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New Mac Mini Purchase!

C

craigsharp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 2, 2008
140
3
Oklahoma
So I've been using apple products since 2003 and am currently using an early 2008 White Macbook. With then recent announcement of Mountain Lion and the untimely demise of my Win7 HTPC i've decided to buy a base model Mac Mini. I plan on swapping my original Macbook HDD back so I can use the current 500gb HDD in a RAID0 config. I will be using sickbeard sabnzbd and plex for my media needs and have an ATV2 that is currently under my 40" sony HDTV. I will be setting the mini up under it and will be using the magic trackpad and wireless keyboard from across the room.
  • My only concern is being able to use the mini while my wife or daughter is trying to watch tv. Does anyone have any experience with HDMI splitters?
  • Besides that is there anything else that I will want to do out of the box?
 
1. Why are you setting it up in RAID 0? This is a terrible idea. Doing normal day to day activities and playing media does not require a ton of bandwidth and if it did you would be much better off with an SSD. RAID 0 doubles your chance of losing all your data because if one drive dies, they both go.

2. Why a splitter? Mac Mini's have two video out connectors. 1 is an HDMI and the other is the Mini Display Port. Hook the tv to the HDMI port and your monitor via whatever method you want to the Mini Display port (you can buy a VGA, DVI, or HDMI adapter for MDP).
 
paulrbeers said:
1. Why are you setting it up in RAID 0? This is a terrible idea. Doing normal day to day activities and playing media does not require a ton of bandwidth and if it did you would be much better off with an SSD. RAID 0 doubles your chance of losing all your data because if one drive dies, they both go.

2. Why a splitter? Mac Mini's have two video out connectors. 1 is an HDMI and the other is the Mini Display Port. Hook the tv to the HDMI port and your monitor via whatever method you want to the Mini Display port (you can buy a VGA, DVI, or HDMI adapter for MDP).
Click to expand...

1. I was wanting to have just one big drive... What other method do you recommend?
2. I thought the Mini has a thunderbolt connection... is that the same adapter as the mini display port?
 
craigsharp said:
So I've been using apple products since 2003 and am currently using an early 2008 White Macbook. With then recent announcement of Mountain Lion and the untimely demise of my Win7 HTPC i've decided to buy a base model Mac Mini. I plan on swapping my original Macbook HDD back so I can use the current 500gb HDD in a RAID0 config. I will be using sickbeard sabnzbd and plex for my media needs and have an ATV2 that is currently under my 40" sony HDTV. I will be setting the mini up under it and will be using the magic trackpad and wireless keyboard from across the room.
  • My only concern is being able to use the mini while my wife or daughter is trying to watch tv. Does anyone have any experience with HDMI splitters?
  • Besides that is there anything else that I will want to do out of the box?
Click to expand...

I have my Mini hooked up to the big screen in the living room and I use either screen sharing with the Air or a remote app with the iPad or iPhone.
 
craigsharp said:
1. I was wanting to have just one big drive... What other method do you recommend?
2. I thought the Mini has a thunderbolt connection... is that the same adapter as the mini display port?
Click to expand...

1. Why not just have them show up as two different drives? I put my OS and apps on one drive and the other one hold all data (i.e. itunes). This way if one crashes, then you only lose what's on that drive as opposed to everything.

2. Thunderbolt is nothing more than a Mini displayport combined with a data connection. It does both. I have my Base Mini hooked to one monitor via HDMI, and another via MDP/Thunderbolt with a MDP to HDMI adapter.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

So then if I have both my 40" HDTV and my 17" apple cinema display hooked up, will I have to designate one as the main desktop? What will happen when I switch to my hdmi input on my tv? Will it automatically be the secondary monitor?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

craigsharp said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

So then if I have both my 40" HDTV and my 17" apple cinema display hooked up, will I have to designate one as the main desktop? What will happen when I switch to my hdmi input on my tv? Will it automatically be the secondary monitor?
Click to expand...

It should automatically detect it as the secondary display. I think the Mac mini sets HDMI as primary by default, meaning it's the first connection type detected. However, once you set the primary monitor it will stay that way.
 
Thanks for the help so far! It is scheduled for delivery tomorrow... Thankfully I used to work at my local UPS so I will have them hold it for me so I can get it first thing in morning instead of waiting ALL DAY! I'll let you know how things are going...
 
craigsharp said:
Thanks for the help so far! It is scheduled for delivery tomorrow... Thankfully I used to work at my local UPS so I will have them hold it for me so I can get it first thing in morning instead of waiting ALL DAY! I'll let you know how things are going...
Click to expand...

Good luck and congrats!
 
Plex may become somewhat obsolete when Air Play Sharing is introduced in mountain lion.

Congrats on the purchase, i'd recommend a ram upgrade

This one worked great for me!
 
so I just got my new mini setup and updated. I have to say that the trackpad I ordered with it is very nice!!!! I really enjoy it and i'm sure my 7 year old daughter will too! My only complaint and this could be easily remedied is that when using it with my 40"hdtv it's too small to see the menu at the top... I've changed it to 720p for now but we will be rearranging our living room pretty soon so It'll correct that problem... hopefully... Other than that I love it... Haven't got all my software setup with it yet but am working on it on my breaks from work... (police officer) so I can come home as needed...
 
paulrbeers said:
1. Why are you setting it up in RAID 0? This is a terrible idea. Doing normal day to day activities and playing media does not require a ton of bandwidth and if it did you would be much better off with an SSD. RAID 0 doubles your chance of losing all your data because if one drive dies, they both go.

2. Why a splitter? Mac Mini's have two video out connectors. 1 is an HDMI and the other is the Mini Display Port. Hook the tv to the HDMI port and your monitor via whatever method you want to the Mini Display port (you can buy a VGA, DVI, or HDMI adapter for MDP).
Click to expand...

Regular drive failure rate = x
RAID 0 failure rate = 2x

Where x is insignificant enough to not give a damn.
 
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