I purchased a M4 Mac Mini as the software I am using was taxing my M1 MacBook Air. Now that I have a desktop I ran a Cat 6 line to the MacMini. I have 1gb service.
But if I want to use my Apple Watch to unlock the Mini I need WiFi on. Will this cause a problem with moving files from disk to iCloud? I would prefer that the disk and safari download use Ethernet due to speed. Thanks.
I’m pretty sure all you need to do is make sure that your Ethernet connection is higher than your Wifi in the “Set Service Order…” setting which is in the Settings app, under Network. Look for the little dropdown at the bottom right, and then just drag in the next window to get the order you want.
If you’re not on Sequoia, the exact setting page might be slightly different.
An M4 Mac mini has to run Sequoia, so that’s correct.
WiFi (and Bluetooth?) need to be enabled but you do not need to have the Mini connected to a WiFi network. I run this configuration on my iMac Pro (wired connection with WiFi turned on but not connected to my wireless network) and am able to use unlock with watch and use the watch to authenticate in place of TouchId/FaceID since I don’t have the newer keyboard.
Thank you. I looked at Network and had an order like yours, but I didn’t know it was set specifically in an order. When I clicked on the Set Service Order, everything looked good except for the second item. Maybe this is the external drive that I use for Carbon Copy? Maybe the name is the detailed product info?
Oh, I didn’t think about that one. I always assumed if you click on WiFi, it would connect. But I did turn off auto-join on all my networks. Thank you!
I have not noticed any issues with my Mac mini M1 by using both WiFi and Ethernet. (Though I will go check the order as suggested by @Evan in his earlier response.) Recently purchased a Belkin Gigabit adapter to plug into my MacBookPro M1 and again have not noticed any issues (but I need to check the order).
Apple product typically will default to Ethernet (when connected) over wifi. Setting the Service Order should give some folks the “peace of mind” they want.
Looks like the AX88179A is a “Single chip USB 3.2 Gen1 to Gigabit Ethernet Controller with Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet PHY” I assume it is being listed as data is flowing through it to the router.
TIL about service order.
Thank you
Presumably you’d remember a dongle. It could be a dock or hub though? Or perhaps a monitor you’ve plugged into to use as a USB hub that happened to include an Ethernet port?
IIRC some dongles add that item and it doesn’t disappear when the dongle is unplugged, so if you’ve ever migrated from a previous computer it may not even be a dongle you’ve used in the past 10 years
I have WiFi turned on on my M1 iMac as well as a Ethernet connection. Never affects connection speed. I did a test of why you want to use wired connections whenever possible by doing speed tests over WiFi and Ethernet. Eero node was 4 feet from iMac so no distance issues. Here are the results:
Thanks for the information. I agree about the wired connection. When I used the laptop before, it could take hours on s/w updates, moving data to the cloud, etc. Now, with the wired connection, it can be just moments of a delay. Amazing. (but I was never that close to my wifi so speeds were much slower than what you have displayed)
