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Mac Mini Purchased!

Spanky Deluxe:

can you post the link for dabs.com for the 4GB memory, as I can't find any. Crutial is still showing out of stock. Ta
 
jesterscourt said:
Does this mean you got the Apple Store/Genius Bar to install the memory? I am curious if Apple policy is across the board, because my local Apple store didn't have the new mini in stock launch day, so I ordered it ($599 version) online and got it around the same time they got it in stock.

I went into the store later on to ask about upgrading the RAM/HDD and asked if I could pay them to do it, I'm fairly comfortable with building PCs and so forth, but something seems iffy about the whole popping/clicking aspect of unhinging the case of the mini, and I don't want to break the little bugger.

Anyhow the Apple worker said no, they wouldn't install it, and opening the case would invalidate your warranty. I asked him how they would do repairs on their own without opening the case up, and he walked away. So yeah, long story made longer, I should be getting the Crucial 2x2 gig sticks tomorrow, and now I'm curious if I should just ship them back if they aren't going to install them.
Click to expand...

That's interesting that they flat out said no. Those employees don't know what they're talking about: if the case is opened, the warranty is still valid as long as nothing is broken inside. In addition, obviously, if they damage something while doing a task for you they are obligated to FIX it.

By the way, I asked my nearby Apple Store (Millenia) about that very same question. They said they would be more than happy to and that it is the EXACT same price as if you were to do CTO. They would even honor my education discount (as they are supposed to). Still need to ask the other two Apple stores in the Orlando area to confirm, but I was pleasantly surprised by this finding!

EDIT:
So I realized you wanted to upgrade your OWN RAM. My bad. A little odd that they won't honor it still but understandable. Sorry I just woke up...
 
Thanks spanky! :D

So that's exactly the same memory as the crucial 2x2GB they sell for £52.89? Because Dabs does not state it's for mac mini like crucial does, a little voice in my head tells me to double check! :rolleyes:

Just need a new internal hard drive now, pref from amazon as I have a gift certificate to use. Can anyone recommend one? 250Gb or 320GB

Oh and a 7200rpm HD should make the mini much more responsive than a 5400rpm HD, is that correct? Worth spending an extra £30 for the 7200prm?
 
Not got my head around this yet.....if I used a 7200 rpm external HD with a bootable partition via fW 800- would that run faster than the stock 5200 HD the Mini ships with....I'm just not sure , does anyone know for certain ?
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
Thanks spanky! :D

So that's exactly the same memory as the crucial 2x2GB they sell for £52.89? Because Dabs does not state it's for mac mini like crucial does, a little voice in my head tells me to double check! :rolleyes:

Just need a new internal hard drive now, pref from amazon as I have a gift certificate to use. Can anyone recommend one? 250Gb or 320GB

Oh and a 7200rpm HD should make the mini much more responsive than a 5400rpm HD, is that correct? Worth spending an extra £30 for the 7200prm?
Click to expand...

As far as hard drives go, I've always been a fan of the Seagate drives. Are you sure its an extra £30 for 7200rpm? A Seagate 320GB 5400rpm drive is £62.08 while a 7200rpm equivalent from Seagate is £67.60 on Dabs. I'd recommend going for a 320GB 7200rpm drive. The only reason I'm not getting one and will be using a 250GB 7200rpm drive is that my MacBook Pro came with the 250GB drive when I bought it and I immediately upgraded it to a 320GB one, so I've got a spare drive lying around.

In regards to the memory, just look at the product code. The stuff sold by dabs has the manufacture product code as "CT25664BC1067" which is the same stuff as Crucial sells. The product code on that crucial page is slightly different to the one on the Mac memory page but its the same stuff.
 
marbles said:
Not got my head around this yet.....if I used a 7200 rpm external HD with a bootable partition via fW 800- would that run faster than the stock 5200 HD the Mini ships with....I'm just not sure , does anyone know for certain ?
Click to expand...

Its depatebale. Yes, an external firewire 800 7200rpm 3.5" drive will be faster than an internal 5200 rpm 2.5" drive, however you're firewire drive would saturate the firewire bandwidth limits if it churned out data transfers faster than about 100MB/s. The Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drive manages about 125MB/s so could do that.

If you're really worried about performance premiums, there's a way to hookup an external SATA drive to mac minis simply by running an SATA cable out the back and down into an external enclosure. See here. Alternatively, you could put an SSD drive in of course.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
Its depatebale. Yes, an external firewire 800 7200rpm 3.5" drive will be faster than an internal 5200 rpm 2.5" drive, however you're firewire drive would saturate the firewire bandwidth limits if it churned out data transfers faster than about 100MB/s. The Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drive manages about 125MB/s so could do that.

If you're really worried about performance premiums, there's a way to hookup an external SATA drive to mac minis simply by running an SATA cable out the back and down into an external enclosure. See here. Alternatively, you could put an SSD drive in of course.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking of getting a new external soon so will get this( because I've got the standard GDrive and it'll match up nice with that, and it's a good drive too-so they say) http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-driveq.cfm to go with my mini.

Might just not fuss about speed and have a drive connected to my wireless network instead,..then go for a portable external for the macbook ...ways to go just now I'm not sure what to do.

I've a thread asking about wireless n networks and setting up drives on them and ways to go before purchase https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/666482/
 
Oh I see what you mean with the codes, thanks Spanky. After checking the specs they look identical on both dabs and crucial. So i've just ordered memory from dabs. :)

I'll see what I can find and post the links, but i'm pretty certain it's £30 more expensive for a 7200rpm, but that's probably because it's amazon (ideally need to use them to use up my gift certificate with them)
 
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beatmonkeytwo said:
£50 for 320GB 5400rpm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1236874542&sr=1-1

£67 for 250GB 7200rpm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Dig...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1236862662&sr=1-1

£17 more but 70GB less space, but faster drive...

There are others but they are from 3rd party sellers, and they are around £83. Going to have to keep digging. Ideally wanted a 250 - 320GB 7200 for under £60
Click to expand...

Hitachi has been the market leader in 2.5" drives for quite a while and make great drives. Right now they have a $20 rebate on their 7200RPM/320GB 2.5" drive (assuming you want to replace the internal drive on a new Mini). After rebate, they're going for around $55-$65 or so depending on where you buy. I've got two of these drives, one in my new Mini and one I've been using in a pocket-size portable enclosure (Mercury On-The-Go from OWC) and they're solid, quick, and quiet.
 
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DHart said:
Hitachi has been the market leader in 2.5" drives for quite a while and make great drives. Right now they have a $20 rebate on their 7200RPM/320GB 2.5" drive (assuming you want to replace the internal drive on a new Mini). After rebate, they're going for around $55-$65 or so depending on where you buy. I've got two of these drives, one in my new Mini and one I've been using in a pocket-size portable enclosure (Mercury On-The-Go from OWC) and they're solid, quick, and quiet.
Click to expand...

Do you have the drive code so I can find the exact one on amazon.co.uk please? Yeah the stock 120GB drive will be coming out the mini and this new one will be going in.
 
Also do you have to format the new drive in an external enclosure before putting it in the mini? Or can you just put it into the mini and insert the leopard disks, format the disk with disk utility, then actually install leopard on to it? :confused::confused::confused:
 
Shayne said:
I thought about going that way but I wanted the 256MB of video vs. the 128MB in the base model. Memory pricing wasn't bad at about $110 i think for the 4GB where as the best I can do in Canada for the 2x2 is about $85 so im not saving a lot and also being pretty wasteful if I can't find a buyer for the 2x1.

Strange the the video card uses shared memory but its limited some how in the cheaper one. Maybe it goes up with more memory?

The drive is the one thing though that I might replace. 5400 i think will just be too painful to use compare to a 7200.
Click to expand...

The new MM will automatically "jump" to 256MB of videoram when you install
even 2GB of ram. Just read the footnote on the mini specs.

The cheaper model is the way to go imo.
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
Do you have the drive code so I can find the exact one on amazon.co.uk please? Yeah the stock 120GB drive will be coming out the mini and this new one will be going in.
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145228

I installed it in an external enclosure first, formatted it, then installed OS-X on it, then installed it in the Mini. Then the external enclosure makes a nice mobile pocket-sized home for the 120GB drive you remove from the mini.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MSTG800U2K/
 
yeah... they're very costly, but if you can swallow the cost, they're awesome little cases with FW800. If you just want USB 2.0 (who in the Mac world would?) they have a much less costly version.
 
WOOOOHOOO! :D:D:D:D typing this from my new mac mini! It's sweet. Can wait to get delivery of my memory and sort out the Hard drive. :D

Thanks Dhart. They have that one at amazon but it is a 3rd party seller so I can't use my gift certificate! Booooo. I'm going to keep on looking. Will definitely be getting an external enclosure but one that's around £10!
 
They are awesome, but not that hardy in my experience. A friend has been through three under warranty. Sending them back international post gets expensive!
 
Spendy, but wonderful. I've been using three of these for a couple of years now on a daily basis. FW800/FW400/USB2.0, SATA, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, BUS POWERED!!!! No power cord, no power adaptor, just plug your FW800 cable in and it's running. Really fast with FW800 and a 7200RPM drive. Huge capacity for such a small, nimble device. They are amazingly handy and I use one to shuffle huge client files (hi-res photographs) here and there constantly. Well worth the $90 to me.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MSTG800U2K/
 
Ordered a stock base mini. Already got 4GB RAM coming as well. I ordered yesterday afternoon and paid for 2-3 day shipping. It still says "ships within 24 hours" even though its been over 30. Bunch of liars.
 
tumpy said:
Ordered a stock base mini. Already got 4GB RAM coming as well. I ordered yesterday afternoon and paid for 2-3 day shipping. It still says "ships within 24 hours" even though its been over 30. Bunch of liars.
Click to expand...

"ships within 24 hours" - does not mean will be at your door within 24hrs.

It means it_ will_ ship_ from _ their _ warehouse within 24hrs...ie: Within 24hrs it'll be packed, prepared then given to a courier within that 24hour time frame.
Hope this helps.
 
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