How to Mac Mini's hold up in terms of failure rates?

Borjan · Oct 21, 2008, 06:27 PM

I'm about to purchase a 1.6 Core Duo Mac Mini...

Haven't really looked at whats been going on in the Mini world so much, just wanted to know (since obviously this model must be a few years old now) how the failure rates are, what kinda problems they had...

Annoying thing is that its coming to me with 512mb of RAM. I'll have to crack it open to upgrade that, but I'm a bit scared of doing so!

Eidorian · Oct 21, 2008, 06:28 PM

I've never had a Mini fail in the 30 that I've ordered and upgraded.

typ993 · Oct 21, 2008, 06:41 PM

We've been using one as an email server in a colocation facility for about two years now. 24/7, no problems. We did upgrade the drive to a server-level Hitachi one, though.

Borjan · Oct 21, 2008, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

I've never had a Mini fail in the 30 that I've ordered and upgraded.

Thats good to know! I've looked into opening up the case a little more.. it doesn't look too bad...

gkarris · Oct 21, 2008, 10:24 PM

I've had my 1.66 CD for almost 2 years, and the one at church's a 1.5 CS for almost 3 - no problems...

ADent · Oct 21, 2008, 11:41 PM

My G4 died due to random shutdowns. Suspiciously this was similar to problems with some laptops of the same vintage, but there was not a repair program of firmware update for the mini.

The 2 intel minis have been rock solid.

pacmania1982 · Oct 22, 2008, 03:38 AM

My poor G4 Mac mini (bought Jan 2005) has slowly been suffereing from hardware failures. First off, the 80GB hard drive died, which I replaced with a cheap 30GB drive (its connected to an external 1TB drive anyway). Then bluetooth stopped working, and now the optical drive has died too. I had to reinstall the OS via NetInstall from OS X server a few weeks back. On the whole though, its been brilliant - all he does these days is hold my iTunes library (250 movies, 500 TV episodes of various shows and over 10,000 MP3's). It does a fine job of streaming them around the house and is plugged into the TV in the living room.

My Intel mac is fine, bought it over a year ago (1.83GHz) and is working fine. Its hooked up via DVI to my 22" LCD in my bedroom and streams all the media (except HD stuff which is locally) from the Mac mini in the living room. I use it for transcoding my HD stuff to add to iTunes while I'm at work and hasn't failed me yet.

pac

Oct 21, 2008, 06:27 PM	#1
Borjan macrumors regular Join Date: Sep 2004	How to Mac Mini's hold up in terms of failure rates? I'm about to purchase a 1.6 Core Duo Mac Mini... Haven't really looked at whats been going on in the Mini world so much, just wanted to know (since obviously this model must be a few years old now) how the failure rates are, what kinda problems they had... Annoying thing is that its coming to me with 512mb of RAM. I'll have to crack it open to upgrade that, but I'm a bit scared of doing so! __________________ The Velour Fog
	0

Oct 21, 2008, 06:28 PM	#2
Eidorian macrumors Penryn Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Indiana	I've never had a Mini fail in the 30 that I've ordered and upgraded. __________________ Core i5 750 / 16 GB RAM / SSD / HD 7950 / Windows 8
	0

Oct 21, 2008, 10:24 PM	#5
gkarris macrumors 604 Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: in a Mass-Production Zone...	I've had my 1.66 CD for almost 2 years, and the one at church's a 1.5 CS for almost 3 - no problems... __________________ "This gate's plastic." Captain Carter, Stargate SG-1, "Touchstone"
	0

Oct 21, 2008, 11:41 PM	#6
ADent macrumors 6502a Join Date: Sep 2007	My G4 died due to random shutdowns. Suspiciously this was similar to problems with some laptops of the same vintage, but there was not a repair program of firmware update for the mini. The 2 intel minis have been rock solid. __________________ 3x Mac mini C2D, G4 mini (dead), eMac G4 800 MHz, older retired units
	0

Oct 22, 2008, 03:38 AM	#7
pacmania1982 macrumors 6502a Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Birmingham, UK	My poor G4 Mac mini (bought Jan 2005) has slowly been suffereing from hardware failures. First off, the 80GB hard drive died, which I replaced with a cheap 30GB drive (its connected to an external 1TB drive anyway). Then bluetooth stopped working, and now the optical drive has died too. I had to reinstall the OS via NetInstall from OS X server a few weeks back. On the whole though, its been brilliant - all he does these days is hold my iTunes library (250 movies, 500 TV episodes of various shows and over 10,000 MP3's). It does a fine job of streaming them around the house and is plugged into the TV in the living room. My Intel mac is fine, bought it over a year ago (1.83GHz) and is working fine. Its hooked up via DVI to my 22" LCD in my bedroom and streams all the media (except HD stuff which is locally) from the Mac mini in the living room. I use it for transcoding my HD stuff to add to iTunes while I'm at work and hasn't failed me yet. pac __________________ 13" 2.26GHz MacBook Pro \| 2.3GHz Mac mini \| 1.83GHz Mac mini \| 32GB VZW iPad 3 \| 16GB iPhone 4s \| Just sold my retro mac collection
	0

Oct 21, 2008, 06:41 PM	#3
typ993 macrumors newbie Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Edmonds, Washington	We've been using one as an email server in a colocation facility for about two years now. 24/7, no problems. We did upgrade the drive to a server-level Hitachi one, though.
	0

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