Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Mini Storage Options?

Ironduke

Ironduke

Suspended
Original poster
Im going to return to the Mini soon, I moved away to the cough (Hackintosh)
Never really got it to work Lustfully Like a mac, always the odd niggle & problem I could only fix by re-installing etc.. (I no linux geek)

The one issue I have with the Mini is Hardrive space. its just not enough for expansion, my hackintosh has 4 Hardrives each over 1TB.

I have been looking at DAS options and the best I have come up with is The ICY Dock 561, which supports esata (nogood) & USB.

I was hoping to find a 4 Bay DAS with Firewire800, im not interested in all that RAID stuff I simply want all 4 disks to appear as they are not JBOD or Raid.

any suggestions?
 
How about NAS or online storage? They you would need no wires and you could access the data wirelessly (requires fast internet connection).

Most multiple bay enclosures have RAID but you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

One option is to share your Hackintosh HDs (use it as a server) over network and use them to store data (not sure how it is done but should be possible).
 
I'm not sure what 4 bay drive enclosure would work for you best, but have you considered consolidating your drives into 2 x 2tb drives and then having either a 2 bay drive enclosure or 2 single drive enclosures connected by firewire. There is less power required and less noise too.

I've currently got a lacie quadra drive with a 1.5tb seagate in connected via firewire to my mini. Works very well as I have it stored in a cupboard so that the sound of the drive is no audible.
 
Hellhammer said:
How about NAS or online storage? They you would need no wires and you could access the data wirelessly (requires fast internet connection).

Most multiple bay enclosures have RAID but you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

One option is to share your Hackintosh HDs (use it as a server) over network and use them to store data (not sure how it is done but should be possible).
Click to expand...

yeah thought about using the hackintosh as a server but its a waste of a q6600 & 8800gt

also had a time capsule, nice but abit slow
 
miniStack

If you can live with a single drive, I like the miniStack from OWC. They are available up to 2TB and have same attractive mini footprint with additional USB and FW ports. 3 yr. warranty I think.
 
I'm in the same position. I have 3tb connected to my mini (2tb and 1tb usb externals) that is about full. I think I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and buy a 4bay enclosure and run it in raid 5. I require some redundancy, I don't want to lose all my data because of one crappy drive.
 
How about FW drives? Might be cheaper to get two external 2TB drives than anything else.

You can hook two of the drives up to the mini directly - you won't be able to put the cover on, lose the optical drive, but you could house it all in a computer case.
 
ADent said:
How about FW drives? Might be cheaper to get two external 2TB drives than anything else.

You can hook two of the drives up to the mini directly - you won't be able to put the cover on, lose the optical drive, but you could house it all in a computer case.
Click to expand...

Yes...

What's the problem with adding a couple of external drives...either FW or USB 2.0? It's like this appears to not even be an option for you. A brand new 1.5 TB WD drive (enclosure comes with eSATA/FW/USB) can be had from Best Buy and other retailers for about $100-120depending on if you hit a sale or not. And these drives allow daisy-chaining on FW (each has an additional port) so you could easily have 4 FW drives and STILL have an available FW port!

I have 3 externals hooked up to my Mini....no issues....lots of storage and backup.
 
Hi,
I'm using 2x single external enclosures + 4-bay ProBox external (all connected thru USB). It looks like this on my screen:
 

Attachments

  • Picture 1.PNG
    Picture 1.PNG
    112.6 KB · Views: 147
I am using two 2TB's hard drives with my mini totaling 4TB, if you do need more you can always add another hard drive or go the Drobo way.

I am using:

1 - Lacie 2TB2TB.

2- WD 2TB2TB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back