Need help with Mac mini purchase decision

[KrisLord]

iMac's are nice but the higher price and lack of after purchase upgrade options put me off

I also prefer keeping the option to upgrade my PC at different interval to my monitor

 

[talmy]

@talmy: so you have to copy as BD structure off sdcard? That sux, i got old ones archived in the mts format

Hence my mention of AVCCAM Restorer.

 

[zerozoneice]

ok so what's the best place to buy Apple stuff in the US?
i found B&H have the lowest price, but Apple store itself when they have refurbs it's even cheaper!!

any other places?

edit: just found http://www.refurb.me/us/ , nice overview, works also for other stores than US

 

[Fishrrman]

"any other places?"

portableone.com
(no financial interest - bought my 2012 Mini from them)

 

[zerozoneice]

"any other places?"

portableone.com
(no financial interest - bought my 2012 Mini from them)

excellent! $17 cheaper than B&H
not much i can upgrade with $17, i think i'll go for B&H because they bundle Paralels 8 Desktop.

 

[chrfr]

some relative is in the US and can bring it over so i can now focus on US prices

If you can do this, look at the refurbished computers on the Apple Store. You can get significant discounts on current models that way. Availability fluctuates so you may have to keep checking.

 

[zerozoneice]

If you can do this, look at the refurbished computers on the Apple Store. You can get significant discounts on current models that way. Availability fluctuates so you may have to keep checking.

yea i am checking using that site i posted above, they had an i7 @ 2.3 for $679...insane. Or the i5 for $509...last seen 22h ago

 

[zerozoneice]

found some super combo at Newegg for $687!
mini i5 + 8GB Corsair + 128GB Samsung 840 Series Pro

i think SSD and more RAM will benefit more my daily tasks than 2 extra cores.
think about PC usage without the gaming....

found these benchmarks here and there's not a lot in between both "late 2012" machines... http://www.macworld.com/article/2013675/lab-tested-the-mac-mini-maximized-with-fusion-drive.html

still no refurb Mac Mini @ Apple that would be the deal
just checked a guide for installing a SSD on ifixit and freaked out !

anyway...to calm down and land back on Earth...this is technology we're talking about.
i think i'll go for base i5 since i won't keep it for ages

need your tips please

$565 base i5 system (B&H)
$628 base i5 + 8GB crucial (B&H)
$687 base i5 + 8GB crucial + 128GB SSD Samsung 840 Pro (Newegg)

the thing is if i get the extra RAM it's a pity not to get the SSD for less than $50, DAMN those marketing geniuses. Question is: 4GB in my Win8 PC is more than enough, would i need 8GB in the Mac? How much more is OS X dependent on RAM than Windows?

 

[mrmr.scooby]

maybe asking too much of the mini

Just want to throw this question into the thread.....

The talk of adding an extra HDD or more likely an SSD, but is it possible to add a Seagate hybrid HDD as well as keeping the standard drive or would this cause a conflict within drive controller? The only reason is maximise storage/performance availability for media server.

 

[talmy]

Question is: 4GB in my Win8 PC is more than enough, would i need 8GB in the Mac? How much more is OS X dependent on RAM than Windows?

4GB is probably more than enough. You can determine if you have enough after you buy the system since adding more memory is easy to do at any time.

Just want to throw this question into the thread.....

The talk of adding an extra HDD or more likely an SSD, but is it possible to add a Seagate hybrid HDD as well as keeping the standard drive or would this cause a conflict within drive controller? The only reason is maximise storage/performance availability for media server.

The hybrid drive behaves identically to a HDD as far as the Mac is concerned. But consider this -- hard drive performance isn't an issue at all for a media server. The only thing that really matters is storage. So there is no reason to waste money on the hybrid or even spend more for less capacity with an SSD. The best mini for a media server is either buy the server model (and get 2TB hard drive capacity), buy base model and upgrade the hard drive plus buy the cabling and add a second 1 TB HDD (if you are handy with tools), or buy the base model and add external USB2 or USB3 hard drives. No reason to buy any upgrades.

I''ve got one mini as a server system and two more as entertainment centers (they don't hold any media, but act as fancy "Apple TVs". The mini server is 3 years old and has 4 hard drives connected via FW800 or USB2 connected to it. It works just fine. The entertainment centers are base model minis (late 2009 models). I recently upgraded one of the entertainment center minis with an SSD when its HDD failed. Unless you are doing something that is disk intensive (such as booting the system, however I sleep the systems) you can't really tell the difference between the SSD and HDD minis in this application.

 

[zerozoneice]

HAHAHA, i just realised the i5 mini has the same specs as my Lenovo X230

i5 3210M with HD4000 and 4GB RAM

Now this is something to benchmark against and i can definitely say i'm lucky to have a speed comparison so close at hand.
========================
Edit:

X230 Geekbench 32bit score of 5753
Intel Core i5-3210M @ 2.49 GHz 1 processor, 2 cores, 4 threads
4096 MB DDR3 SDRAM 799MHz

i7 2.3 GHz Mac Mini scores around 10K so yes, CPU/Memory wise it is a big difference vs i5
i5 2.5 GHz Mac Mini scores around 6000-6700 so a bit better than my Lenovo setup, probably due to faster RAM

 

[zerozoneice]

ok found a mega good deal on a mid2011 21.5" imac for ~US$950

quad i5, 8GB 1333RAM, Radeon 6750M 512MB, 500GB 7200rpm drive
mint condition, wireless keyboard, magic mouse, trackpad, etc.

i think it's a better deal than 2012 iMac because of the upgrade-ability of RAM/HDD/SSD and built-in DVD writer.

Screen is the same as 2012 iMac (not anti-reflective coating though), but resolution/DPI is the same. I don't mind the extra few cm's of depth

40 days left of warranty as well btw.
what do you think, good deal for my first Mac?

 

[talmy]

When in stock at the refurb store, that model (but with 4GB RAM) is $979 and has a full year of warranty. So I wouldn't say it's an exceptional deal.

 

[zerozoneice]

Considering what i said before that we dont have an apple store in sight, i'd say it's pretty good.