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Mini as external superdrive

B

Bibulous

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2005
716
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Would it be possiable to use a new mini as an external superdrive with my powerbook?

I am starting to play around with home movies using my 667 tibook and would like to burn dvds, however i do not have a superdrive. Upgrading to superdrive, 80 gb hard drive and ilife 05 would be about $400-$450, a mini is $600. I do not have a external monitor, so I would still edit on the tibook. I could use the new 80gb for back up or storage.

Could I just plug in a firewire cable between them and have the hard drive and superdrive available from the tibook?
 
Bibulous said:
Would it be possiable to use a new mini as an external superdrive with my powerbook?

I am starting to play around with home movies using my 667 tibook and would like to burn dvds, however i do not have a superdrive. Upgrading to superdrive, 80 gb hard drive and ilife 05 would be about $400-$450, a mini is $600. I do not have a external monitor, so I would still edit on the tibook. I could use the new 80gb for back up or storage.

Could I just plug in a firewire cable between them and have the hard drive and superdrive available from the tibook?
Click to expand...

Don't believe so... the Mac Mini does run headless (I remember reading that somewhere) and you could get the HD to mount on the Powerbook by booting the Mac Mini while holding.... T I think on the keyboard... but you wouldn't have access to the superdrive.

I'm pretty sure the only way would be to transfer the files to the Mac Mini and then burn it from that OS. You could install a VNC server on the Mac Mini I suppose so you wouldn't have to have anything plugged into it... then just run the client on the powerbook...
 
bibulous,

this is exactly what i want to do. i also have a pb with a combo drive and i want to set up a mini to do stuff like you mentioned...as well as being a music/video server.

i was also thinking of using VNC to control the mini wireless through my pb, my pb would be a huge remote to play my music/videos. i heard VNC is slow, so maybe do the video editing on the pb, then offload the file to the mini and run iDVD on the mini
 
SilentPanda said:
It has a built in client?

I know there's a VPN client... where's the VNC client and/or server?
Click to expand...

I believe Apple Remote Desktop actually uses VNC to do the remote screen stuff. The ADC server (in my terms) is on Sharing. Turn it on and you can remote control the Mac using any VNC client.
 
Another option is getting Roxio Toast. It supports "ToastAnywhere", which basically allows you to use other computer's optical drives to burn your projects. It's a pretty cool feature, but you would be limited to using Toast to do all your burning.
 
Thanks for the replies, looks like it might be a bit more effort then I was hoping for. I'll look into it some more this weekend and post back if I find a cheap and quick setup.
 
Bibulous said:
Would it be possiable to use a new mini as an external superdrive with my powerbook?

I am starting to play around with home movies using my 667 tibook and would like to burn dvds, however i do not have a superdrive. Upgrading to superdrive, 80 gb hard drive and ilife 05 would be about $400-$450, a mini is $600. I do not have a external monitor, so I would still edit on the tibook. I could use the new 80gb for back up or storage.

Could I just plug in a firewire cable between them and have the hard drive and superdrive available from the tibook?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately without an external monitor, keyboard and mouse you will not be able to set the Mini up, to install Toast or VNC software or the like to get it to work with the Powerbook. The only thing that you could do is turn the Mini into a Firewire HD using Firewire Target Disk mode, but that is a very expensive firewire hard disk.
 
Bibulous said:
Would it be possiable to use a new mini as an external superdrive with my powerbook?

I am starting to play around with home movies using my 667 tibook and would like to burn dvds, however i do not have a superdrive. Upgrading to superdrive, 80 gb hard drive and ilife 05 would be about $400-$450, a mini is $600. I do not have a external monitor, so I would still edit on the tibook. I could use the new 80gb for back up or storage.

Could I just plug in a firewire cable between them and have the hard drive and superdrive available from the tibook?
Click to expand...

Okay WHY would you want to do this?

For one the Mac mini is using a 4x DVD burner, which is a notebook drive. It would be far cheaper to buy a desktop external DVD burner that is 8x if not 16x and will not have the hassle of trying to turn on and off sharing via panther.

And why would you network burn, it would take forever and there is a chance of a buffer error in the process. I would not risk it and at the cost, its not worth it. :)
 
As much as an external drive and external burner may add up, I think you're alot better buying the seperate components.......

an 300 gig external hard drive can run you around somewhere around 200-300 hundred where as in the mini you'll be getting a 80 gig drive max without upgrading and installing yourself, which once again is more mone.
 
ok, I guess I was looking for a excuse to buy a mini as much as anything, and it looks like networking them for this use is not a good idea.

I'm now also looking at a 8x slot load superdrive from OWC for $239, and maybe upgrade the hd (currently 48gb @ i think 4200) to a 60gb travelstar at 7200rpm for $175. Has anyone purchased these drives or have any thoughts about them?

Too many options, if only that new g5 powerbook would come along...

(I have a 667 Tibook vga with 1gb ram, 48gb hd, running 10.3.7)
 
Bibulous said:
I'm now also looking at a 8x slot load superdrive from OWC for $239
Click to expand...



Why do that when you can get an external 16x Dual Layer drive for like $150? I just bought one of their d2 drives and its beauitful, works perfectly with my powerbook. I applied the external burner patch to iDVD, and everything works flawlessly.


You should do the same with the hard drive. External is much better. Besides, when you upgrade your comp, you can still use the same external stuff, saving you even more money.
 
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