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Guys we need to get real here.

There is a reason Blockbusters throughout the country are going belly-up.

Disk media is dying and dying fast...

Well, there's that. But there's also the online disc rental services, that don't have late fees etc.
 
Which are also going diskless media(online streaming). Guess who else is? PS3 & XBOX (think steam)

Oh, sure. But I'm saying that Blockbuster are also losing revenue in the disc-user market.

Not everybody likes to stream their movies and television. I don't, for one: hence the 14TB of rips...!

:eek:
 
I understand the desire for the drive to be built in, but is your situation exceptional enough to warrant such a drastic swap rather than just buying the external one? It may be, I'm just curious.

I thought about getting both and doing a component swap, but then I thought, how much am I going to be able to sell a Mac Mini with Intel Core 2 Duo processor and no ODD for? I'd probably lose my hat.

I would never do this, personally. I was just wondering if it would work. The iFixit teardown showed that many parts from the previous mini were carried over. I wonder if someone who has access to replacement shells could take an old mini case, stick in a superdrive and use an old mini shell to create a SandyBridge mini with Superdrive.

The base mini is $100 cheaper than the previous base mini. You can probably get a SuperDrive for less than $100. Not sure how (or how much) to get a mini shell ... but if you can get one cheap, it might not be a bad deal.
 
I already have a SuperDrive.... I just don't think it's gonna look as cute without him having a little mouth. LOL.....
 
I made a CD for my car the other day on my MBP.

If I was using a new mac mini, could i do that?

Could i install windows using my DVD?

Could I watch that cheap DVD i got on sale in the store?

Asking apple to include a DVD drive in a desktop replacement machine is not a big ask. Especially when you are already paying £530!

Plus, as a non-laptop, I'd say that it's extremely portable, in terms of being easy to transport from one place to another: all you need is an HDMI display wherever you're going, and they're practically-ubiquitous these days.

you also forgot keyboard, mouse and power lead. Yeah thats REAL portable.
 
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Well, then you're the person who needs to get an external ODD along with your Mini. It's not as if you MUST use the SuperDrive. There are external ODDs out there for $30.

Apple is a 90/90 company. They build for what 90% of the people need 90% of the time. If the mini doesn't fit your needs, don't buy it. As for me, the mini fits my needs PERFECTLY! It provides the right amount of power at the right price.

You know the last time I used optical media in my machine? It was a little ofpver a year ago when I installed Snow Leopard. I for one welcome the death of optical media.
 
I made a CD for my car the other day on my MBP.

If I was using a new mac mini, could i do that?

Could i install windows using my DVD?

Could I watch that cheap DVD i got on sale in the store?

Many of us have more than one computer, so CD/DVD sharing works for some of these. The other option is an external like the one Apple sells for a combined price that is less than the previous Mini with it built-in. Why should I have to pay for an optical drive I'm not going to use? Not to mention my previous Mini's optical drive broke, so I'd rather use an external which, if it breaks, I can easily replace for low cost.
 
Another case of apple forcing the market to move. Even if they have to drag us kicking and screaming, they have to continue to improve technology.
If this was really the case, then Apple would have SSD as standard on this machine and would ditch the firewire and USB ports, of which this unit has a total of FIVE.

This ditching of the optical drive obviously was just a cost cutting move that they felt they could get away with. It has little to do with "improving technology".

What would have made a lot more sense would be for apple to make an option of having the optical drive or not.
 
You do have the option to have an optical drive or not. You have the choice to order your Mini with a SuperDrive, or without it.
 
I have a plextor external on my 2008 mini and it is faster then the super drive for ripping cd's. but I can't use the keyboard to eject cd's from it. either I have to use itunes or I added a eject cd button to the toolbar to do it. ev en then I have to click on it and choose the right drive. if it is a data cd or dvd it ejects just fine. even the button on the drive won't work for audio cd's So hopefully that won't be the case of the new mini.
 
Who cares what Engadget says about anything? They are the National Enquirer of tech. Just a bunch of know nothing kids writing nonsense in order to get as many page views as possible for their advertisers.
 
This is why the loss of the optical hurts so much. Apple just took it out. Thats it. They didn't make the mini slimmer or smaller in any way, no they just didn't give it to you in the purchase. So yeah, its lame. If the mini was redesigned then I would say ok, no problem but to just sell you a mini with a big empty space in the top...

And if they were going to do that, then they could have at least included the other hard drive cable and caddy for us all. I mean jeez.

Oh and whey is front row gone again???
 
Some people have other concerns besides how slim the aluminum body is. The 2011 mini really is a redesign, under the hood at least.

Besides, the removal of the ODD makes it easier to put a second HDD or SSD in.
 
Some people have other concerns besides how slim the aluminum body is. The 2011 mini really is a redesign, under the hood at least.

Besides, the removal of the ODD makes it easier to put a second HDD or SSD in.

It makes it no easier since there is no caddy or hard drive cable included hence you can't put one in anyways and your first sentence goes against everything Steve Jobs stands for. Steve will get every computer down to the thickness of a piece of paper before he is dead and gone. Count on it.
 
It makes it no easier since there is no caddy or hard drive cable included hence you can't put one in anyway.

There is no need for a caddy. You attach two standard mounting screws to the second hard drive and it just goes right in. There are two metal holes that the screws sit in to hold the drive in place. It's not like it really needs a caddy anyway, with two drives in and every bit of space taken up, it's not exactly like the two drives are going to move around.
 
It makes it no easier since there is no caddy or hard drive cable included hence you can't put one in anyways and your first sentence goes against everything Steve Jobs stands for. Steve will get every computer down to the thickness of a piece of paper before he is dead and gone. Count on it.

Actually you can buy the cable, it is the same cable that is used with the Mac Mini 2010 server which has 2 hard drives. Its called a hard drive flex cable. There are several folks here on the forum that have already added a 2nd hard drive to there Mac Mini 2011.

So, I'll take that space and add me a drive, use my external CD/DVD drive on the rare occasions that I actually need to. All this fuss about that crappy 8x drive that these Mac Mini's had is just amazing. REALLY?
 
I think this is a fantastic wee mac, I plan on getting one to use as a media center machine. BTO upgrade to the i7, 8GB RAM from Crucial (about £60 Inc tax) and maybe swap to a SSD for the system. I use plex just now on my frankenmini and all the media is on external drives (1x 1TB WD elements and 1x 2TB WD essential, both USB2, and 1xbuffalo linkstation 320GB FW800) so I won't need that big a hdd internally, as for the optical drive, I've been using an 5.25" firewire 400 drive bay with a desktop 16x DVD+-R/RW/RAM drive for ages, it's faster than the internal in my mini and my late 2009 iMac so that lives next to my iMac for rips.
 
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