New Mini?

[tremble]

Hey folks,

I currently have an early 2008 model mini (1.83Gh, 500GB HD, 2GB ram) which gets used mainly as an HTPC ( hooked up to a 50" Panasonic Neo Plasma). I don't have a fancy sound system, so for sound output it is hooked up to my stereo via the line out. I love my mini but there are a couple of things which are swaying me towards buying a new one.

The first problem I have is that I am getting close to filling up the current hard disk.

The second issue is that when playing back video, I frequently get stutters in the video and I often get issues with the sound getting out of sync with the video. I'm guessing that the mini simply can't handle the high res picture

Now the way I see it is I have a couple of options:

1) Buying some external storage and some more RAM ( I'm not convinced that it will make a whole lot of difference as it will only support 3.5GB).

2) Buying a new mini!

I'm trying to decide if it is really worth spending money on what I have or if I would be better selling this mini and putting the money towards a new one. I've seen some nice deals on the server version on eBay which are very tempting (2.66GHz, dual 500GB HD, 8GB RAM).

What are people's thoughts? And if I go for a new Mini is it worth going for the server version over the standard version?

 

[Hellhammer]

What kind of content are you watching? I mean, how high quality? Your Mini has Intel GPU which sucks and it does not support hardware acceleration and that is likely causing the lag.

I would sell it and buy a refurb previous gen Mac Mini. It has 9400M which support HA and is much better anyway. It goes for as low as 429$. IF you're going to watch Blu-Rays at native bitrate, then the new Mini is better due 320M but costs more

 

[nutmac]

I suppose getting a mini server will double the storage space, but the solution is not cost effective. For instance, you can get a 2.5" external USB 2.0 hard disk for about $50.

That said, newer mini will handle 1080p without any stutter, but I personally find it to be not a groundbreaking upgrade from performance point of view (I will wait for the next generation mini, which will probably opt i3/i5 or Sandy Bridge successor).