help with a 2014 mac mini (MGEM2LL/A) htpc

[alme55]

I found a refurbished base model 2014 mac mini on amazon for $139, a good price compared to its $499 retail price so i figured i would take my chances with it.  This is the first apple computer i will ever own, so i am wondering if anyone knows if it could be made into a good htpc for streaming video and games (Netflix, Hulu, Steam streaming,from a Nas, etc.) for my living room tv.

 

Also i saw that the upgraded version has a slot for a pcie ssd, does anyone know if the base model comes with the slot for the pcie so i could upgrade it myself? or is the pcie slot only in the upgraded version?

[Sauron]

Upgrading a mac is usually not a thing (although MAYBE it can be done, I'm almost positive it would insta-void the warranty). I also suggest you put a linux distro on it, it will probably run better than osx on such a low performance system. Then yeah, you can use it as an htpc no problem.

[alme55]

i don't really care about the warranty, once i know it has the pcie slot in it i will add the ssd, the included 5400rpm hard drive is just too slow, i was hoping to mess with the apple os as it is new to me, i use multiple variants of linux and windows machines every day at work lol, the only reason i even bought this was to tinker with it as a mac, would osx just not cut it as an htpc?

[alme55]

It has space for 2 SATA SSD's and you can get up to 16GB of RAM I think.

it has 4gb of soldered ram, so none up-gradable unfortunately, and only one sata port, so i could just swap out the hard drive for an ssd, but i would rather use the pcie if i can

[alme55]

yup, only the hard drive is upgrade-able in the 2014 model, kinda sad that they take that away from their buyers. Guess if you want to upgrade it they want you to pay them an extra $100 for another 4gb's of ram to make it 8gb and $200 for the same cpu just clocked faster when you buy it lol.

[alme55]

I found this video on the youtubes

it seems to work well with plex, i just need to buy that apple remote and i should be able to choose what apps i want to open with it.  Hopefully i can open steam with the remote, as i really want this to be able to stream from my tower in my office to this pc in my living room.

[egibbys]

I found a refurbished base model 2014 mac mini on amazon for $139, a good price compared to its $499 retail price so i figured i would take my chances with it.

 

You seriously got one for that price? Wow. Such a good deal. I would have bought it in a heartbeat.

[LarsReviews]

We got a mac mini 2009 as a HTPC. If works fine with every kind of HD content. The first thing I would do is upgrade it to at least 8gb of ram. It makes a huge difference.