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Mac Mini Teardown Reveals Potential for User-Installable Second Hard Drive
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That is some really beautiful and functional engineering!
A couple of takeaways from the article. NO GLUE! Easy RAM and HD replacement and upgrade.
The whole time I was reading this and the article on performance I was wondering what would happen if you took one of these back in a time machine to 5-7 years ago. The differences are beyond astounding.
This is truly a "Mac for everyone" and certainly a leg on the stool for the post-PC (post-windows) era. I can imagine enterprises buying these in bulk as computing appliances for POS, inventory control, automation systems, and a hundred other uses where PC appliances are used, where user interface is not the primary aspect. Headless applications.
That is where Apple has been lacking most in the PC marketplace. Now they have a "low price", "very high capability" system, quite practical for replacing a wide range of tasks.
Hey Mini engineers, great job, sirs (you know what I mean, ladies).
Rocketman
A couple of takeaways from the article. NO GLUE! Easy RAM and HD replacement and upgrade.
The whole time I was reading this and the article on performance I was wondering what would happen if you took one of these back in a time machine to 5-7 years ago. The differences are beyond astounding.
This is truly a "Mac for everyone" and certainly a leg on the stool for the post-PC (post-windows) era. I can imagine enterprises buying these in bulk as computing appliances for POS, inventory control, automation systems, and a hundred other uses where PC appliances are used, where user interface is not the primary aspect. Headless applications.
That is where Apple has been lacking most in the PC marketplace. Now they have a "low price", "very high capability" system, quite practical for replacing a wide range of tasks.
Hey Mini engineers, great job, sirs (you know what I mean, ladies).
Rocketman
Over the last year I've done a 180 on this. If adding the discrete GPU means the OD had to go then I'm all for it. I use the OD so little that if I do need one I have no issue with hooking up my external OD for a short time.
I guess mileage varies, but I'm finding myself in a race to digitize my physical media... I have several well-maintained (never put down outside of the case) commercial DVDs that are less than five years old, but are starting to become unusable after two or three plays in that time. That's about the only use my optical drive ever gets.
Admittedly, I might be ahead of the masses on this, but I ripped my CD collection and stopped buying physical copies of music about 7 years ago when I got my first iPod; in the intervening years I've more than once made the decision not to buy a piece of software or music because it wasn't downloadable.
For starters, the machine is FAR more powerful than previous models, has a newly designed MORE expensive SATA III mobo, more powerful CPU, and IS PRICED $100 lower. Reading the facts helps, you know?
Yo can you predict my future too? Have you not seen the statistics which clearly state optical drives have hardly been used much at all by most people, myself included. OD's are being phased out for good reasons, and there are cheap alternatives if you really need to use one.
So $100 off for a more powerful system and finally, expansion for USEABLE stuff, like, a hard drive. THAT's a good deal, and if you need an optical drive, the samsung one for $30 is a (possible lower quality, but just as good performing) SuperDrive.
Or have I just been trolled?
Embedded systems already exist with much higher environmental tolerances and lower prices. VIA somehow stays alive this way. Do not ask me how.
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I'm in agreement, I would love to see a MBP with some real secondary storage capacity. I'm talking At least one blade SSD slot and two conventional format drive bays. Alternatively the could have 3 or more blade slots and one conventional drive bay. All of this in a thinner and lighter MBP with a long battery life.
On top of all of that Apple might find uses for that space we haven't thought about. People need to realize there is a future and right now it appears that Apple is the only manufacture with an eye on that future.
Frankly I'm not sure why there is so much hand wringing when it comes to the optical drive. In a laptop it simply isn't a big deal anymore.
Cynicalone said:
I'm in agreement, I would love to see a MBP with some real secondary storage capacity. I'm talking At least one blade SSD slot and two conventional format drive bays. Alternatively the could have 3 or more blade slots and one conventional drive bay. All of this in a thinner and lighter MBP with a long battery life.
On top of all of that Apple might find uses for that space we haven't thought about. People need to realize there is a future and right now it appears that Apple is the only manufacture with an eye on that future.
Frankly I'm not sure why there is so much hand wringing when it comes to the optical drive. In a laptop it simply isn't a big deal anymore.
I could totally live without the optical drive in any of my Macs. They're slow, they're loud, they take lots of space. You can buy a random USB optical drive and burn away if you really need to. BluRay might be interesting, but the blank media is still quite expensive and one a laptop display, you won't really see the difference between a DVD and a BluRay movie, except maybe if you're sitting right in front of it. Apple should actually make an external BluRay drive too so people can hook it up to their AppleTV and what not.
I'd much rather have a second hard drive (one SSD and one HDD is the best of both worlds), more heat pipes and yes, a smaller package. I'd totally get a Macbook AIr if it had more disc space and Firewire.
Maybe..just maybe...there are other people out here with different needs to yours. Not all of us want to be on the bleeding edge of Steve's vision for the "New Order under Apple"
True.
But I think that Apple being Apple you will lose the optical drive from all laptops in less than 2 years. They will give you the option to purchase the Super Drive like they do with the Air.
The desktops will take longer but the iMac could follow the mini and lose the optical drive in at least some models within the same time frame.
The Mac Pro could be the only Mac with an optical drive in 3 to 5 years. Assuming of course that Apple doesn't quietly discontinue it.
Grabbed the $800 one yesterday and put the OCZ Vertex 2 from my Old mini
I fought to get Lion installed though as it would not see the recovery partition, actually had to throw it in a Windows box and delete the hidden partitions.
Anyhoos
It was much easier to switch out with no temp cables in the way, and there is so much room I could easily put a second drive in there
btw, this guy is a beast, I was amazed at how fast it is compared to the last version. WOW!
Gotta find that cable now
I fought to get Lion installed though as it would not see the recovery partition, actually had to throw it in a Windows box and delete the hidden partitions.
Anyhoos
It was much easier to switch out with no temp cables in the way, and there is so much room I could easily put a second drive in there
btw, this guy is a beast, I was amazed at how fast it is compared to the last version. WOW!
Gotta find that cable now
I had a broken SuperDrive in my MacBook (08) for almost 2 years. It had gotten out of calibration, and would burn only about a third of the CDs and DVD-Rs I would try. I finally got to where I pulled an Apple DVD burner out of the junk drawer, hooked it to a USB to IDE kit, and burned them that way.
In the new MacBook (the screen frame finally cracked in the 08, two months after AppleCare expired), the SuperDrive is the only moving part (other than the keys and the fan). Having an external USB DVD drive would not bother me one bit.
If you really, really insist, here's a link to a $12 USB CD drive, a $30 "generic" USB DVD dual-layer writer and a $35 Samsung trayless "pretty" portable drive. (I actually like the Samsung drive better than Apple's.)
For $35, you have a DVD drive that, when it breaks, you throw away and get another. For what I use, that's fine by me.
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ha ha, if you blow up the first pic it looks like they dropped the thing. The left corner (as you are looking at it) is all scratched.
I blew it up to try to see if it had any seems. I find it hard to believe that they would mill away that much material.
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Wow, just wow. Are we getting a bit emotional here about optical drives?
Don't misunderstand me I understand some of your desires with respect to CD's but nothing Apple has done will prevent you from using CDs on these machines. Sure you will have to us an external drive but that is no big deal.
In any event you miss what is perhaps the biggest feature on these new machines. (by the way something not there can't be a feature). The big feature is the easy purchase of a Mini with both a SSD and a HD installed. This will have a huge impact on the feel of a Mini. This a new Mini purchaser could end up with what might be seen as startling performance increases. So the feature here is that Apple is directly attacking one of the biggest performance drags with respect to modern computing. That is the vast speed difference between the speed of secondary store and the CPU bus.
So in reality Apple enabled a massive increase in performance at the cost of a minor component like the optical. It is actually a very good trade off.
Jon the Heretic said:
Wow, just wow. Are we getting a bit emotional here about optical drives?
Don't misunderstand me I understand some of your desires with respect to CD's but nothing Apple has done will prevent you from using CDs on these machines. Sure you will have to us an external drive but that is no big deal.
In any event you miss what is perhaps the biggest feature on these new machines. (by the way something not there can't be a feature). The big feature is the easy purchase of a Mini with both a SSD and a HD installed. This will have a huge impact on the feel of a Mini. This a new Mini purchaser could end up with what might be seen as startling performance increases. So the feature here is that Apple is directly attacking one of the biggest performance drags with respect to modern computing. That is the vast speed difference between the speed of secondary store and the CPU bus.
So in reality Apple enabled a massive increase in performance at the cost of a minor component like the optical. It is actually a very good trade off.
I like that Samsung drive. I might have to pick one up and see if I can convince my sibling to get the Mini. The only hassle left is trying to get Snow Leopard installed on it.
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Buy an external if you are still dependent upon optical.
The new arraingement is not lame at all. Especially in the context of a Mini with an SSD and a HD present. The performance boost should be significant. You get the speed advantages as seen in AIR along with a reasonable amount of bulk storage space for a desktop.
This combo should be a huge seller as frankly a machine configured as such will smoke older Minis and probably more than a few iMacs.
oldwatery said:I just love it when Apple do their Big brother stuff.
The space is there for an optical but hey no you can't have one because we dictate what is good for you
I understand there are lots of people who no longer need one but i can't believe there are not a significant amount that still do.
And don't give me the buy an external...that is a totally lame option.
Buy an external if you are still dependent upon optical.
The new arraingement is not lame at all. Especially in the context of a Mini with an SSD and a HD present. The performance boost should be significant. You get the speed advantages as seen in AIR along with a reasonable amount of bulk storage space for a desktop.
This combo should be a huge seller as frankly a machine configured as such will smoke older Minis and probably more than a few iMacs.
Could not disagree more. Not only do they provide information on the components used and interesting egnieering and design features, they are invaluable guides to repairs and upgrades. Long may they continue.
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Apple.com says it is.
fabian9 said:
Apple.com says it is.
Trouble is you can't just get a cheap SSD plus SATA cable and stick it in. Look at what the hard drive uses. There is a separate adapter board needed so you can't just use any common parts. I would hope that at some time you could buy that adapter. Perhaps a third party will make it but I don't know what would be required to do so. Still a mac mini with 128gig SSD devoted to the OS would be sick and da bomb to boot. I want one.
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Not liking Lion is not an acceptable excuse! So but you need to confront that sibling as Lion is pretty nice if you actually try it.
Eidorian said:
Not liking Lion is not an acceptable excuse! So but you need to confront that sibling as Lion is pretty nice if you actually try it.