Best Budget Friendly Video Editing Setup for MAC in 2021 - Mac Mini Editing Computer for $400???

 All right. Today, I want to talk about budget editing computers, and more specifically, I want to take a look at what I think might be the best budget-friendly editing computer available.

And that's a used 2012 Mac Mini.

So what's the reasoning for getting a used 2012 Mac Mini? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

First off, it is the oldest Mac Mini that you can buy that you can still upgrade all the way up to Catalina. And with this being a Mac Mini, I can still go in and swap out some internal components, which I need to do in order to make this a usable machine for me, and it's what needs to be done in order to make this a usable editing machine.


So the first thing I did was take the old HDD storage in the Mac Mini and switch it out for an SSD. This increases the read and write speed on the drive in the Mac Mini so that when you're editing, the files can be accessed quickly.

I also upgraded the Ram in the Mac Mini and I took it from four gigs to 16 gigs. This increases the overall processing speed of the computer. It comes in handy when running editing software like Premiere Pro.

Three reasons why I think that a 2012 Mac Mini can be a budget-friendly option for an editing machine.

Performance

So to test this out, I went and shot an intro sequence, and I edited the entire thing on the Mac Mini to test it out since I had never edited a full project on it before. Up until this point I had it only exported out a fully complete project, just to save rendering on my laptop.

For that intro sequence that I shot, I used a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k, and I shot in BRAW with the least amount of compression available on the Black Magic. So it's a pretty big file and it's a lot of data there.

The Mac Mini handled it pretty well. You would start to drop frames after about 10 seconds of playing back the video, but that's kind of expected for the type of footage that I was looking at, and it would have done the same thing on my laptop.

If I started to use heavier effects like noise reduction or something, of course, it would bog down the machine a little bit, but for simple edits and stuff like that, it was pretty much a breeze.

Ease of Use

So now let's talk about ease of use. The most difficult part of this whole thing was just swapping out the internal components, and if you know anything about computers, obviously that's a pretty simple job. If I can do it, most anyone else can do it.

The most difficult challenge when actually swapping out the components was just making sure that the SSD was in the right spot to put everything back in. It's tucked away back in there in the back and it's going to take a little bit of time to maneuver that into the right position.


But other than that, the rest of it was a breeze, opening up the back and moving all the parts out of the way and getting to the SSD and getting to the Ram, it was all a pretty simple process, it just took a little bit of time to do it.

Price

All right. So now let's talk about price. This might honestly be the most budget-friendly editing setup that you can actually get out there. I'm honestly not sure what else you could do for this amount of money and be able to do as much with a setup like this.

So first off, a used Mac Mini 2012, I picked one up on eBay for $200, which I think is solid for what you're getting.

The 500GB of SSD is $80-$100. You could get more SSD if you wanted to, but I would at least get 500GB.

16 gigs of Ram was $70.

It's also worth getting an install kit so that you have the right tools to open up the Mac Mini and work on it, that was $30.

And all that for a grand total of $400, and I'd say that's a pretty solid machine for $400.


Now, of course, that does not include a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor, but you can go with Apple or you could get some cheap third-party options for those.

The only thing I would suggest is that you get a color-accurate monitor to make sure that you're looking at the right colors. There are plenty of videos out there about budget-friendly, color-accurate monitors, and you can pick one up for around $100-$200.

I wouldn't give up my $2,000 laptop for this Mac Mini overall, but I think this is a solid competitor for the price.


So in conclusion, I think that everything that you get out of this setup for how inexpensive it is, think it's a solid, solid option, especially for someone who needs their first editing machines. Something that can handle Premiere Pro or things like that, this is a solid machine that'll be able to handle most editing situations that you might find yourself in as a beginner or as an intermediate videographer or editor.

I'm not a PC guy and I don't really know what the options are out there, but overall, this machine is definitely a solid option, especially if you were looking for macOS. I would not have been able to buy any kind of Mac laptop or computer with this kind of price.

So if you're interested in grabbing a Mac Mini for yourself and upgrading it, I have everything linked down below as to what I used and what I bought.

LINK TO MAC MINI SETUP

Step by step tutorial for how to upgrade your Mac Mini is now live

Talk soon,

Zach

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