better late then never. 2.53 2x esata hack finished

To moderators I am going to show a lot of photos and may need to make consecutive posts.


To 2009 mac mini owners any model can be turn into this setup.. Make for a very good Home theater machine.
In typical fashion on the eve of the 2011 mini I finished my mac mini 2009 2x esata hack. It runs a pair of 3tb western digital hdds as osx 10.6.7 no server. I have about 20 photos. I had it working since nov 2009 but it was hidden away in a HT rack so I never made it look good. wire management was bad and it was loosely stacked. Then when i was going to make a nicer looking setup the 2010's came out they were not going to work well with this double hack. So I let it sit as a mess until about a week ago.


here are final shots of the double esata stand for the mini.

The esata stand has 2 sans digital enclosures each holds a 3tb western digital hdd. each is seen by the mini as an internal 3tb boot drive. Both run osx 10.6.7.

I used two aluminum plates 1/4 inch thick purchased on ebay cut to 8 inches by 10.5 inches. I used 2 oak pieces and 12 stainless steel screws/and finish washers are stainless steel. The oak rails are short by intention. This allows the plates to hold the two drives very tightly. the top plate is flush against the drives and is a heat sink the bottom plate has four soft acusti feet from quiet pc. the drives are fanless and pretty cools and quiet. Note that the esata cable can be tucked in a bit to manage the wires better. I use two power supplies one for the hdds and on for the mini. The mini is missing a hdd and a dvd so it runs cooler. I removed the white plastic top to run the cables out. this top is not the oem top I purchased it on ebay for 20 bucks. I can turn this machine back to stock in an hour.

some older shots.

first shot shows how i had them simply stacked.

next shot is use of velcro to hold the female estata jacks safely outside the mini. this also holds the external dvd/cd player in place .

third shot is the dvd player and velcro.

fourth shot shows attachment.

last shot was how system looked inside of home theater of course the mess of wire in the back are not there and in the ht rack were hidden but forced the system to be in the one place.


I was going to make a few of these units and the 2010 redesign made them not practical. if you have a 2009 hanging around these make a mean ht machine, as much as 6tb in storage but a pair of 2tb fantoms make for a 4tb unit fast and low cost. see link.


http://www.amazon.com/Fantom-Drives-G-Force-external-Hi-Speed/dp/B0047AE4XI

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822207023&cm_re=fantom-_-22-207-023-_-Product

don't use the stand build the case like I did. the fantom will work. cost less then the 3tb units I used

. I will post the guts tomorrow.

here are 3 shots of it set up in my bedroom. it is more exposed in this room so I decided I had to fix it up. On the shot that shows finder profiler and disk utility. note that the link speed is 3gb not 1.5gb as is common with the 2009 mini. this machine is pretty fast and makes for a great dvp with an eyeTV dongle. later today I will show the guts.

The 2009 models with the nvidia chipset work best all 4 will do the job. With the 2.66 and 2.53 as the best they can do some decent cpu work but:
If you have a 2009 with 2.0 or 2.26 this will do the following well;

iTunes music
netflix
eyetv play or record
surf the net

It is not so good at handbrake or any heavy duty cpu tasks. Of course as most minis go it is at best okay for some games. Too bad the 2010 was not:

A) easy to do an esata hack as it would look good on top of this case.
B) cpu upgraded to a worthwhile cpu


but if you have a 2009 and want to play diy.

this is a make - able hack.. it gives you 6tb the footprint is 8 by 10.5 inches.