Apple Mac mini M4 (2024)

What owners say

Reviewers agree on the shape of this machine and disagree about what to blame for its storage. The fan never actually stops: it idles at 1,000 rpm, where it cannot be heard, stays around 25 dB(A) through games, and only under a full stress load reaches 45 dB(A), where it is clearly louder than the M2 it replaces. The surprise is where the heat goes. The case stays near 30 °C while the chip inside runs at 102 °C and holds there, which Apple evidently considers normal. The 256 GB drive moves 2 to 3 GB/s, and owners blame the capacity, on the theory that a small drive has too few memory chips to work in parallel. One reviewer then measured a 1 TB M4 iMac at the same speed, which points the finger at the processor instead. The memory upsell has been tested and comes up empty: a Mac hosting company compiled the same project on a 16 GB unit and a 24 GB unit and the gap was 0.19 seconds. The power button is still underneath, although macOS 26.5 finally added a setting that starts the machine whenever power is connected.

For whom

A small, quiet desktop for everyday work, video and light gaming, paired with an external Thunderbolt drive instead of Apple's storage prices.

Not for

Sustained heavy loads, where it becomes clearly audible, and anyone expecting the internal SSD to be fast or the memory upgrade to buy speed.

Our own summary of 5 published sources, reviewed Sep 17, 2026. We have not tested this Mini PC ourselves; the sources are listed under About this data.