YouTuber Quinn Nelson from Snazzy Labs has released a very interesting video showing just how much smaller a Mac mini could be, by stripping down the current M1 Mac mini and making a whole new enclosure for it. The CAD files and schematics have also been published for free, if you want to DIY your own.
In conclusion, by rearranging the internals and swapping out the power supply, Nelson was able to reduce the size of the Mac mini enclosure by 78%. He organized all the parts inside a 3D-printed body with a mini Mac Pro motif.
Obviously, this is just a proof of concept based on the existing Mac mini board layout. Apple could engineer something even smaller, if it wanted to.
The reason that theoretical space savings are so huge is because when Apple released the first round of Apple Silicon computers, they did not change the hardware industrial design at all. So the current Mac Mini enclosure is designed to fit an Intel CPU and circuit board, including having to accommodate the large fans and heat sinks the Intel chip required.
But with the power efficiency of the M1, Apple has the headroom to do something much more drastic. Indeed, a lot of the M1 Mac mini internals is just empty space. The Snazzy Labs video gives a glimpse at what is possible if Apple is more ambitious with the next-generation Mac mini design, and tries to create something truly mini.
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