I've had a mini for maybe 6-8 months now, and have been pretty happy with it. With the 1.42ghz G4, 1gb of RAM, 80gb, and SD it does just about everything I could need. I use MOST of the 80gb HDD all of the time, and use every last bit of free space to store temporary video files, etc. SO, I was feeling the need for more disk space. Plus, although satisfied, I wasn't thrilled with the disk performance (4200 rpm is teh suck, as they say).
I disliked (but could live with) the longer waits to open apps, and the occasional beach ball while using a few apps at once (presumably paging memory). So, I finally sprung for a miniStack from OWC (the v1 model, which was on sale for $60) and a 120gb WD HDD w/8mb cache (WD1200JB - very well rated and one of the fastest IDE drives available).
The difference is amazing. Boot time has got to be close on half of the length, loading iPhoto (~1100 photos) has gone from PITA to maybe 3 seconds. Firefox, which for some reason has always been slow to load on Macs, went from 15 seconds to 8.5 seconds. EVERYTHING is snappier... browsing the web, spotlight (of course), dashboard... it's an amazing upgrade.
I wish Apple had made the mini, say 8x8x3 and put a full sized drive in there. It would have made a huge difference in user experience. My only complaint about the miniStack is that it adds some noise to the system overall. The HDD clicking is much more audible than the internal drive, and the unit has a fan that comes on based on an internal temp sensor.
The mini was almost completely silent unless I was copying lots of data from the optical drive (those two running full bore right on top of one another must have made some pretty good heat) flipped the fan on. The miniStack kicked on high fan speed during the drive clone and was kinda loud, and is back down to the lower fan now which is pretty quiet.
All in all, it is about the same volume as my wife's Dell (which is 6 feet away under her desk - compared to the mini about 2 feet away on top of mine). Not BAD, just more than it used to be. The pitch of the fan is pleasant, not an annoying squeal like some of the iMac G5's.
I would recommend this to ANYONE with a mini over an internal drive upgrade. It would also make sense for a laptop user for extra storage space - at $60 it's a good price when you consider it's built in FW hub, powered USB2.0 hub, and attractive mini-styled appearance.
I disliked (but could live with) the longer waits to open apps, and the occasional beach ball while using a few apps at once (presumably paging memory). So, I finally sprung for a miniStack from OWC (the v1 model, which was on sale for $60) and a 120gb WD HDD w/8mb cache (WD1200JB - very well rated and one of the fastest IDE drives available).
The difference is amazing. Boot time has got to be close on half of the length, loading iPhoto (~1100 photos) has gone from PITA to maybe 3 seconds. Firefox, which for some reason has always been slow to load on Macs, went from 15 seconds to 8.5 seconds. EVERYTHING is snappier... browsing the web, spotlight (of course), dashboard... it's an amazing upgrade.
I wish Apple had made the mini, say 8x8x3 and put a full sized drive in there. It would have made a huge difference in user experience. My only complaint about the miniStack is that it adds some noise to the system overall. The HDD clicking is much more audible than the internal drive, and the unit has a fan that comes on based on an internal temp sensor.
The mini was almost completely silent unless I was copying lots of data from the optical drive (those two running full bore right on top of one another must have made some pretty good heat) flipped the fan on. The miniStack kicked on high fan speed during the drive clone and was kinda loud, and is back down to the lower fan now which is pretty quiet.
All in all, it is about the same volume as my wife's Dell (which is 6 feet away under her desk - compared to the mini about 2 feet away on top of mine). Not BAD, just more than it used to be. The pitch of the fan is pleasant, not an annoying squeal like some of the iMac G5's.
I would recommend this to ANYONE with a mini over an internal drive upgrade. It would also make sense for a laptop user for extra storage space - at $60 it's a good price when you consider it's built in FW hub, powered USB2.0 hub, and attractive mini-styled appearance.
Plus those extra ports on the back for anything else you want to plug in and use. Did you clone your HDD over to it or is it just for a few apps that you use?
