Aperture user Building a Mac MINI System help me design

a4est42 said:

I have a MBP 13" 2009 and the Graphics card just died. I have an IPAD so don't really need the portability of a laptop.

Thinking of a Mini
8 GB RAM should I get 4 and swap out with 8 or 16?
1T Fusion Drive

21-22" TV monitor samsung perhaps

i like the touch pad on my MBP so do I got the magic pad? other ideas?
What keyboard? or is theire a keyboard with laptop config?

Ideas suggestions welcome
I have about 300GB photo library and 3 ---1T backup drives which i rotate.

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Get a quad i7 mini 2.3 or 2.6 if you can afford it. Get you own RAM (16) (Corsair vengeance). Fusion, yes, or SSD. If you want to install the SSD your self, get a Samsung Evo or 840Pro.

Get a Henge Dock Clique and the Apple Touch Pad and BT Keyboard. Use Enrgizer Lithium AAs. They last a long long time. The Touch Pad is to the right (or left if you order special) but will give you a similar feel to your MBP, plus you can use the Clique on your lap etc. Other wise you must use the Touch Pad on a desk or table surface.

http://hengedocks.com/order_clique.php

a4est42 said:

Exactly what I was looking for. Do you think the Fusion drive would preform better when handling tasks in Aperture over the Hdd?

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My largest Aperture library is 91GB. Using 7200 rpm hard drives my Macs were very slow to load Aperture. Adjusting individual images was OK but saving, backing up or moving libraries resulted in a lot of beach-balling.

Now each Mac (2010 MP, 2012 MBP and 2012 Mm) are using Crucial 960GB SSDs as boot drives. The change is remarkable.

Both the MBP and mini have 16GB of Crucial RAM.

a4est42 said:

Yes I have had this problem. So you also advise the 16GB of RAM to avoid this problem? Please excuse my ignorance but are the Crucials exterior drives that you have configured to be bootable?

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Yes, both the mini and MBP have 16GB RAM. That gives them plenty of memory headroom.

All the SSDs are internal. On the mini I moved the OEM 1TB HDD to the upper bay using an OWC kit. The SSD is mounted in the lower bay.

a4est42 said:

Did you mean in addition to the base drive or an additional drive. And how hard would this be to do?

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You can get a base drive HDD version and replace the base with an SSD. Or add an SSD to the base OEM drive.

How hard is it? Easy if you have done a few installs but harder if it is the first time. But certainly doable. There are many threads in the forum on an SSD install or see OWC or iFixit or you tube.

Also to answer your other Q, the Fusion drive in operation is far superior to the stand alone HDD. It is very close to a stand alone SSD.