Are there any SATA compatible Mac Mini matching external hard drives?

[Spanky Deluxe]

If Apple do release a half decent Intel Mac Mini tomorrow I would be very tempted to get one. If I did I'd probably want to move over my big SATA drives for use with the Mini. This is assuming the new Mini will have the same form factor and dimensions.
I really like the whole stacking system used by several of these external hard drives but I can't tell if any of them are SATA. Ideally I'd want a model that comes without a hard drive although if need be I could get a low sized model and switch the drives. They all seem to be IDE only.

Cheers,

Spanky

 

[ChrisA]

If Apple do release a half decent Intel Mac Mini tomorrow I would be very tempted to get one. If I did I'd probably want to move over my big SATA drives for use with the Mini. This is assuming the new Mini will have the same form factor and dimensions.
I really like the whole stacking system used by several of these external hard drives but I can't tell if any of them are SATA. Ideally I'd want a model that comes without a hard drive although if need be I could get a low sized model and switch the drives. They all seem to be IDE only.

Cheers,

Spanky

You are right. The extrnal boxes all seem to be IDE not SATA. One easy option is to leave the dives inside the PC case and turn the PC into a file server. This can be very fast as the RAID overhead will happen in the PC side. Yes 100BaseT is slow but you can run Firewire networking between the server and the Mini. Or maybe (I hope) the new mini will do 1000BaseT? All you'd need to do is instal s decent server OS on the PC and remove the CRT and keyboard to make it "headless". I did exactly the above and it works well. My Antec case can hold 6 dives, has good airflow and is nearly silent and lives under a desk out of the way.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

You are right. The extrnal boxes all seem to be IDE not SATA. One easy option is to leave the dives inside the PC case and turn the PC into a file server. This can be very fast as the RAID overhead will happen in the PC side. Yes 100BaseT is slow but you can run Firewire networking between the server and the Mini. Or maybe (I hope) the new mini will do 1000BaseT? All you'd need to do is instal s decent server OS on the PC and remove the CRT and keyboard to make it "headless". I did exactly the above and it works well. My Antec case can hold 6 dives, has good airflow and is nearly silent and lives under a desk out of the way.

My PC is hugely loud and until the Intel Powermacs I don't think I'll get rid of it yet so its going to stay loud. I'd really like to have external hard drives because they're silent. I guess I'll have to wait a while until someone releases an external matching SATA drive for the mini.