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G4 mac mini
- Thread starter ac4155
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depending where he lives for $50 you wont even get a 233ghz G3 never even think about a mini unless it was dropped from a lorry and run over by 100 cars following
the very cheapest non working G4 mini's cost here in UK still up to £100 which are $160 roughly if there is a possibility to repair them
and working G4 minis will cost close to £140+ usually which are $230+ ...sold my mini G4 1.42 on ebay couple month ago for £230 which are $370 ..sorry cant stop people from bidding ,as i bought it earlier last year for £140 and all over Europe these prices are common ..
and to the question about use as itunes server , sure it can do that , my iMac G3 is doing it ,accessing my itunes library stored on my eMac's (4 of them with now over 4 TB of movies and music )via ethernet and apple talk (could wireless too but i am a wire fan )
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True, people in the US, are buying and selling power Mac G5's for less than $250. I think a G4 mini server is great! Especially if it only costs $35.
yes lucky americans
$50 ..$35... you could get the original box with noticeable cosmetic marks for that price in UK and Euro -zone inclusive shipping ,but without any traces of a a Mac mini inside for $20
$50 ..$35... you could get the original box with noticeable cosmetic marks for that price in UK and Euro -zone inclusive shipping ,but without any traces of a a Mac mini inside for $20
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no the mini G4 are the most reliable Mac's (mini's in general) and as you only want to use it for itunes server , you can go with the 1.25 mhz model with 256mb ram as you dont need processing power , no need to upgrade the OS , as you will be fine with the originally shipped panther as all you need is itunes to stream across your own network
Save money and get something cheaper and more expandable. You don't need a G4 1.25GHz+ for serving music.
I would buy an early G4 tower and shoehorn Leo on it for current iTunes compatibility. Lots of space in one for spare/old hard drives to serve music.
I would buy an early G4 tower and shoehorn Leo on it for current iTunes compatibility. Lots of space in one for spare/old hard drives to serve music.
I know you like promoting G3/G4 towers... but they really aren't that efficient... the power (as in your electric bill) waste is huge for something that will just be used as an iTunes server and a Mac Mini makes much more sense in this case.
Having tried exactly this on a 450Mhz G4, Id say go for a slightly later G4 Tower (Digital Audio +) if you can, as although it works with a G4/450 - I didnt have much CPU overhead under 10.5, and the later towers cost the same, so you may get minor benefits from faster CPU, especially if your collection is large. and ofc 1GB RAM is a must.
Unless of course, you have a large collection of music, and you want it to use 1 plug (My personal collection is 320GB of lossless audio, spread over 2 HDDs + backup inside my G4 MDD - cant do that on a single plug with a Mini). Or your in the UK where a G4/450 or G4/466 or even a G4/733 is about 30 quid ($50) and a G4 Mac Mini is 100-150 quid ($150-225).
The point is if you wanted a rig to serve as storage for your media, it should have expandability in terms of storage size on which the mini doesn't have natively unless you wanted to connect an external storage to it via USB or FW.
Any which way you go, go for it.
Any which way you go, go for it.
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PowerPC Mini power brick - 85 watts + whatever you add to that in externals. A self powered external enclosure uses maybe 30 watts on it's own plus each enclosure is extra money.
Early G4 tower - 200 watts whether you have 1 drive for 6 drives in it and no need to ever buy enclosures.
Your point is only valid if your current and future music collections will never outgrown a 2.5" IDE drive. The current 2.5" IDE market doesn't seem to go any bigger than 320GB.
Also, a tiny little mini or laptop (which the mini pretty much is hardware-wise) is not at all built for always on service like a tower. The B&W G3 and early G4's virtually never die.
You're right, if someone needs 6 drives to store their iTunes collection then of course they should go for a tower... I don't know many people who have Terabytes of Music, my iTunes library doesn't go past 100GB, and that's including numerous mp4s.
I do see it growing in the future.. however think about this... how much longer realistically do you think iTunes will be supported on PPCs? The G4 mini extends the life of it a little longer (I know you can shoehorn 10.5 into an early G4 tower but it is tedious), apple will drop support for even leopard soon. It doesn't make any sense... they still support XP but not 10.4...
My point is... unless you are filling your iTunes library with your own videos constantly, the likelihood of it ever exceeding the capacity of IDE drives is small. 320GB is a lot of space to fill... I have filled HD's with constant DSLR uploads and even that barely exceeded 320GB after a few years.
Now by all means.. if your iTunes library is Terabytes big, go for a tower, since you'll obviously save money there.
no not really , you always have to keep in mind how much Mac's cost new outside the USA , which reflects in the used prices
a new Mac mini base USA $699 in UK £612 (~$1000)
a new iMac 21.5 starts in USA at $1199 in UK £1020 (~$1670)
a MacPro starts in USA at $2499 in UK £2041 (~$3340)
and it was no difference when the 1.25 model was sold in early 2005 still cost £339 and the exchange rate had been about $1~£0.5 so a mini did cost according everymac with combo $499 but for us it did essentially cost $678 back then
ok most is caused by VAT , but as a buyer who lives here that is not really what is concerning you , its still what comes out of your pocket that concerns if you want something ,
but be glad our fuel price for petrol is equally high at about £1.30 per liter which are $2.13 per liter or to make it easy equals $8 per us gallon
so from that perspective £150 for a G4 mini is cheap .. considering the price for a new one.. or a used intel as even the 1.5 and 1.66 intels go for usually £250 and often closer to £350 the core 2 duos even £400 plus buy it no prices on ebay
so considering all the pros of a new mini (warranty and better performance )a used mini intel makes no sense at all
thats why the mini G4's are still popular which also reflects the price they can fetch as most who want a mini anyway only have basic needs which the G4's still cater well for
but before you think about flogging your G4 mini on ebay UK or anywhere else in europe ...forget it the shipping cost and eventual import taxes makes that deal not really attractive for buyers
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Thanks for your reply MacHamster68!
I'm actually English and based in London!
What surprised me most though was the price you got. My Mac Mini cost £450 or so back in Jan 05. That it should be worth something north of £150 now is amazing.
I'm actually English and based in London!
What surprised me most though was the price you got. My Mac Mini cost £450 or so back in Jan 05. That it should be worth something north of £150 now is amazing.
Its not that hard to exceed 320GB if you have high fidelity sound, or if you have a large collection of music spanning 20-30 years you want to digitize, or your storing your families music collection (I have all my parents music, from LPs, CDs and Digital Downloads, as well as my own, and it all adds up easily) - And you cant have internal mirrored RAID (Software or Hardware) in a Mini, and trust me, having ripped hundreds of CDs and LPs, combined with lots of digital downloads - I sure as wouldn't want to have to do it again because my internal HD died) - so thats more power consumption (Since its a server you'd have to have backups) right there (and more clutter and another plug).
wasn't the base model then i guess you got the 1.42 with superdrive and airport express and yes if it is without discoloration and fully working it can get near £200 but i sold mine at the best time for selling mini's just 2month before christmas when ebay is near empty , in the week i sold there had only been 15 other minis available , and mine was in pristine condition 1.42 model with AP BT and 1 GB ram even a undamaged original box and unopened booklet with the original disc's inside
i'm based at the gate to britain (dover)
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