NewerTech Releases miniStack MAX Hard Drive/Blu-Ray Burner/SD Card Reader/USB Hub

[Mojo1]

OWC sells a kits to fix the problem and has a video showing how apply it- you have to completely tear down the Mini, voiding its warranty, to apply the shielding.

The kit only addresses the Bluetooth interference since the shielding is only for the Mini's Bluetooth antenna. WiFi interference is not mitigated by the OWC kit.

Anybody considering one of these enclosures should think really hard about it unless you want to deal with BLuetooth and WiFi issues...

 

[RaceTripper]

I ordered the bare model, along with a Blu-ray slot drive. I have a 1.5 TB drive I took out of a retired DVR. This will be utilized for my workflow of ripping and encoding Blu-ray and DVDs for streaming. I have a late 2012 Mini (240 SSD, 16 GB, 2.6 GHz i7) for this.

 

[2002cbr600f4i]

No thunderbolt? USELESS!

What the heck were they thinking?!?! No Thunderbolt connection?!?!? Useless!!! While I'm sure this helped keep the price down, it seems pretty dumb not to have TBolt...

And what good is a Blu-Ray drive on the Mac? If you boot camp, fine, but can you even play Blu-Ray movies on the Mac???

 

[RaceTripper]

What the heck were they thinking?!?! No Thunderbolt connection?!?!? Useless!!! While I'm sure this helped keep the price down, it seems pretty dumb not to have TBolt...

And what good is a Blu-Ray drive on the Mac? If you boot camp, fine, but can you even play Blu-Ray movies on the Mac???

I'm happy to have something like this without TB. I don't need it and including it would have priced it out of the range I am willing to pay. There are TB solutions out there if you want to pay that high price.

 

[driveparty]

Too much overpriced!

into a single elegant aluminum finish enclosure

Liars! Their own specs says it's made of "Scratch-resistant ABS plastic body and glossy plastic black top", so it's a (cheap) piece of plastic, with an external power supply.
Moreover, not only this is (IMHO) too much for a pice of plastic with a kinda cheap external power supply, it's likely gonna either fry your HDD or blow your ears, 'cause plastic (HDD) cases are far away from any known affordable thermal solutions for both HDDs and optical burners.
Considering it's USB 3.0 (unlike wanted TB) connectivity, even if they would made it of aluminum, i won't pay more than $100 for a USB 3.0 to dual-SATA / eSata / FW800 adapter with a couple of additional USB ports and questionable front SD reader.

For me OWC is a tricking company. I bought some products from OWC, including cheap Chinese MBP batteries, or "mini Data-doubler kits" with some cheapest screw grommets and the screws 'em selves, nothing to say about fake (not made by Apple or OEM) second HDD cable.
This ones seems to be the next naive MAC users rubbery attempt from OWC, IMHO.

 

[treyjustice]

If you say so. I got a Memorex Blu-Ray/DVD/CD USB 3.0 burner for $69 on sale and my 3TB USB 3.0 external drive for $110 for a grand total of $179.

My Mac Mini already has the card reader on it (why would I need another one?). That leaves the extra two USB 3.0 ports which are nice, but not worth the $261 difference in price (i.e. $440 for a Blu-Ray Burner with 3TB; $400 for read-only Blu-Ray and 3TB).

I suppose it'd be nice to have the FW800 OPTION (theoretically it could come in handy if I had to use it with another computer), but the computer I'm using it with has USB 3.0 so I don't really then NEED the slower FW800 option.

I thought the base model had a blu ray drive in it. Apparently not pricing doesn't look so great now

 

[RaceTripper]

Liars! Their own specs says it's made of "Scratch-resistant ABS plastic body and glossy plastic black top", so it's a (cheap) piece of plastic, with an external power supply.
Moreover, not only this is (IMHO) too much for a pice of plastic with a kinda cheap external power supply, it's likely gonna either fry your HDD or blow your ears, 'cause plastic (HDD) cases are far away from any known affordable thermal solutions for both HDDs and optical burners.
Considering it's USB 3.0 (unlike wanted TB) connectivity, even if they would made it of aluminum, i won't pay more than $100 for a USB 3.0 to dual-SATA / eSata / FW800 adapter with a couple of additional USB ports and questionable front SD reader.

For me OWC is a tricking company. I bought some products from OWC, including cheap Chinese MBP batteries, or "mini Data-doubler kits" with some cheapest screw grommets and the screws 'em selves, nothing to say about fake (not made by Apple or OEM) second HDD cable.
This ones seems to be the next naive MAC users rubbery attempt from OWC, IMHO.

Mine arrived a short time ago. It has a metal case best I can tell (appears to be cast something with aluminum colored paint). The bottom on which everything mounts is ABS. I am assembling it now with a BRD drive and a 1.5 TB 3.5" HDD.

 

[deconstruct60]

Other World Computing has begun selling NewerTech's miniStack MAX, an ambitious all-in-one hard drive, Blu-Ray/CD/DVD reader/burner, SD card reader and USB hub in one compact enclosure meant to match the footprint of the Mac mini.

A bigger, yet unstated issue is whether this new offering has the properly shield USB 3.0 sockets or not.

http://blog.macsales.com/15990-shielding-resolves-usb-3-0-conflict-with-bluetooth

Some folks had problems with older Newer Stacks with USB 3.0. OWC came up with a kluge to 'shield' the bluetooth radio from the interference. However, the root cause seemed to be the older product's USB 3.0 sockets. Hopefully this one has a better design.

P.S. Thunderbolt here makes almost zero sense. Access to a single HDD or a single BlueRay drive won't be much or not at all faster than using USB 3.0 or eSATA. Even FW800 won't be that far off for relatively random accesses. At best could get eSATA like speed out of a much more expensive Thunderbolt solution.

 

[driveparty]

Mine arrived a short time ago. It has a metal case best I can tell (appears to be cast something with aluminum colored paint). The bottom on which everything mounts is ABS. I am assembling it now with a BRD drive and a 1.5 TB 3.5" HDD.

OMG! Don't you make a little difference between painted plastic and metal case, which must disperse HDD / optical drive heat? Unbelievable!
There are plenty of good aluminum HDD cases with USB 3.0 interface as well as many DVD/BD slim or full size... However, i won't put a drive with some important data into the plastic box.

 

[Marx55]

At least two Thunderbolt ports is a must. No Thunderbolt is a deal breaker!!!

 

[RaceTripper]

OMG! Don't you make a little difference between painted plastic and metal case, which must disperse HDD / optical drive heat? Unbelievable!
There are plenty of good aluminum HDD cases with USB 3.0 interface as well as many DVD/BD slim or full size... However, i won't put a drive with some important data into the plastic box.

Leaving the argument of plastic vs metal aside, I have been running 2TB drives inside Antec MX-1 eSata enclosures for years. These are plastic cases with whisper fans that pack the drives in tighter than the miniStack MAX does. I have three of these Antecs running as ext drives on DVRs that buffer video full time. IOW: the drives run 24/7/365 since the DVRs are never off. I have yet to have a problem with heat or drive failure as a result.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

At least two Thunderbolt ports is a must. No Thunderbolt is a deal breaker!!!

WTF is the point of using Thunderbolt if you already have USB 3.0? It'd just double the price of the enclosure and wouldn't gain a thing in terms of performance for a single drive.

Thunderbolt = Consumer FAIL (too bloody expensive for EVERYTHING out there)

 

[phrehdd]

This is not a bad unit at all and it fits well with the Mac Mini. It contains ports that are most commonly used and for the price, it serves a purpose.

Thunderbolt - A great idea that is by today's standards, not cost effective for the typical user. For those unhappy that there is no TB on this unit, go pay for a TB enclosure and empty your wallet. Given that most likely a good set of SSDs would be the only thing to really (storage-wise) take advantage of TB then you wouldn't be looking for a single drive enclosure to begin with. There are small bus units out there from a few makers that probably do just fine for 250-400 dollars.

Blu Ray reader - while nice I am one of those that realizes that slot load disc reader/burners are notoriously slower than full sized internal or external units. They also have on the average shorter lives. If one doesn't care how fast the read is, then its not such a bad thing.

USB3 and eSATA - The USB 3 is a great fit for this unit with plenty of adaptors out there to take advantage of using non-USB3 ports from MACs and other systems. The eSATA is disappointing on this unit as it is SATA II not SATA III.

Plastic vs aluminium etc. - Doesn't matter as long as the outside as stated is scratch resistant and the unit can properly cool itself down. This was not meant to be a carry around unit but a stacked unit thus sit it down and simply use it.

Power supply - whether cheap or not, it is a shame that it is a brick along the power line rather than internal. Then again to fit in a 3.5" drive would make it very difficult to have an internal power supply. If the unit instead housed 2 2.5" drives this could have been done.

If someone wanted such a unit and didn't need more than say 1 terabyte, they might consider the 1 tb Velociraptor by Western Digital given its high speed and built in heat sink casing (it really is a 2.5" style drive encased in a 3.5" heat sink housing).

If someone had a Mac Mini, wanted a local back up or additional storage this is not a bad unit at all. If someone is looking for a high end bus/storage unit, this certainly is not it.

So consider what you want vs what you need and choose to buy or not buy and not sure why anyone would be upset with no Thunderbolt at the given price. Apple was late on USB3, didn't come forth with FW1600 or FW3200 and eSATA seems to be falling out of favour.

 

[ctrlshft]

no thunderbolt, no deal. what a missed opportunity...

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

no thunderbolt, no deal. what a missed opportunity...

Hey, give them some time to make a deluxe version at 4x the cost that also has Thunderbolt for those that like to waste money on zero performance improvement over USB 3.0 for a single drive. Surely two posts in this thread prove there is at least some demand for a waste of money.

 

[G4er?]

At least there is finally a third party external device that closely matches the look that Apple gave to the mini. One that has room for a ODD since Apple no longer offers them.

This product will at least allow me to consider the mini. I will wait until I see what Apple comes out with desktop wise during the rest of 2013.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

At least there is finally a third party external device that closely matches the look that Apple gave to the mini. One that has room for a ODD since Apple no longer offers them.

This product will at least allow me to consider the mini. I will wait until I see what Apple comes out with desktop wise during the rest of 2013.

I actually "hide" my Mac Mini behind two monitors, a Klipsch speaker system, external Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drive (everything is classy black, not aluminum/plastic/grey) and a Brother MFC-J835DW on the far corner completes the look. Even my new Logitech B910 HD Webcam is jet black. The Blu-Ray drive sits vertical between the extra monitor and one of the speakers. My 3TB USB 3.0 hard drive is hidden behind my monitor as well. I have no need for a "stack" when it's all hidden anyway. All you see is a desktop terminal with multiple monitors from the chair.

 

[mpainesyd]

I know nothing about Bluray. Past discussions have talked about how OS X lacks Bluray codecs, so even if you plug a Bluray in, you can't watch them as you would a DVD. Is that right? If so, are there third party codecs you can download and/or purchase?

There is a Mac app called Blu-ray Player (~$40) that happily plays Blu-ray movies on my iMac. I use an MCE blu-ray burner that connects with USB2 - old technology but it seems to work fine.

My main reason for getting a blu-ray burner is archiving data, photos and music on 25Gb disks. The MCE will write to 50GB disks but I cannot buy any high-quality archiving disks in Australia.

I am holding out for a Sunix Thunderbolt dock with most of the features that people in this thread have asked for.
http://www.sunix.com.tw/cc/en/e-DM/2012_COMPUTEX-banner/sunix_thunderbolt_dock .html
Apparently Sunix is waiting for Intel certification of the Thunderbolt interface...

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Is this the cable i would need to use the MiniStack in Europe?

 

[sportster]

I just ordered a new Mac Mini (2.6 i7), and I've been eyeing the Mini Stack Max for a while now.

I've seen alot of talk with Bluetooth and wifi interference with the mini stacks. Has anyone else that ordered in the past month of so had any issues?

I like the product, it fits my needs. But, I do not want to drop $200 in the mini stack max (along with my extra 3tb drive) and cause issues with my new Mac setup.

 

[RaceTripper]

I just ordered a new Mac Mini (2.6 i7), and I've been eyeing the Mini Stack Max for a while now.

I've seen alot of talk with Bluetooth and wifi interference with the mini stacks. Has anyone else that ordered in the past month of so had any issues?

I like the product, it fits my needs. But, I do not want to drop $200 in the mini stack max (along with my extra 3tb drive) and cause issues with my new Mac setup.

I had one briefly, and yes, I did have the BT issues. I ordered the shield kit, which I have yet to install. I ended up returning my Max. OWC sent me a faulty Blu-ray drive twice, so I gave up and returned everything.

I am now waiting until I buy another Mini to use as a dedicated media server before I decide what and how I will use to manage storage, etc.

 

[sportster]

I had one briefly, and yes, I did have the BT issues. I ordered the shield kit, which I have yet to install. I ended up returning my Max. OWC sent me a faulty Blu-ray drive twice, so I gave up and returned everything.

I am now waiting until I buy another Mini to use as a dedicated media server before I decide what and how I will use to manage storage, etc.

It's a shame that there are continued issues with it. I am no ways an expert, but it seams that if the Mini Stack Max was (better) shielded, and a high quality cable was included that the issues would go away...

One last question: Are all the issues mainly with the BT? Any issues with wifi? I'm thinking wifi wont be affect as much, seeing how it is using 5ghz (for wireless N) range. From what I've read the main issues is in the crowded 2.4ghz spectrum.

I may still give it a try, it solve many needs of mine (dvd drive, easy access SD card, and the built in drive for expanded use (plan on saving my home folder or at least iTunes files there). I will be using a Logitech mouse and keyboard, both share a usb receiver.

 

[RaceTripper]

It's a shame that there are continued issues with it. I am no ways an expert, but it seams that if the Mini Stack Max was (better) shielded, and a high quality cable was included that the issues would go away...

One last question: Are all the issues mainly with the BT? Any issues with wifi? I'm thinking wifi wont be affect as much, seeing how it is using 5ghz (for wireless N) range. From what I've read the main issues is in the crowded 2.4ghz spectrum.

I may still give it a try, it solve many needs of mine (dvd drive, easy access SD card, and the built in drive for expanded use (plan on saving my home folder or at least iTunes files there). I will be using a Logitech mouse and keyboard, both share a usb receiver.

Apparently, the Mac Mini is part of the problem. The BT module is not well enough shielded against signals from USB 3.0 devices.

http://blog.macsales.com/15990-shielding-resolves-usb-3-0-conflict-with-bluetooth

 

[APlotdevice]

Apparently, the Mac Mini is part of the problem. The BT module is not well enough shielded against signals from USB devices.

http://blog.macsales.com/15990-shielding-resolves-usb-3-0-conflict-with-bluetooth

Specifically USB 3.0 devices. The specification for which is also lacking in the shielding department, causing problems for more than just Mac Minis.

 

[RaceTripper]

Specifically USB 3.0 devices. The specification for which is also lacking in the shielding department, causing problems for more than just Mac Minis.

Right. I clarified in my post.