Sweet, glad to hear. I just bought a Mini Duo w/ 1gb RAM & wireless keyboard/mouse for my Mom & Sister-attached to a 23" ACD 
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I just have to say I love the mini
- Thread starter itcheroni
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thegreatluke said:Demoman:
There are many alternatives to the Windows Office suite. There's Office:mac, OpenOffice.org, and StarOffice to nam a few.
I know about Office:mac, not about the others. The idea is to escape from MS's predatory pricing. I think this will be solved soon. It is being attacked from many different angles.
Ditto. The ministack is almost a must have just for the extra ports. And it matches nicely to the mini if you worry about looks. I have a 250gb in the stack and it boots and runs OSX. The internal drive in the mini is WinXP only. It's a nice setup really.
I've been planning on getting a ministack when i get a mini. What speed drive, size cache are you drives and how do they compare to the internal. Just wondering about a ministack 7200 ATA with an 8MB or 16MB cache versus the internal 5400 SATA drive that comes with the mini.
What ministack are you guys referring too? How does it connect & is the performance upgrade noticeable?
Brad,
go to OWC's website http://www.macsales.com they have the newerTech v2 ministack which adds ports and has the same footprint. You can get it with a variety of size drives or get an empty case for $80 to slap your own drive into.
go to OWC's website http://www.macsales.com they have the newerTech v2 ministack which adds ports and has the same footprint. You can get it with a variety of size drives or get an empty case for $80 to slap your own drive into.
I never really compared. Others have claimed speed gains due to the faster drives. No doubt a large copy job would be faster on the faster drive, but some have claimed the system is faster. I liked the idea and just started out with the system on the external. Firewire connection necessary for external system, btw.
I plan to put XP on the internal drive, too. Just haven't gotten around to it. I need to load up Parallels to see if it is enough for my needs (remote programming and audio work), and just haven't. If not, I'll have to go Boot Camp.
I also wanted the extra ports offered by the Stack. Otherwise, a regular external drive case would be fine, too.
I plan to put XP on the internal drive, too. Just haven't gotten around to it. I need to load up Parallels to see if it is enough for my needs (remote programming and audio work), and just haven't. If not, I'll have to go Boot Camp.
I also wanted the extra ports offered by the Stack. Otherwise, a regular external drive case would be fine, too.
I just bought the ministack "naked" for $80. Added a 250GB Seagate 7200 RPM drive from Best Buy for another $70 when it was on sale. Connected via firewire. I'll bet it's faster than the internal for bootup, but it does need to be switched on a few seconds before the mini is powered on. I use sleep mode most of the time so this is not an issue.
Tip: If you get a ministack, put rubber feet on the bottom of the mini to allow a slightly larger seperation when you stack them. Cooling is so much better, and it doesn't take away from the looks at all.
Better performance? Who knows. Don't spend the money on it if that is what you want. Need more storgae and more firewire/usb ports? Then grab it. Nice box for sure!
Tip: If you get a ministack, put rubber feet on the bottom of the mini to allow a slightly larger seperation when you stack them. Cooling is so much better, and it doesn't take away from the looks at all.
Better performance? Who knows. Don't spend the money on it if that is what you want. Need more storgae and more firewire/usb ports? Then grab it. Nice box for sure!
I don't think you would realize the speed of the SATA through Firewire much over ATA since I believe the Firewire is the bottleneck at that point. Not too mention with the premium difference between SATA and ATA plus the cost of the case difference, performance per dollar is definitely not worth it. It's good to hear that those using Ministacks are pleased with them.
lcseds thanks for the tip on the feet. what did you use? clear plastic rubber or black? where'd you get them? Post a pic of your stack set.
lcseds thanks for the tip on the feet. what did you use? clear plastic rubber or black? where'd you get them? Post a pic of your stack set.
