Apple has unveiled new Mac mini models featuring the M6 and M5 Pro chips. While processing performance has improved, the starting price has increased, and the storage chips are now soldered onto the motherboard, making internal capacity upgrades impossible after purchase. Additionally, the 256GB model with the M6 chip has nearly half the SSD transfer speed of higher-capacity versions due to differences in storage chip configuration.
The M4 Mac mini, released two years ago, used removable proprietary SSD modules, theoretically allowing users to upgrade to larger capacities after purchase. The new Mac mini, however, has NAND storage chips fixed to the motherboard; users needing more space can still use external storage devices, but they cannot upgrade internal storage in the same way as before.
Expand Mac mini, which previously produced plug-and-play storage modules for the M4 version, stated that the team is still looking for a solution, but it currently seems unlikely that support will be available for the M6 and M5 Pro versions.
Storage speeds also vary by capacity. Tests using Blackmagic tools show that the 256GB M6 Mac mini uses only one NAND chip, while models with 512GB and above use two chips working in parallel. As a result, the transfer speed of the 256GB version is nearly halved, though it remains higher than that of the previous-generation M4 models.
The new M6 chip is built on a 2nm process and features a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU. Early Geekbench 7 tests reported single-core and multi-core scores of 4,071 and 22,783, respectively. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, standard 2.5Gb Ethernet, and Thunderbolt ports; the M5 Pro version features Thunderbolt 5.
The new Mac mini starts at €1,049, which includes 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. In comparison, the starting price for the previous generation at launch was €649.