Mac Mini Teardown Reveals Potential for User-Installable Second Hard Drive

[Crzyrio]

How many people care that their computer is the size of a slice of texas toast?

I'd rather have a full on graphics _CARD_ than a metal pancake on my desk.

-Clive

Then This is clearly not the computer for you.

For me this is perfect, I prefer it over a huge tower.
Why dont people get the fact that not all computers are for everyone.

It's like me posting a review for a 11in netbook saying I dont like it because it does not have a Discreet Graphics Card with 2GB Ram.

 

[Xtremehkr]

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Delete.

 

[praetorian909]

Hmm, so since there is still space for the Superdrive, I wonder if Apple could add the internal DVD drive as a CTO option?

I can still hope for it, right? Apple has always been good about listening to its customers, so if the demand is out there...

 

[zen.state]

Get a laptop and remove the battery. You can meet the weight requirements and in the worst case you get a screen, keyboard, and trackpad.

In many of Apple's portables the system will only run at 50% speed if you remove the battery.

 

[Crzyrio]

In many of Apple's portables the system will only run at 50% speed if you remove the battery.

lol what?

I dont think that is true, I have played a lot of games off battery and they seemed to play fine. And I am sure i would have noticed a difference if they were running at 50%

 

[Xtremehkr]

Ummm, 1997 just called they want that insight back! The internet has changed communication and content delivery well over 10 years ago, Apple had little to do with that. As are servicable PC's, users have been able to swap drives, cards and memory, hell at one point even cpu's for years and years. None of this is new or bleeding edge. I hear the dot com era is coming, better call some vc's to fund your insights! Lol.

It wasn't meant to be insightful, more a comment about how long it's long overdue for optical drives to be phased out.

Reading comprehension, lol.

 

[Rocketman]

They are very stuck in their workflows for transferring VHS to DVD. I think my next step is setting up a Windows XP VM for them.

Being stuck is just smart. If it were me, as need arises for more seats or replacement machines, I would side grade to a similar "old machine" for a tiny price and zero retraining, and adequate application fulfillment.

Rocketman

 

[flopticalcube]

lol what?

I dont think that is true, I have played a lot of games off battery and they seemed to play fine. And I am sure i would have noticed a difference if they were running at 50%

It's true.

 

[jeffh]

There is an empty hard drive cable port. You need a second SATA hard drive-to-logic board cable like the one used to connect drives Apple installs, but it should just be a matter of time before Apple parts resellers offer them.

Awesome - thanks for the information. I'm guess this part is different from the one in the previous Mini (same form factor)?

 

[Crzyrio]

It's true.

ohh kk nvm. I misunderstood the first post. It makes sense.

For some reason i thought it was then the charger was not in but you guys are referring to when the batter is not in?

 

[Xtremehkr]

Interesting. In contrast, I would be hard pressed to find something more useful than a optical drive.

I can rip DVDs to movie and put them on my iPhone without having to pay Apple to 'rent it' (when I already own it). We burned Graduation DVDs for my daughter's preschool---you know, cherished memories. (Sometimes you don't want your kids up on YouTube; we don't even list their ages on Facebook. It is a bad idea). Cherished memories are best on physical media. I spent 10 cents apiece on my Taiyo Yuden DVD media. Making copies for friends takes minutes. I also can usually get better prices on CDs from Amazon and rip 'em. When there is a better audio codec, I re-rip em without having to re-buy them. Pressed CDs/DVDs last pretty much forever, way better than hard drives.

I really get why optical media is not in the iPad or Macbook Air---they are mobile devices and these things are meant to be light. This is why I bought an iMac too---as a desktop, it feeds media to my optical-less mobile devices. It is a compromise and totally logical. But no optical in a desktop? The Mini was already quite Mini WITH an optical drive. Hey, each to his own; I've got plenty of other things to spend my money on.

This is just a cost cutting move that Apple has fooled some people into thinking is a feature. Wow, just wow.

That's great, Jon, but the difference between digital media stored on a DVD and digital media stored on a flash drive or external drive is non existent.

I sure hope your 10 cent DVDs last as long as you think they're going to last, I wouldn't count on it though.

I go 5 years between HDDs before the information is transferred to a new iMac and it's always backed up using Time Machine. The need to put in on physical media on top of everything else is just a waste of time and money.

 

[Clive At Five]

Then This is clearly not the computer for you.

For me this is perfect, I prefer it over a huge tower.
Why dont people get the fact that not all computers are for everyone.

It's like me posting a review for a 11in netbook saying I dont like it because it does not have a Discreet Graphics Card with 2GB Ram.

You don't need a monstrosity to have a graphics card. There are plenty of modest (SFF, even) desktops that do offer a modular GPU.

Alas, Apple doesn't make one.

They give me the choice of underpowered texas toast, meh-powered all-in-one, and modular monstrosity.

I don't recall "posting a review..." however, I was commenting on the tradeoff between size and performance. If you could choose a computer the size of a shoe-box with all the power of a standard desktop PC, or a sandwich-sized immobile net-book, which would it be?

I'd rather sacrifice a little space.

 

[xwinger]

Is it simple to replace the regular hard drive? I ordered the dual core i7 version, and the processor is all i upgraded because I thought i could just change the ram and hdd on my own.

so did i think correctly?

 

[Atkins]

That would be great.
They could slim them down and ship them with the same SSD's as the Air's. And install a traditional HDD in the spot freed up by removing the optical drive.
Probably even room for more battery that way.

Oh, no no no. I want a discrete GPU in the 13" MBP and an anti-glare option

Because of Steve Jobs dislike for a numeric keypad included with even the 17" Intel MacBook Pro I have to carry a whole keyboard to handle the majority of my entries. Because I place the keyboard either on the laptop or in front my 1920 X 1200 screen is even smaller to look at. Now with my pointing device either covered up or in a non useful location I add a Kensington Expert Mouse. Weight is going up fast & portability is going down even faster.

Buy a numeric pad. I certainly don't want to sacrifice a nicely centered keyboard. And carrying a mouse will be the same with every laptop you buy. But Macs have the best trackpads. I even manage to do some 3D with it when on the move.

How many people care that their computer is the size of a slice of texas toast?
I'd rather have a full on graphics _CARD_ than a metal pancake on my desk.

That is weird logic. The size savings are there. They are a feature, so you do take them into account. The fact you don't care about the feature only means that you shouldn't buy it.

 

[aine]

Weird pricing on the hard drives on the middle Mini ...

1) If you start with the 500GB/5400rpm drive, you can replace it with a 750GB/7200rpm drive for $150.

2) If you start with the SSD, you can add the same 750GB/7200rpm drive for the same $150.

In one case you're paying $150 for a new 2nd 750GB drive added on (reasonable enough). In the other case, you are paying $150 to upgrade from the 500GB drive. As if the stock 500GB/5400rpm drive were worth literally zero.

Obviously the answer is that things are worth what people are willing to pay, but $150 extra to bump from 500GB/5400 to 750GB/7200 seems like an awful lot. I'm thinking a 2TB Firewire disk is a better investment than the upgrade.

 

[Eidorian]

In many of Apple's portables the system will only run at 50% speed if you remove the battery.

I never said it had to be an Apple notebook.

Being stuck is just smart. If it were me, as need arises for more seats or replacement machines, I would side grade to a similar "old machine" for a tiny price and zero retraining, and adequate application fulfillment.

Rocketman

I have to agree. Do not fix what is not broken. The most expensive single component is a FireWire Canopus ADVC box. We just keep the cables permanently attached to the input. I can not even remember how old it is now. Maybe 2005-2006 era hardware. It works just fine over S-Video to transfer to DV and out to a DVD. It makes for a nice hobby, side income, and karma points in the family. We also have a nice Creative USB sound card for more fancy audio work.

It is nothing professional but it is something we take pride in having the skills and hardware around locally.

 

[wilhoitm]

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Can you guys even read? Come on answer the question!!!

If you could read you would realize that the SSD is not fixed in the AIR.

It is dangerous to assume! Just because it is not fixed in the AIR does not mean it is not fixed in the Mac Mini. They have two different motherboards you know!

Marcus

 

[lilo777]

How many PC desktops are 1.4" x 7.7" x 7.7" and weigh less than 3 pounds? Come on.


There is an empty hard drive cable port. You need a second SATA hard drive-to-logic board cable like the one used to connect drives Apple installs, but it should just be a matter of time before Apple parts resellers offer them.

Exactly my point. What's the benefit of having a pocket sized desktop? Adding discrete GPU (to original design) would probably make it 0.2" thicker. Nobody would notice.

 

[flopticalcube]

You don't need a monstrosity to have a graphics card. There are plenty of modest (SFF, even) desktops that do offer a modular GPU.

Alas, Apple doesn't make one.

They give me the choice of underpowered texas toast, meh-powered all-in-one, and modular monstrosity.

I don't recall "posting a review..." however, I was commenting on the tradeoff between size and performance. If you could choose a computer the size of a shoe-box with all the power of a standard desktop PC, or a sandwich-sized immobile net-book, which would it be?

I'd rather sacrifice a little space.

Yep. Next build will be an i5-2500k in a Silverstone case (SG05 or SG07) with a 560ti or 6950. Apple's line is missing my requirement.

 

[fabian9]

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.

Apple.com says it is.

Thanks for that. Unbelievable, from a geeky mechanical engineer's point of view, I wonder how long it takes to machine one of these and just how they manage to get all the undercuts in!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]
Apple of course already offers the option of two hard drives on the server model of the Mac mini, although that model also brings other upgrades including a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor that push the price to $999, a $400 premium over the entry-level model.

Article Link: Mac Mini Teardown Reveals Potential for User-Installable Second Hard Drive

The mini Server edition costs $400 more than the base model, and has three hardware upgrades over the base model, plus one software difference:

• The Mac mini Server includes OS X Lion Server on top of OS X Lion. To buy Lion Server from the App Store is $50. Remaining price difference: $350.
• 4 GB RAM standard ($100 extra on the base model - so that drops it to a $250 premium.)
• dual 7200 RPM 500 GB drives on the Server vs. a single 5400 RPM 500 GB drive on the base. We can't do a direct comparison, since it's impossible to configure the base model the same as the server model for storage. But we *CAN* do some funky three-way comparing. The price to upgrade the 'high end' non-server model to a 7200 RPM 750 GB hard drive is the same as on the base model: $150. The high end model also includes the ability to upgrade from 5400 RPM 500 GB to the pair of 750 GB 7200 RPM plus 256 GB SSD. The Server model also offers this same upgrade from its dual-500 GB drives. The cost for the non-server model is $750, while the cost for the server model is $550. So Apple considers the 'upgrade' from single 5400 RPM 500 GB drive to dual 7200 RPM 500 GB drives to be worth $200. Remaining price difference: $50. (Sorry for the convoluted math needed.)
• Quad-core i7 2630QM processor on the server - 2.0 GHz 'base', turbos of 2.9/2.8/2.6 GHz (for 1/2/4 active cores) vs. the dual-core i5 2410M processor on the base - 2.3 GHz 'base', turbos up to 2.9/2.6 GHz (for 1/2 active cores,) so assuming the mini isn't thermally-constrained often, the server has an equal-or-better for any number of threads processor. (As fast with one core active, 200 MHz faster with two cores active, and as-fast at four cores as the base model is at two cores active.) If the mini *IS* thermally constrained, then the base model would be slightly faster with single-threaded workloads. Unfortunately, these two CPUs are both OEM-only, so I can't find the list price for them - but a few other OEMs offer the choice on the same model, and the price difference appears to be in the $100-$130 range. That means we're getting a >$100 value for $50.

The Server model of the mini has always been worth more than the price increase. Heck, for the previous-generation model, you COULD upgrade the base model to be even with the Server model, with the only hardware difference being that the base model included a DVD writer while the server model included a second hard drive - and the server model had OS X Server. When you configured them 'equally', the server model was $50 cheaper! (So you had to pay a $50 premium to *DOWNGRADE* the OS, and swap a hard drive for an optical drive.) If you didn't need the optical drive, the server model was a steal if you were going to upgrade anything.

 

[Eidorian]

Yep. Next build will be an i5-2500k in a Silverstone case (SG05 or SG07) with a 560ti or 6950. Apple's line is missing my requirement.

Both are fine options from Silverstone but the power supply options on the SG05 can make it pricey from a base $99 for a decent 300W.

Silverstone even has some hand crafted aluminium cases. Your Mac Pro weeps tears.

 

[paradox00]

It is dangerous to assume! Just because it is not fixed in the AIR does not mean it is not fixed in the Mac Mini. They have two different motherboards you know!

Marcus

The SSD in the mini will be a standard 2.5" one like they use in the iMac, not a blade one like the air. Not a chance it's soldered in.

 

[GS17]

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I would agree with you if only Apple will lower the price of those machines to reflect the cost of buying the external. They will be charging more for less.

 

[GS17]

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Interesting. In contrast, I would be hard pressed to find something more useful than a optical drive.

That is just you. The majority hardly ever use their optical drives. I use them to install a purchased App or two, or rip music I bought from the store. That's it. Not much at all.

Sure you love your optical drive but Apple need to cater for the majority. If Apple kill the optical drive in the MBP or iMacs they'll have to still have the external option available for people to buy.

If Apple totally axed the internal optical drive I'd just save up for an external and use it like 1-2 times a month. At the most. And for notebook users I think very few users need the optical drives on the move. At home you can just use the external. So if the internal optical drive was removed I'm not cry. I'd jsut buy the external.

I would agree with you if only Apple will lower the price of those machines to reflect the cost of buying the external. They will be charging more for less.