Base Spec Mini?

[Meister]

True….. And there have been several posters on various threads expressing satisfaction with an off the shelf 1.4 GHz Mini with 4 GB RAM and a 500 GB for their needs.

As to longevity….. My first Mac Mini, the base model 2005 original, came with just 0.25 GB RAM. I had to have it up graded to 0.5 GB when I first got on-line with a "mobile broadband" dongle a couple of years later.

You got first online after 2005?!?
What did you do before that?

 

[Micky Do]

You got first online after 2005?!?
What did you do before that?

A bit off topic, but…..

I was quite an early adopter of e-mail, and still use the Hotmail and Yahoo addresses I got soon after they arrived on the scene in the '90s. However, e-mail for me involved a session at an internet cafe every week or so. I lived quite an itinerant lifestyle then so a fixed phone line was useless to me. Mobile broadband had yet to arrive. I had no real need nor desire for a portable computer.

Perchance I became somewhat settled where I am now late in 2003, albeit from one annual visa and work permit renewal to the next. After a year or so I was starting to want a computer to do more work from home, but still didn't want a laptop, nor did I want a big desktop, but I did want something that was easily transported. The Mac Mini came along and I got the base model 2005 of the original, which had its shortcomings, but was OK for my needs. However four years on it was near obsolete.

With no telephone line to my apartment I was not on-line with that for another couple of years. Then mobile broadband arrived here late 2007. It offered up to 156 kb/sec, and seldom reached even half that, but I was on line at last…… and it was about 15 months before I got my first bill. The company had it on trial where I am and didn't start billing till they went nationwide.

When the HDD and power supply failed on the 2005 Mini, I replaced it with the early 2009 base model, which I am still using. A couple of generations of mobile broadband came and went, each involving expensive hardware upgrades….. up to 7.2 Mb/sec was the promise; I was lucky to see 5% of that in reality, but at least that was five to ten times faster than what the original freebie service could be relied upon to provide. It has to be said that at the time fixed line service was nothing flash, with one or two Mb/sec being regarded fairly good by local standards.

Since then optical fibre has been strung around the island, and the country now has more portals. With that has come a big improvement in internet service. Earlier this year fibre came to my neighbourhood. I now have the lowest level of service, 10 Mb/sec down / 500 kb/sec up, and usually get at least that, for about the same cost as the mobile broadband……. without having to pay for any hardware. Just coughed up for a year of service in advance and technicians arrived to install it a couple of days later.

 

[Meister]

A bit off topic, but…..

I was quite an early adopter of e-mail, and still use the Hotmail and Yahoo addresses I got soon after they arrived on the scene in the '90s. However, e-mail for me involved a session at an internet cafe every week or so. I lived quite an itinerant lifestyle then so a fixed phone line was useless to me. Mobile broadband had yet to arrive. I had no real need nor desire for a portable computer.

Perchance I became somewhat settled where I am now late in 2003, albeit from one annual visa and work permit renewal to the next. After a year or so I was starting to want a computer to do more work from home, but still didn't want a laptop, nor did I want a big desktop, but I did want something that was easily transported. The Mac Mini came along and I got the base model 2005 of the original, which had its shortcomings, but was OK for my needs. However four years on it was near obsolete.

With no telephone line to my apartment I was not on-line with that for another couple of years. Then mobile broadband arrived here late 2007. It offered up to 156 kb/sec, and seldom reached even half that, but I was on line at last…… and it was about 15 months before I got my first bill. The company had it on trial where I am and didn't start billing till they went nationwide.

When the HDD and power supply failed on the 2005 Mini, I replaced it with the early 2009 base model, which I am still using. A couple of generations of mobile broadband came and went, each involving expensive hardware upgrades….. up to 7.2 Mb/sec was the promise; I was lucky to see 5% of that in reality, but at least that was five to ten times faster than what the original freebie service could be relied upon to provide. It has to be said that at the time fixed line service was nothing flash, with one or two Mb/sec being regarded fairly good by local standards.

Since then optical fibre has been strung around the island, and the country now has more portals. With that has come a big improvement in internet service. Earlier this year fibre came to my neighbourhood. I now have the lowest level of service, 10 Mb/sec down / 500 kb/sec up, and usually get at least that, for about the same cost as the mobile broadband……. without having to pay for any hardware. Just coughed up for a year of service in advance and technicians arrived to install it a couple of days later.

Thanks for sharing

Didn't expect such an elaborate background story.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

...Also usb3 puts strain on the cpu.

Not much, if the USB<->SATA bridge chip uses the UASP.