You finally have the option to upgrade the built-in 1Gbps Ethernet port to 10Gbps at the time of purchase.
Apple Now Allows You to Configure the M1 Mac mini with a 10Gbps Ethernet Port
The M1 Mac mini is the only Mac with the most variety of ports. Everything else just simply does not go beyond the standard USB 4 / Thunderbolt 3 ports configuration.
The Mac mini also ships with a Gigabit Ethernet port as standard, allowing you to hardwire the Mac to the internet for lower latency and faster speeds. However, that port was limited to just 1Gbps speeds.
Thankfully, it seems as though that now you can upgrade that port to 10Gbps at the time of purchase. But keep one thing in mind: if you have already purchased the Mac mini, you cannot upgrade it. You need to place a customized order for it where you pay $100 extra for the upgrade.
Even you have received the Mac mini with the 1Gbps Ethernet port, do not panic as you can still get 10Gbps speeds with the help of a Thunderbolt 3 adapter. They are littered all over places like Amazon and are pretty easy to find.
It somewhat makes us mad how this upgrade was not made available to everyone at the initial launch. There are handful of users out there who rely on a faster Ethernet port for a wide variety of reasons. For example, you might be running a storage server at home and moving files around needs to be quick and snappy.
With this upgrade, you now have the luxury of experiencing faster internet speeds if you have fiber at home exceeding 1Gbps speeds. Such speeds simply cannot be experienced over Wi-Fi due to a lot of reasons.
Sometimes the good old fashioned cable trick makes everything go faster, doesn’t it?
