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Not exactly hackingtosh

IlikeMacsSoMuch

IlikeMacsSoMuch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
346
2
Blainville, Province of Quebec
Hi, I have a 2010 Mac mini with an external hard drive that I use as a server. And I have to buy a bigger external drive. But I don't like external stuff. Here's my idea: I would like to buy a tower case with fans and all, all the hdd that I need then pull out the mother board from the Mac mini and install it in the tower to run it with osx, server or not. So nothing illegal here. As anyone ever done something like that?

I know it sounds crazy... but how crazy?:)
 
IlikeMacsSoMuch said:
Hi, I have a 2010 Mac mini with an external hard drive that I use as a server. And I have to buy a bigger external drive. But I don't like external stuff. Here's my idea: I would like to buy a tower case with fans and all, all the hdd that I need then pull out the mother board from the Mac mini and install it in the tower to run it with osx, server or not. So nothing illegal here. As anyone ever done something like that?

I know it sounds crazy... but how crazy?:)
Click to expand...

Or you could sell and build a Hackintosh for about the same price, more storage, and a superior processor, more RAM :)
 
Seems like there would be room enough in most PC tower cases to simply place the mini inside, with the various connections to the drives (which could be put in the normal slots), even to have a full-size DVD burner. It should be a fairly straight-forward mod to get the mini's rear ports (along with the power button) in a good position on the back panel.
And, you would have everything inside just the one tower case.

That could be a very neat installation, if you think about it - a real "hack"-intosh.
 
Erm. Yeah.

What exactly are you going to connect all the hard drives up to? It's not as if there's 6+ standard SATA connectors on the logic board like a standard PC.
 
Might be cool if you can find an old mac pro case and mod it but I think even those get pricey. You might also need an internal usb hub of some sort for all the drives along with enough power. Would probably take some work but it doesn't sound super crazy.

Might not be as cool but why not just get an external drive bay case that fits multiple drives?

Personally to get around the external drives I just went with a NAS. I have a Synology. It's setup as a Raid 1. It's tucked away out of site. Works for me :)
 
Last edited:
Macs have almost always had a decent external bus for external storage. I used to run a couple of FW800 enclosures on my Mac Mini. Pair of 1TB drives in each and a lot quicker than USB2.

Not sure why a cobbled together Frankenstein Mac Pro/mini with USB hubs stuck on with blu-tac is a better solution than "don't like external stuff".
 
MagicBoy said:
Macs have almost always had a decent external bus for external storage. I used to run a couple of FW800 enclosures on my Mac Mini. Pair of 1TB drives in each and a lot quicker than USB2.

Not sure why a cobbled together Frankenstein Mac Pro/mini with USB hubs stuck on with blu-tac is a better solution than "don't like external stuff".
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be like that, the idea is to use the mother board from the mini instead of a pc. I hate cable clutter.

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DeltaMac said:
Seems like there would be room enough in most PC tower cases to simply place the mini inside, with the various connections to the drives (which could be put in the normal slots), even to have a full-size DVD burner. It should be a fairly straight-forward mod to get the mini's rear ports (along with the power button) in a good position on the back panel.
And, you would have everything inside just the one tower case.

That could be a very neat installation, if you think about it - a real "hack"-intosh.
Click to expand...

I'll look into that, thanks!

----------
MagicBoy said:
Erm. Yeah.

What exactly are you going to connect all the hard drives up to? It's not as if there's 6+ standard SATA connectors on the logic board like a standard PC.
Click to expand...

The mac mini has a few usb and firewire port and it would be enough. There are very big hdd now.
 
DeltaMac said:
Seems like there would be room enough in most PC tower cases to simply place the mini inside, with the various connections to the drives (which could be put in the normal slots), even to have a full-size DVD burner. It should be a fairly straight-forward mod to get the mini's rear ports (along with the power button) in a good position on the back panel.
And, you would have everything inside just the one tower case.

That could be a very neat installation, if you think about it - a real "hack"-intosh.
Click to expand...
I did this very thing several years ago with a 2009 mini in a G4 tower case.
I ended up with the mini (lined up with the G4's CD opening, 2 FW800 HDD's, 1 USB HDD (Time Machine) and an EyeTV system all nicely contained in the G4 case.
I added an exhaust fan to the back of the G4 case and a power on light to the front.
I posted pictures of my efforts at the time on this forum.
This system served me well up until I purchased my recent 2012 mini.
 
jbarley said:
I did this very thing several years ago with a 2009 mini in a G4 tower case.
I ended up with the mini (lined up with the G4's CD opening, 2 FW800 HDD's, 1 USB HDD (Time Machine) and an EyeTV system all nicely contained in the G4 case.
I added an exhaust fan to the back of the G4 case and a power on light to the front.
I posted pictures of my efforts at the time on this forum.
This system served me well up until I purchased my recent 2012 mini.
Click to expand...

cool! So, a G4 tower case?
 
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