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New Mac Mini - No Optical Drive
- Thread starter haruhiko
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1) need to run windows 7. Comes on a DVD...
2) want legacy MS Office for Mac. Comes on a DVD...
3) I may have a virus / trojan. Will infect any writeable backup media but not a backup on a DVD...
4) have a CD with some scratches. Need to make a backup before I cannot read it any more.....
and how many people have lost their pictures or music because of a virus or HDD crash? You may be able to download the iTunes music again but how about the music that was ripped from CD, how are you going to re-rip it....
What about those precious pictures that you have no physical media for........
and what about those countries where they have no broadband? (or no broadband outside the main centres....)
and what about those countries where the broadband is capped at 3 Gb / month......
There is still a very valid use for the DVD/CD, not having one build in is a killer for me.... (this is why I did not have any interest in the server) I can understand from a business perspective the push to iTunes but it might backfire badly. At one stage CD sales dropped completely away but after several people have lost their whole music collection (lost iPod etc) the CD sales have gone up again. Shees wonder why....
If you do not want to use it than that's fine. If it is not in the ultra light laptops that's fine. But no excuse for not having it in a desktop or in the desktop' replacement laptops.
You'll find that those who have been around longer than just a few years still do not trust writeable media for backup. Oh yes, you rely on anti virus / anti malware software but that very software slows the computer down by HOW MUCH???!!!!!! Some of us cannot afford that slowdown! (i've got a special database and write more than a billion (with a B) records per hour.....
You can protect whatever you want but if there is a lightning strike close by then everything electric may be fried in your home. You'll be o so glad you had those pictures on a DVD....
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Come on don't you think you're being overly dramatic. Anyone would think Apple not including an optical drive in the new Minis is a sign that the World is coming to an end. Apple has always been the initiater in these kind of moves but they are never the only ones. In time all computer hardware manufacturers will go the same way and discontinue the inclusion of optical drives. At the end of the day you have a choice. You can either stick with old hardware or accept the new one the way it is. It's not like you cannot use optical drives/media at all with the new Minis.
From Apple's perspective, they have a pretty good response to this issue. If I lose an app on my iPhone and my desktop, I can still get it back again from the cloud. So, it's not like I really need to backup my apps. (I've never bought a song from iTunes, so I don't know how that works... but I imagine Apple is backing that up too.)
This really just the first stage in the coming Cloud wars.
Personally, I like having a CD music collection. I have a big stack of CDs next to my desk and I like it. Maybe that makes me old-fashioned, but I think it's cool to have a stack of books or disks along the wall.
Why do I feel this way? It's because I hate the cloud. This is nothing new. I've been hearing the praises of cloud computing for about a decade. I don't see it as a feature. I see it as less control over my stuff... music, applications, documents... on hardware that I don't own... I don't like that. I don't trust it.
I've seen servers and the Internet go down lots of times.
I don't remember when one of my CDs or DVDs ever failed me.
And even if everything goes perfect with the cloud... whoops... the company got sold or the policies changed — maybe they want to start charging for what used to be available for free. I don't know, but I know that I generally don't worry about my CD/DVD collection going bad. The only real threat that I see to my CD/DVD collection are the protagonists of the cloud... and Apple is clearly a cloud protagonist.
My brother has a desktop that is near end of life. I was going to try and convince him to buy a mac mini to replace the desktop BUT the lack of optical drive is a definite deal breaker.
How does one watch DVDs? Install windows?
Its ok for us mac guys but the mac mini was designed for windows users to be able to easily replace their windows based desktop with a mac. This is very visibly advertised in the mac mini section.
How does one watch DVDs? Install windows?
Its ok for us mac guys but the mac mini was designed for windows users to be able to easily replace their windows based desktop with a mac. This is very visibly advertised in the mac mini section.
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Simple. Use an external DVD drive like the MacBook Air SuperDrive. That said whilst there may some people who use an HTPC to watch DVD's most people use a dedicated DVD player or a games console. I use my old HD-DVD player for my PAL DVD's and my PS3 for my NTSC DVD's and Blue Rays.
Gesh, if you need a DVD/CD drive, buy one!
For $79, you can get a bus-powered (i.e. no external power brick) and extremely slim external SuperDrive.
And if you take that $79 cost and add it to the cost of the 2011 base mini, you still end up paying *less* overall than it cost to buy the previous generation base mini.
I will second what you said.
If someone is that into their home theater system or entertainment center that they would connect a mini to it I'd think they likely already have; the requisite big LCD TV, 5.1 or 7.1 speakers, a receiver, Xbox/PS3 (there's your Blue Ray player), along with DVD player, and maybe VHS player for us old coots.
So then if a person can drop $600+ on a mini for this setup, then save a little (or maybe a lot) of wear and tear on it and get a dedicated DVD player for $40.
Don't get me wrong, I wish they would have kept the slot in the new mini. Maybe even made it 1-2 inches taller to accommodate the slot and for cooling. But other than that I think Apple hit it out of the park with this mini. I didn't think an i7 would be an option at all and had a suspicion they might drop the Firewire port.
Interesting... the original base Mac Mini was $499. I forgot that the price for a base Mac Mini went as high as $699.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/15Apple-Unveils-All-New-Mac-mini.html
Yet, the superdrive is not the same size as the new Mac Mini.
2011 Mac Mini = 7.7 inches X 7.7 inches
Superdrive = 5.47 inches x 5.47 inches
Not since the Sega Genesis / Sega CD / 32 X combo would I own such poorly aligned add-on hardware. One of the main reasons in buying a Mac is because it's elegant. I look forward to seeing Apple's creative designs. Not much has changed in years. The Mac Mini of 2005 is not that much different looking than the Mac Mini of today... except that it's missing an optical drive. I consider that a negative. It looks like I'm getting less, when the box actually has more power.
The iMac has gone from being a fish tank, to a shaving mirror, to basically just a monitor. That's a radical change, and I think it became more elegant with each major revision.
The Mac Mini is just a little box. Does it really need to be that much smaller? I can see that space matters if you're going to mount them in a server rack, but for general consumer use... disks are still common.
Maybe Apple could have created an Expansion Bay and let the customer decide what they want... optical drive, second hard drive or something like that.
The USB superdrive was designed to go with the MacBook Air which is why they don't "align" but why should it matter? Just put it away when your not using it... leads to way less clutter on your workspace.
Just my 0.02
PS - Sega CD was hilarious
I just ordered a slim, bus-powered DVD burner off newegg for $30...(along with 8gb of ram for $50)....For the few and far between instances where I actually use optical media, it's a perfectly adequate solution for me.
Now to scrounge up a cheap SSD to throw into that empty space and BAM- Epic Home theatre.
Now to scrounge up a cheap SSD to throw into that empty space and BAM- Epic Home theatre.
An external (USB) DVD player won't do. I like the mid 2010 Mac Mini because it did away with the power brick, less cables to clutter up the place.
Similarly I do not want to clutter up the place by having an USB DVD player, nor do I want to have to plug it in - I am making weekly a backup on DVD.
How long do you think the connectors will last if you plug / unplug the thing every time? That gold coating will start to come off pretty quickly and with it goes the reliability.
They could just have done like in the desktop replacement laptops: have a slot that either can take a HDD or a DVD/CD.
On another note: I just upgraded my memory from the standard 2 Gb to 4 Gb from OWC. The OWC changed the Windows 7 (64 bit) memory experience under Boot Camp version 3.2 from 5.5 to 5.9. Impressed with the memory change.
I am expecting that in due time this mid 2010 Mac Mini will be included in the Apple "Hall of Fame" as being the smallest fully functioning (without accessories) desktop Mac. It is more versatile than the new ones.
Similarly I do not want to clutter up the place by having an USB DVD player, nor do I want to have to plug it in - I am making weekly a backup on DVD.
How long do you think the connectors will last if you plug / unplug the thing every time? That gold coating will start to come off pretty quickly and with it goes the reliability.
They could just have done like in the desktop replacement laptops: have a slot that either can take a HDD or a DVD/CD.
On another note: I just upgraded my memory from the standard 2 Gb to 4 Gb from OWC. The OWC changed the Windows 7 (64 bit) memory experience under Boot Camp version 3.2 from 5.5 to 5.9. Impressed with the memory change.
I am expecting that in due time this mid 2010 Mac Mini will be included in the Apple "Hall of Fame" as being the smallest fully functioning (without accessories) desktop Mac. It is more versatile than the new ones.
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If YOU don't like it....don't buy it. I have very little use for an optical drive (In the two years I owned my last macbook, I probably used the optical drive less than a dozen times. Seriously....)
While you spit shine your "Hall of Fame" C2D mini and quake at the thought of anything different, I'll be getting along splendidly with my core i7 mini.
To each their own.
In essence, I have to agree with Ieo. Ultimately, if the Mac Mini without an optical drive (or even the MacBook Air) does not suit your needs, don't buy it. No one is being forced into an optical drive-less world just YET. However, I do believe that it is the way of the future. I know there are a bunch of users, including myself at times for my work, who still need physical media but I think that as the hardware changes, other options for sharing media will become available to make up for the loss of CD/DVDs. My thoughts are described more clearly on the topic in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WKG4hACGaY&feature=channel_video_title. In the end though, just remember that Apple has offered us an external optical drive and I think that will be available to us for a long time to come. Even long after Apple kills the built-in optical drive in ALL Macs.
Were you guys around in 1998 when the iMac first came out and had no floppy drive, no serial ports (meaning 90% of printers, gamepads, and other peripherals could not hook up to it)and not even Apple's own ADB survived... ?
THAT caused quite the s***storm.
THAT caused quite the s***storm.
The hubaballoo about the ODD is pretty funny really ... everyone seems to complain that Apple doesn't offer any choices with their computers and yet as soon as they offer one (and yes, it IS a choice ... you buy an external if you need one, or not if you don't) everyone begins to scream foul!
Pure comedy!
Pure comedy!
It's why I stopped buying Macs for more than a decade. I figured if I had to buy all new hardware, I might as well go with a Windows PC cheaper hardware, more software... especially games.
Is history going to repeat itself?
"Yet" that's the problem. I see this as the first push into the cloud. And while I think Apple is building a nice cloud service, I like keeping my current technology.
Fortunately, USB is a popular standard. I could get an external Optical Drive... but then I see the words... "Intel HD Graphics 3000" ...it's like the base models are really weak. New hardware releases are supposed to get customers excited. It's hard for me to get excited about the base MacBook Air... with only 2GB of RAM (no upgrades?!) and a shared memory graphics processor.
Are optical discs really that obsolete?
If the Mac Mini launched with a Blu-Ray player... or Apple launched a more powerful disc format system... wouldn't that be exciting? With a standard HDMI port, the Mac Mini would have been a perfect companion for my TV if it had better base specs and a standard optical drive.
And during that decade Apple's market presence exploded. Nothing personal but it doesn't seem they missed you.
Remember the condition Apple (and the MacOS) was in in 1998?
If you're not excited about finally getting the i-core CPUs into the mini then you haven't really been following things, I think.