe - try using āOpenCore Patcherā on a Mac Mini 2014 as well. Instead of replacing the MacOS with a Linux-flavor.
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yeah sorry, i was going to buy an old mac mini, but then remembered i had an imac in the cellar.
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Does it mean the 8GB/256GB Mac will not be able to run any nodes?
The problem is on this M1 2020 Model the OS is a pig at 8GB so there is no spaceā¦,
so you need to add at least 8GB RAM to get 12 safenodes to workā¦ to run 12 nodes ,
keep in mind each safenode needs 35GB of storage and
with flash you must always keep 30% of the your flash free and unassigned,
otherwise if you cheat and run say 15 or 20 nodes (if you have the disk capacacity) and only leave 10% disk space Unassigned
by running more safenodes the reads/writes will start to slow down big time as you get past 50% full of the remaining 90%
in this 90% assigned example (so 45% full) that means the OS will spend more time doing
- background defrag, garbage collection and wear levelling
which require full copy reads to reorganize in memory then write all at once the re-organized amount to disk so the freespace can handle contiguous writes fast,
and that will leave less CPU % clock to run foreground realy, chnuck copy, store, peer connect processes of the safenodes,
less time for foreground task means some of your safenodes will start not connecting on time (miss after five tries) with the more nodes, with some nodes looking to connect for sure shunning your ācpu clock resource starvedā non-connecting safenodes
which means your safenode atto earnings will drop lower,
not good.
So it always Better to run fewer nodes (12 nodes in this example) that never fail
because the flash drive read/write I/O remains fast even as it fills up beyond 50% of assigned capacity (at 80% assigned 50% is really 40%, at 70% 505 full is really 35%)
so the background clean up tasks happen fast and use less CPU clock % giving more CPU clock % to the safenode foreground tasks who earn more because they are never shunned. (because a healthy unassigned drive percent is kept free best 30% for old processors with fewer cores and threads, 20% for really fast processors with lots of cores and threads)
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thanks lots to think about there.maybe I should reduce the nodes.
Am running 24 nodes on this late 2013 iMac with 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD using Sequoia 15.1 OS
RAM usage is constant at 6GB +/- 0.25
CPU 75-85% idle
Small update. You know what is like when you can help fiddling with something even though it is running smoothly. Well I couldnāt help myself.
Unfortunately there is no way to restart Launchpad if it crashes. So I have to delete the Safe folder, start Launchpad, add my wallet address and then start adding nodes. I still find that the only way to get them running properly is to start a node, stop it by reducing the number of nodes by one, and then restart it plus start another one by increasing the number of nodes by two. Then reduce by one, increase by two etcā¦
I discovered it all got a bit sketchy above 20 nodes with new nodes failing to connect. So I am now running 20 and its working fine. According to Activity Monitor all the nodes have sent 1-2GB of data and received 2-4GB in about 18hrs. A few attos have been earned.
And now I got a pop up telling me Apple has a new software update for me. I will ignore that (I really dont want to start from the beginning again).
Is anyone running launchpad on a new-ish Mac? Can you restart launchpad without deleting all the previous nodes and setting up new ones?
you can still use bootcamp and install windows on older macs.
my macbook pro 2017 is happily triplebooting osx, windows 10 ltsc and fedora linux.
as an added bonus, it really pisses of religious-level macfansā¦
i was thinking of looking at some version on linux. is surely lighter than the latest macOS.
I was about to say, Iāve never done it before so not sure I want to try. But that is such a lame excuse these days when you have AI to hold your hand.
if you have no experience with linux and bootloaders etc youāre in for a wild rideā¦
Windows is pretty easy though.
So far so good. downloaded ubuntu iso, put it on a usb stick using Rufus. now installing.
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all working fine. have 16 nodes running on the 2013 iMac with ubuntu. Only using 2.3GB of RAM compared to over 6 GB with MacOS
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Well if itās working and your safenodes are earning then that is a pretty good system fleet of nodes #. I wouldnāt touch it, the ole adage if its not broken just let it beā¦ 
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