I'm currently using my Mac Pro as my Home Entertainment centre connected to my TV and HiFi to listen to music (redbook 16/44 and high rez 24/96), watched ripped DVDs, and watch HD video content from YouTube via Safari, HD movies from Netflix etc. But it's simply too big and noisy for my fairly small HT room so I want to replace it with a Mac Mini, which I'm hoping will be as near to silent as possible.
I'd buy a new Mini but the lack of an optical drive is a major drawback (I must be one of the few people who still uses CDs and DVDs in 2012... who'd have thought??!!!). I know you can get an external SuperDrive but that kind of defeats the sleek design of the Mini so I think I'd rather opt for an older model with the built-in optical drive.
My question is will a 2010 2.66GHz Mac Mini be powerful enough to fulfil my above requirements? I appreciate that the 2GB RAM and 320GB 5400rpm HDD are probably the two most limiting factors, but I plan to upgrade to 8GB RAM and all of my media content will be stored on a 1TB USB 2.0 HDD.
I'll still be keeping my Mac Pro, just moving it to another room, as it's a real beast for video editing etc!.....
I'd buy a new Mini but the lack of an optical drive is a major drawback (I must be one of the few people who still uses CDs and DVDs in 2012... who'd have thought??!!!). I know you can get an external SuperDrive but that kind of defeats the sleek design of the Mini so I think I'd rather opt for an older model with the built-in optical drive.
My question is will a 2010 2.66GHz Mac Mini be powerful enough to fulfil my above requirements? I appreciate that the 2GB RAM and 320GB 5400rpm HDD are probably the two most limiting factors, but I plan to upgrade to 8GB RAM and all of my media content will be stored on a 1TB USB 2.0 HDD.
I'll still be keeping my Mac Pro, just moving it to another room, as it's a real beast for video editing etc!.....
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