The Apple Mac mini "Core i5" 2.5 (Mid-2011/Aluminum Unibody) features a 32-nm "Sandy Bridge" 2.5 GHz Intel "Core i5" (2520M) processor with two independent processor "cores" on a single chip, a 3 MB shared level 3 cache, 4 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (PC3-10600) memory, a 500 GB hard drive, and AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics with 256 MB of dedicated GDDR5 memory. It does not have an internal optical drive, although an external one can be purchased.

Connectivity includes a Firewire "800" port, four USB 2.0 ports, combined "audio line in (digital/analog)" and combined "audio line out/headphone (digital/analog)" minijacks, a 10/100/1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0, an SDXC card slot and an HDMI port as well as a new "Thunderbolt" port that is backwards compatible with Mini DisplayPort and likewise supports an external display at 2560x1600 and passes an audio signal as well. Thunderbolt also supports other peripherals that use the Thunderbolt standard which provides up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth in both directions.