I reckon we might lose the firewire ports, but that's about as far as it will go.
If you are betting on two 5.25" ODD bays being present you're likely going to loose. Firewire staying (e.g., on the front socket panel ) is far more likely than two ODDs bays.
Unless there is some reason Apple is hard pressed to attached to the Thunderbolt controller to x4 PCI-e lanes, FW will likely stay (e.g. attaching to the C600 series I/O Hub leaves just 4 lanes left and USB3.0/Ethernet/Wifi/Bluetooth/audio/etc gobble up the remaining 4. A small PCI-e switch could solve that issue also though to multiply one x1 lane into 2-3 1x lanes. ). If the mini can afford to have it, it is a huge leap to toss it from the Mac Pro. Sure the iMac dropped it but the Mac Pro (unlike the Mini and the iMac ) has
two socket panels.
Sure FW will likely get dropped from the back panel. But that still leaves two FW ports on the front. On the Mini where there was no reason to nuke a port (e.g. needed space for a second TB port) Apple left the FW port on the 2012 model. Thunderbolt can't pragmatically be on front and back. It is only going to be one. That means the "other" likely won't loose much unless there is something radical they are doing to the front also ( which is unlikely. Even arguments for "smaller" demands little of the front sockets.)
. The only reason why "can't" is:
A. ran out of space on the motherboard. Unlikely.
B. could hook up the FW controller. Unlikely.
Folks may get all twisted about a port not being on the back, but it probably will be around.
There is a chance Apple may keep one 5.25" bay, but
two ODDs ???? All indicators is that Apple doesn't believe that is a commonly desired/required config. In fact more that a few folks on this forum use the second bay for just about everything else but a 2nd ODD . It isn't likely Apple is being unilateral in repurposing the 2nd bay to something else. It is already being done in the marketplace.
