Cloud-Based M4 and M4 Pro Mac Mini Models Now Available

Wednesday December 11, 2024 7:34 am PST by Hartley Charlton

Developers now have access to cloud-based M4 and M4 Pro Mac mini units via MacWeb, a Silicon Valley-based provider of cloud services.

m4 mac mini hands on
The company has launched three configurations of the new ‌Mac mini‌, powered by Apple's M4 and M4 Pro chips. Developers and IT teams can rent these machines for tasks ranging from basic development to advanced artificial intelligence modeling, providing an efficient and scalable infrastructure option without the need to purchase expensive hardware outright. A new ‌Mac mini‌ can range from $599 for a base M4 model to $1,999 for a high-end M4 Pro model with 64GB of unified memory.

The three configurations include the MacWeb Base M4 at $99 per month, the MacWeb Power M4 Pro at $199 per month, and the MacWeb Ultimate M4 Pro at $299 per month. The Base M4, featuring the standard M4 chip, is designed for virtual desktops and small-scale tasks. The Power M4 Pro includes a 12-core CPU and 24GB of unified memory, making it suitable for application development and testing. The Ultimate M4 Pro, MacWeb's most advanced tier, offers a 14-core CPU, a 20-core GPU, and 64GB of unified memory, capable of handling intensive workloads such as AI model training and mission-critical applications.

MacWeb touts the potential of its M4 Pro configurations to support advanced networking capabilities using Thunderbolt 5. According to the company, Thunderbolt 5 delivers 80 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth, a performance leap described as being up to 800 percent faster than 10G Ethernet. This apparently enables seamless clustering of Mac minis, allowing users to pool resources for distributed computing tasks, including video editing and large-scale software testing.

Companies like AWS has offered similar services in recent years, but MacWeb's integration of Apple's latest Mac hardware positions it at the forefront of the market, along with MacStadium. MacWeb has retained its M2-based offerings for developers with less demanding performance requirements.

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Top Rated Comments

lenningj

24 months ago

This is per device? at 5-6 months of the base subscription, especially with the low energy cost to run, suggest buying outright for most. Not sure who would jump onto this

Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CharlesShaw

24 months ago

Awww, the 2024 mini is too cute to spend its life as a drone in a server farm. I hope they're treated well.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

StuBeck

24 months ago

What are the main use cases that make this business viable? Must be only for very short term higher compute tasks in between higher compute custom systems. From the description it sounds like it’s mainly for video fx/rendering but is there that much demand? How can this business even survive?

Short-term use, and when you don't have an infrastructure team available to set this up, plus ongoing management of the infrastructure. The costs of an environment aren't just the initial upfront hardware cost.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

masterleep

24 months ago

It seems pretty expensive. Better to rent a cabinet and stick your minis on a shelf there.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

SanderEvers

24 months ago

With those prices.. just wait 6 months and buy one.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Spock

24 months ago

Does that recoup the IT costs in getting something set up and managed for a few months? Some of us do our own IT, but not everyone has those abilities. It's likely way less expensive to rent for a few months than to pay for the machines, pay someone to set up and support, and then sell. If not, then buy and sell. Personally, I'd buy and then resell, but I'm comfortable being my own tech support.

I think it can depend on the size of the organization as well. I don't think that this is meant for the enterprise market. After you paid the legal team to go over the EULA and then pass the service onto security for evaluation you could most likely buy a couple Mac minis and keep them on-site.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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Cloud-Based M4 and M4 Pro Mac Mini Models Now Available

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