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Comment by baby-yoda | Hacker News Reader

is it apparent from the teardown if there is a limitation which prevents 10g ethernet from being included in this model? pcie lanes or something similar?

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Not sure, but if you still need 10G you can get comparatively priced ($100 option vs $150 product) TB3<->10G adapters: https://www.sonnetstore.com/products/solo-10g

that is reasonable, thanks for sharing.

Any idea why this is so large?

Could be worse, see https://www.amazon.com/CalDigit-Connect-10G-Thunderbolt-Ethe.... Looks like the controller generates significant heat, so there's a tradeoff between active cooling or increased thermal mass.

My only slightly informed assumption is that it's using an older 10G PHY and the size is for cooling. These were a bit over 10W, not including the USB circuitry.

This is the lower end model. Apple kept the higher end intel mini in the line-up, which means they intend to replace that with something more powerful, which may add the 10G option.

I wish I shared your confidence in this. Apple has been all over the map with the mini so it's really hard to tell.

If they did though, it looks like there is plenty of space to turn this into a real powerhouse with the right CPU.

It used to be complicated because of the Intel SKUs.

Now Apple will simply use the next M Chip on MacBook Pro 16" and put it into Mac mini. And that should have spare PCI-E lane for 10Gbps Ethernet.

I don't think it was that simple. There were some massive gaps in the mini-upgrade cycle which didn't correspond to gaps in Intel's CPU lineup.

More recently though, it seems like Apple got the memo that people love these things. Hopefully we'll see a consistent flow of ever-improving minis along-side the MacBooks.

Apple obviously has sales numbers for 10g on the existing consumer products that offered it. I imagine it hasn't been a big seller.

my impression was always that the 10g was primarily offered to satisfy whale-customers like MacStadium. I recall seeing somewhere they accounted for estimated > 50% of Mini sales (although I may be completely embellishing that number). anything else just gravy.

SFP cage is huge

Don't need SFP for 10G. an 8P8C connector is still fine for that.

Not so few 10G users today need fiber. 10G over copper is a niche application.

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