Mini What??? :)

[Gears of Apple]

I must have been living under a rock because I only just found out about the Mac Mini!! Lol I was a Windows desktop user then I moved on to power laptops. After getting an iPod, iPad, Apple TV and my girlfriend having a iPhone I seem to be liking apples/mac apps and functions.
The Mac Mini will fit in great to manage all me media content. I have some questions tho;

I am thinking of getting the Mac Mini. (When was this one out? 2008? Should I wait for a few months to see if they release a next gen?

2.4GHz : 320GB
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
320GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
Mac OS X Snow Leopard

I have seen stuff about upgrading the Mini. Can I upgrade the memory, CD & DVD Drive, Internal Hard Drive, external (Seagate & iomega 1TB compatible)?
I plan on keeping the Internal hard drive clean & putting all of my media and apps on the external TB

Gears of Apple

 

[flopticalcube]

Current one has been out about one year. Next one due soon. Memory is upgradeable. Drive is a DVD Writer. HD is "challenging" to change.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

I used the mini quite some while as only Mac, also mainly iTunes and XCode. Now I want to make a server out of it and wait for lion.

I upgraded memory myself and also recently replace the internal disk with and SSD. My Mac mini is the one generation behind, opening the chasis was a bit difficult but my Swiss Army Knife helped a lots.

My main storage is also an external NAS so no problem with a smaller SSD as internal disk.

 

[old-wiz]

My wife uses a mini as her main machine. She does a lot of writing and surfing the web. It's small, doesn't make a lot of noise and works fine with the external display she had from her ancient white box Windows machine. I added a firewire drive for Time Machine and she loves it.

 

[KennyMac]

I must have been living under a rock because I only just found out about the Mac Mini!! Lol I was a Windows desktop user then I moved on to power laptops. After getting an iPod, iPad, Apple TV and my girlfriend having a iPhone I seem to be liking apples/mac apps and functions.
The Mac Mini will fit in great to manage all me media content. I have some questions tho;

I am thinking of getting the Mac Mini. (When was this one out? 2008? Should I wait for a few months to see if they release a next gen?

2.4GHz : 320GB
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
320GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
Mac OS X Snow Leopard

I have seen stuff about upgrading the Mini. Can I upgrade the memory, CD & DVD Drive, Internal Hard Drive, external (Seagate & iomega 1TB compatible)?
I plan on keeping the Internal hard drive clean & putting all of my media and apps on the external TB

Gears of Apple

This is the 2010 version and there should be a refresh soon so if you can wait I would, but I couldn't wait just got mine and I Upgraded to 4Gb of Ram and it Works Great with The TV2, iPad2, and iPhone 4.
I think You'll love it IT JUST WORKS

 

[lvlarkkoenen]

I love my Mini. Even though it REALLY needs replacing. The things it pulled through amaze me.
However, a few more notes on buying one now/near future:
Current Mini is a decent machine, but the processor it uses is a tad old. And I don't believe in buying a computer right now that has only 2GB of memory. The current version was indeed released in 2010, but from a CPU perspective it was hardly an upgrade over the 2009 one. Graphics power did increase though. My opinion is that it's too outdated for Apple to be still selling it.
The Mini refresh that is 'due' is expected to have a much better CPU, take a small dent in graphics performance and boast 4GB of RAM standard. Probably/hopefully a boost in HDD size as well. So it'd be worth it's salt a lot better. However, nobody knows for sure when it is going to be released (well perhaps Steve Jobs does). Given how it's been quite a while since the first Sandy Bridge machines were released, some people are arguing it might not see love at all until the next processor upgrade. (I'm not one of those people though)
Upgrading the memory is easy. Upgrading the internal HDD isn't. There's BTO options from the Apple store that are expensive, and there's external options that are less expensive. For more information on upgrading parts, Google iFixit Mac Mini teardown. I think they have upgrade guides as well for some pieces.

All in all though, as I think you'd be using it for pretty basic tasks, you said media content management, there's no need to want a Mac Mini that is yet to be released. Two reasons to wait come up though: 1. You want the bigger HDD, but there's ways to get that anyway. 2. The 2010 mini will be cheaper once the 2011 version is released.

 

[Gears of Apple]

Reading all this just makes me want to go and get one lol but i am at a low income point. Hopefully the new one will be out when income gets better.

If they put a better CPU in this year then more power to the people but for what i want it seems it will be fine. Alot of people are happy with their Mini Mac's then

Can't wait to use Plex, MetaX etc

 

[patp]

i think the current Mac Mini is a great computer as is and for most of my needs (web email, light word processing, occasional photo editing) it more than handles it with speed and grace!

Even at 2 gb RAM, it still moves fast. Eventually will upgrade to 8GB RAM and expecting a huge increase then.

I say go for it now. It's a great computer as is and for most everyday stuff, will work just fine.

 

[Gears of Apple]

How much do you think the price will go up (when and if they upgrade it)?

I think the one i want is about £612 that still alot of money and if they upgrade it and the price goes.. not sure how i would feel about it

 

[alust2013]

How much do you think the price will go up (when and if they upgrade it)?

I think the one i want is about £612 that still alot of money and if they upgrade it and the price goes.. not sure how i would feel about it

The price should stay the same. The current one is way overpriced for what you are buying. I'd recommend a refurb if you're going to buy now. Or you could wait and the refurbs will get cheaper when the new ones come out.

 

[satcomer]

I use my 2010 Mac Mini as a media server to my LG HDTV, using it's HDMI port. I use Plex with a Firewire 800 drive ( this miniStack) as the repository for the ripped moves (using Handbrake & MakeMKV) and it works great.

Note: I use my Mac Pro (in my signature) to do the ripping to the media external drive. It rips so much more quickly on that Mac Pro.