a few questions about the new minis

[reidspice]

first, i'm assuming that the new minis do not support power nap? i see it specifically called out on the new 13" retina mbp but not on the mini so.. no? seems odd to not include that on new machines, especially ones that you can buy with SSD.

second, sounds like the integrated gpu will be able to run 2 decent sized displays without too much trouble. i'm looking to replace a 2008 mac pro with a couple 1920 x 1200 screens and i do a lot of photo editing with lightroom so want to be sure the hd 4000 will handle that setup okay.

third, for those of you who are replacing built-in drives with SSDs from various third parties, how can one be sure they will run as fast as the apple-supplied drives? i am not super knowledgeable on various bus types or whatever but it would be a bummer to not get the full impact of an SSD because of some unforseen I/O mismatch or bottleneck. i'm thinking i may go with the fusion drive just to be safe.. seems like a reasonable tradeoff, especially considering that installing the SSD yourself doesn't sound super easy. i have a NAS already but only 256 gb in my day-to-day machine just seems like it would be annoying: i'll always be running out of space locally and fighting to free up room for this or that.

and finally, what happened to itunes 11? i know that a) it's not end of october yet and b) that question has nothing to do with minis but... was expecting to see that update roll out today. guess we'll see it in the next week?

 

[milkmandan]

second, sounds like the integrated gpu will be able to run 2 decent sized displays without too much trouble. i'm looking to replace a 2008 mac pro with a couple 1920 x 1200 screens and i do a lot of photo editing with lightroom so want to be sure the hd 4000 will handle that setup okay.

third, for those of you who are replacing built-in drives with SSDs from various third parties, how can one be sure they will run as fast as the apple-supplied drives? i am not super knowledgeable on various bus types or whatever but it would be a bummer to not get the full impact of an SSD because of some unforseen I/O mismatch or bottleneck. i'm thinking i may go with the fusion drive just to be safe.. seems like a reasonable tradeoff, especially considering that installing the SSD yourself doesn't sound super easy. i have a NAS already but only 256 gb in my day-to-day machine just seems like it would be annoying: i'll always be running out of space locally and fighting to free up room for this or that.

I'll answer what i know.
Yes, the Intel HD4000 will be able to run 2 decent sized displays.
From the features page: "You can daisy-chain as many as six Thunderbolt devices — including two Apple Thunderbolt Displays — to a single port."
http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/features.html

If it can support two Apple Thunderbolt Displays, it can definitely handle 2 decent sized displays.
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As for the SSD. Unless you aren't too worried about spending the extra $$ i would opt to put one in yourself. There are plenty of youtube videos out there and I am sure sooner or later someone is gna update a video guide to install your own SSD into the new Mac Minis. Though honestly, the design looks almost identical to the 2011 models, so it should be the same.

As for model and make, I've heard plenty of success stories of people using the Crucial m4 and/or Samsung 830. Both are fantastic SSDs and in the PC market, pretty much top tiered recommended SSDs.

I just bought the dual core mac mini today myself and plan to upgrade it with a Samsung 830 128GB.

 

[JamSandwich]

Just curious, I assume it's no problem to connect one display via Thunderbolt and the other via HDMI? I'm actually looking at a pair of Samsung monitors that will connect both ways.

EDIT: Other question deleted because apparently I am blind to the firewire port.