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i still want a small box with a lot of horsepower. *Something that contains the basics,

  • Two high end processors each with multiple cores
  • Fast graphics card
  • Room for the same or half the ram of the big box
  • Room for two hard drives

Something that doesn't take up a lot of space and I can move it off the floor and on to my desktop without being too obtrusive. *I'm willing to pay the base big box price.

Finally, someone with something to say that's related to the article, not blu ray blah blah blah... :)

I couldn't agree with you more.

We need a mini tower in the price range of the core i5 iMac with limited (but not non-existent) internal expandability.

When jobs took over again, those desktop and minitower G3s where an affordable setup, the G4 and G5 systems followed with only the higher end quad systems beginning to have pricing beyond a joke at the lower end.

Then the intel Mac Pros came out and*I don't need over £2000 worth of 8 core xeon beast in a huge case!

What about a single 4 or 6 core xeon/core i7, 4 RAM slots, 2 user upgradable drive bays in addition to the system drive, 1 empty expansion slot and a user replacable graphics card in the slot next to it for £1099?

There's a hole in their range that needs to be filled with a system like this.

Apple wouldn't be gouging sales of either the iMac or Mac pro, they'd be selling the Macmini TOWER to existing mac owners who wouldn't be satisfied with the power of the mac mini for very long, don't want to go the second hand route on a mac pro and don't want a giant laptop with an external keyboard and mouse. *More importantly for Apple, they'd be catering for potential switchers who'd finally have a mac they can switch to!

My G4 has 3 internal drives, full RAM expansion to 1.5Gb and 2 graphics cards running a 23" LCD, a 19" LCDs and a TV. *I record to one drive, boot from another and use the 3rd for general storage with a 1Tb external USB 2.0 drive for backups.

I'm currently looking at an early 2009 mac mini (if I can find one in mid august) as my only viable/affordable replacement with the following additions and tricky internal upgrades to work around the short comings of it's limitations at a later date:-

1) a 500 or 750Gb External 7200rpm Oxford based FireWire drive partitioned for recording/general storage.

2) Replace my TV with a 23" 1080p one mounted above my 23" LCD monitor on*a vertical VESA stand.

This also leaves me with just a desk and chair for my entire mac/entertainment system. *Very clean and tidy!*
*
3) OWC 8gb memory kit and tool kit to work inside the mac mini.

4) A single SSD for the system drive.

A mini tower would be simpler:-

1) buy a larger, cheaper internal 3.5" drive for recording/storage

2) TV idea as above

3) cheap 8Gb RAM upgrade using 2Gb desktop DIMMs

4) SSD upgrade as above but maybe even have 2 smaller SSDs RAIDED together as a cheaper and faster alternative?



I know I'm dreaming. *I'll get the mac mini, be so blown away by how much faster it is than my 8 year old dual G4 that I'll ignore all the external extras plugged into it and probably still be demanding a mini tower for my next mac after that one in 3 or 4 years :)
 
First of all, what USB 3.0 devices are shipping to use this? Or is this just a developer platform?

Also, as far as LightPeak goes, that is going to be on PCI Express cards for a while that cost as much as the PC til someone figures out a cheaper, low loss fiber optic to silicon fabrication process.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3.0"&page=2&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=100


Appears to be a lot of drives and enclosures. Did not find anything else in there.
 
In a box in my office is a 250 MB HDD from my 1996 Performa. I replaced it with a 4.3 GB HDD. Also in the box is a 250 MB HDD from an external drive that used a SCSI connector. That was my backup before I bought a second 4.3 GB HDD to put in the external enclosure. And those drives cannot be connected to my 2008 Mac easily. I'm sure someone makes a connecting adapter, but it's probably expensive.

It was 1991 when I bought my first 2 CDs, For Our Children, and Late Night Grande Hotel. The CDs are put away, and I listen to these from my iTunes collection. I had seen portable CD players in a Radio Shack store, but that was probably the late 1980s. It was priced at something over $200. That also was about the same time I saw a demonstration of a CD which had an entire encyclopedia stored on it. (I also saw a demonstration of a ruby laser in 1965 at an ACS meeting, but that's another story.)
The beaty of optical media is that almost every computer today can read 30 years old optical disk. Not so with any other media.
 
Bluray sucks as every other optical media. It takes a lot of space inside the computer and it is mechanical.

why does optical media suck? I really don't actually get it. We still can't access 1080p content yet over the streaming sites and it would require far too much space to store locally.
 
1.
Expensive players.
Cheapest are less than $100 now.
2.
Very very expensive media. I enjoy a good movie at a fair price but I don't want to single handily support the drug habits of every hollywood star.
Lots of bd movies available in $5-$10.
3.
The required encryption is overbearing and has a negative impact on the reliability of the PC the software runs on.
iTunes movies have similiar DRM.
5.
Voting for Blu-Ray is giving you approval for radical copyright holders. The encryption is such that the works may never end up in the public domain. In essence by supporting BluRay you are bastardizing 200 years of what was reasonable copyright law.
All streaming/download movies are encrypted.
6.
Being able to make personal copies of a file should not be a crime and should not be difficult.
Easier with bd than with online content.
 
LightPeak isn't an audio/video panacea either. it makes for great demos, but where is the need for 5Gb/s video ? Uncompressed 1080p HD is in the sub 180MB/s range.
Hmmm, lets see... Lets take 2560x1440, 12bit colors, 60fps, 3D. That will make 5.3 Gbps. Douh!

Also, LP should be networkable, so there might be need for multiple video streams over one link.
 
Not trying to pick a fight, but this incorrect information that optical storage like CD-R and DVD-R has a long shelf life is just WRONG (as opposed to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM). Note that in the "ROM" variation the grooves are pressed by a master during replication, while the "R" variation uses a laser to cut the grooves in a blank disk. The latter are not a long-term reliable storage medium.

Since you asked, let's look at the National Archives web-page titled:

"Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Optical Storage Media: Storing Temporary Records on CDs and DVDs":

6. How long can I expect my recorded CDs/DVDs to last?


CD/DVD experiential life expectancy is 2 to 5 years even though published life expectancies are often cited as 10 years, 25 years, or longer. However, a variety of factors discussed in the sources cited in FAQ 15, below, may result in a much shorter life span for CDs/DVDs. Life expectancies are statistically based; any specific medium may experience a critical failure before its life expectancy is reached. Additionally, the quality of your storage environment may increase or decrease the life expectancy of the media. We recommend testing your media at least every two years to assure your records are still readable.

http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/temp-opmedia-faq.html

The cited FAQ 15 lists government agencies around the world and their recommendations. The British National Archive recommends a bit by bit varification of the optical discs every 6 months to ensure integrity. Try doing that with 100 blu-ray recorded disks.

My strategy is to build archives around the concept of a rotating out every storage medium to a fresh, new medium every three years, and then to have triple backups of every piece of data. One off-site, of course. So monthy off-site of multi-TB HDDs runs circles around blu-ray.
Ok, but cd's I have from 80's are not burned, they are pressed. And so are bd movies.
And there are now much more durable -R's available than generic "2 to 5 years". Different national archives are testing them and in few years will update their recommendations.

Good that you have 4 copies of everything. I also use raid5-nas. That doesn't mean that that majority of consumers will ever do either of these.

If you would buy one 50GB bd movie a week, you end up using 10TB of disc space for bd backups a year...
 
Finally, someone with something to say that's related to the article, not blu ray blah blah blah... :)

I couldn't agree with you more.

We need a mini tower in the price range of the core i5 iMac with limited (but not non-existent) internal expandability.

When jobs took over again, those desktop and minitower G3s where an affordable setup, the G4 and G5 systems followed with only the higher end quad systems beginning to have pricing beyond a joke at the lower end.

Then the intel Mac Pros came out and*I don't need over £2000 worth of 8 core xeon beast in a huge case!

What about a single 4 or 6 core xeon/core i7, 4 RAM slots, 2 user upgradable drive bays in addition to the system drive, 1 empty expansion slot and a user replacable graphics card in the slot next to it for £1099?

There's a hole in their range that needs to be filled with a system like this.

Apple wouldn't be gouging sales of either the iMac or Mac pro, they'd be selling the Macmini TOWER to existing mac owners who wouldn't be satisfied with the power of the mac mini for very long, don't want to go the second hand route on a mac pro and don't want a giant laptop with an external keyboard and mouse. *More importantly for Apple, they'd be catering for potential switchers who'd finally have a mac they can switch to!

My G4 has 3 internal drives, full RAM expansion to 1.5Gb and 2 graphics cards running a 23" LCD, a 19" LCDs and a TV. *I record to one drive, boot from another and use the 3rd for general storage with a 1Tb external USB 2.0 drive for backups.

I'm currently looking at an early 2009 mac mini (if I can find one in mid august) as my only viable/affordable replacement with the following additions and tricky internal upgrades to work around the short comings of it's limitations at a later date:-

1) a 500 or 750Gb External 7200rpm Oxford based FireWire drive partitioned for recording/general storage.

2) Replace my TV with a 23" 1080p one mounted above my 23" LCD monitor on*a vertical VESA stand.

This also leaves me with just a desk and chair for my entire mac/entertainment system. *Very clean and tidy!*
*
3) OWC 8gb memory kit and tool kit to work inside the mac mini.

4) A single SSD for the system drive.

A mini tower would be simpler:-

1) buy a larger, cheaper internal 3.5" drive for recording/storage

2) TV idea as above

3) cheap 8Gb RAM upgrade using 2Gb desktop DIMMs

4) SSD upgrade as above but maybe even have 2 smaller SSDs RAIDED together as a cheaper and faster alternative?



I know I'm dreaming. *I'll get the mac mini, be so blown away by how much faster it is than my 8 year old dual G4 that I'll ignore all the external extras plugged into it and probably still be demanding a mini tower for my next mac after that one in 3 or 4 years :)

Right on!!!!!!

I need the power of a Mac pro but in a smaller package. Only 2 graphic card sots and 2 hd drive bays. One optical drive bay that MUST HAVE a build to order option for bluray. One FireWire 800 port on the back and one on the front ,1 USB on front 2 on back. Sell it without a keyboard or mouse. Just a power cord documentation and software disks.

Please God please. Er uh please Steve please.
 
ddrescue

My strategy is to build archives around the concept of a rotating out every storage medium to a fresh, new medium every three years, and then to have triple backups of every piece of data. One off-site, of course. So monthy off-site of multi-TB HDDs runs circles around blu-ray.

There's a program named "ddrescue" that is great for recovering bad optical media.

It tries to make a .ISO from the media, using very aggressive recovery algorithms. It keeps a map of bad (uncopied) blocks in the .ISO.

You can rerun it, and it only tries to copy the missing blocks the next time. You can do this with a different optical drive, or on a different machine.

If you have multiple copies of the optical disc, you can try each copy. Even if all 3 of your copies have errors, you'll get a good .ISO as long as the same sector is not bad on all 3 discs.
 
What about a single 4 or 6 core xeon/core i7, 4 RAM slots, 2 user upgradable drive bays in addition to the system drive, 1 empty expansion slot and a user replacable graphics card in the slot next to it for £1099?

There's a hole in their range that needs to be filled with a system like this.

If the current 2.66GHz Mac Pro was £1099, would you have any issues or would you have bought one? Or is the size of it just too inconceivable? They aren't priced how they are because of their features or performance compared to the whole computer market, it's to put it above the iMac and maintain high margins across their product range.
 
I had a 535, and test-drove a Mercedes coupe and sedan, and went running back to the BMW.

haha. me too! during the test drive of the Benz, i was like "Wha....??????" No where near the level of driving experience of the Bimmer.

back on-topic: I agree with the posters who have pointed out the limitations of optical discs. Those that claim they depend upon them for long-term archival storage will be disappointed.
 
Actually many if us have but honestly that has nothing to do with the hate for Blu-Ray. The hate can be summed up in a few items below:

1.
Expensive players.
2.
Very very expensive media. I enjoy a good movie at a fair price but I don't want to single handily support the drug habits of every hollywood star.
3.
The required encryption is overbearing and has a negative impact on the reliability of the PC the software runs on.
4.
Sure the audio is great but my hearing isn't.
5.
Voting for Blu-Ray is giving you approval for radical copyright holders. The encryption is such that the works may never end up in the public domain. In essence by supporting BluRay you are bastardizing 200 years of what was reasonable copyright law.
6.
Being able to make personal copies of a file should not be a crime and should not be difficult.

It is not the quality of the movies that is horrible, it is everything else associated with Blu-Ray. By buying Blu-Ray you undermine some of the fundamental freedoms and rights we have had for years as Americans.

And frankly no one cares! It isn't the movies that are the problem.


The big concern is people like you that have had the wool pulled over their eyes. You go gaga over the movie quality while the studios and associations hope you don't notice how the copyright law has been perverted in the last few years by big business.

People whine about Apples iPhone app store but then role over backwards for the Blu-Ray mafia. What the Blu-Ray folks are doing is many times worst and in the long run a far graver concern.


Dave

Sounds like you have been drinking the pirate bay cool aid, I have no problems with on disc copy protection, I have multiple blu-Ray players and they all work great, I put in the disc, they work fine! All I have to do is a firmware update like 1x a year

Sorry, I think you just don't get it, Drm for movies isn't going anywhere.
 
Finally, someone with something to say that's related to the article, not blu ray blah blah blah... :)

I couldn't agree with you more.

We need a mini tower in the price range of the core i5 iMac with limited (but not non-existent) internal expandability.

When jobs took over again, those desktop and minitower G3s where an affordable setup, the G4 and G5 systems followed with only the higher end quad systems beginning to have pricing beyond a joke at the lower end.

Then the intel Mac Pros came out and*I don't need over £2000 worth of 8 core xeon beast in a huge case!

What about a single 4 or 6 core xeon/core i7, 4 RAM slots, 2 user upgradable drive bays in addition to the system drive, 1 empty expansion slot and a user replacable graphics card in the slot next to it for £1099?

There's a hole in their range that needs to be filled with a system like this.

Apple wouldn't be gouging sales of either the iMac or Mac pro, they'd be selling the Macmini TOWER to existing mac owners who wouldn't be satisfied with the power of the mac mini for very long, don't want to go the second hand route on a mac pro and don't want a giant laptop with an external keyboard and mouse. *More importantly for Apple, they'd be catering for potential switchers who'd finally have a mac they can switch to!

My G4 has 3 internal drives, full RAM expansion to 1.5Gb and 2 graphics cards running a 23" LCD, a 19" LCDs and a TV. *I record to one drive, boot from another and use the 3rd for general storage with a 1Tb external USB 2.0 drive for backups.

I'm currently looking at an early 2009 mac mini (if I can find one in mid august) as my only viable/affordable replacement with the following additions and tricky internal upgrades to work around the short comings of it's limitations at a later date:-

1) a 500 or 750Gb External 7200rpm Oxford based FireWire drive partitioned for recording/general storage.

2) Replace my TV with a 23" 1080p one mounted above my 23" LCD monitor on*a vertical VESA stand.

This also leaves me with just a desk and chair for my entire mac/entertainment system. *Very clean and tidy!*
*
3) OWC 8gb memory kit and tool kit to work inside the mac mini.

4) A single SSD for the system drive.

A mini tower would be simpler:-

1) buy a larger, cheaper internal 3.5" drive for recording/storage

2) TV idea as above

3) cheap 8Gb RAM upgrade using 2Gb desktop DIMMs
4) SSD upgrade as above but maybe even have 2 smaller SSDs RAIDED together as a cheaper and faster alternative?


I know I'm dreaming. *I'll get the mac mini, be so blown away by how much faster it is than my 8 year old dual G4 that I'll ignore all the external extras plugged into it and probably still be demanding a mini tower for my next mac after that one in 3 or 4 years :)

Many Of us want the "mythical mid range tower". Like what apple used to offer.

I have a mac pro and like the idea of USB 3. And definitely want blu-Ray. But a 4k tower aint cheap loaded up, Also many of us want more power than a iMac.
 
why does optical media suck? I really don't actually get it. We still can't access 1080p content yet over the streaming sites and it would require far too much space to store locally.

I have a really good feeling that those that want to see optical media dead, and HDDs replaced with uber expensive low capacity SSDs simply don't do much my swarm the internet and believe they live in the far distant future.

Give me my optical drives and give me my 2TB HDDs at $150.

Many Of us want the "mythical mid range tower". Like what apple used to offer.

I have a mac pro and like the idea of USB 3. And definitely want blu-Ray. But a 4k tower aint cheap loaded up, Also many of us want more power than a iMac.

Very true. I like the idea of the iMac having i5 and i7 but it ain't no tower that we can expand to get future use out of. It's a great stop gap, but there's always going to be that one thing that keeps many users from grabbing it. For me, it's express card and only 1 FW800 port. It's non RAIDed HDDs for others, and built-in screen for others. Not that it isn't a beauty, just not a workstation.

A Mac Pro with half the specs at half the price would be nice. Sadly, even reading through this thread makes me realize that many just don't care for specs and tech and features and usability. They just want a nice looking costly machine with a Limewire icon in the dock.
 
Well that's a shame about Bluray.

I don't care for watching movies on my macs but it's worth noting these are excellent for backing up data. I (used to) regularly ship 4 DVDs per month for work, now I ship 1 bluray disc with our data on. I also transferred all my backups to DVD, what used to take up 100 or so DVDs I now have on 20 Bluray discs.

They really are very useful for backups. Even making the backups are easy... just click and forget, come back in an hour and it's done. Better than waiting around for each DVD to fill up and then insert the other. And I really don't want to sound like an infomercial :D.
 
If the current 2.66GHz Mac Pro was £1099, would you have any issues or would you have bought one? Or is the size of it just too inconceivable? They aren't priced how they are because of their features or performance compared to the whole computer market, it's to put it above the iMac and maintain high margins across their product range.

I'd happily save for much longer than mid august and have an entry level tower for £1099 no problems, I just can't afford or ever justify much over that for a mac and was thinking that being apple, they'd have to do something like halve it's expansion capabilities and limit it to a single, lower clocked CPU in a smaller case just to justify back tracking on their mac range and offering an intel based core i7 or xeon system equivelent to their old entry level desktops in the era of G4 mini towers or even G3 desktops.
 
Can't you just buy a mobile BlueRay Drive and put it into your iMac?

iMacs use 12mm drives, but you can put a 9mm in (I did it, when I replaced a broker SuperDriver). What if you put a BD in?
 
No, that greedy, power-hungry, power-abusing, petty, vindictive, hypocritical old miser Steve Jobs is the whole world of hurt.

With Blu-ray drives: 0% goes to Apple

Without Blu-ray drives: forced to buy 720 (!!!!) media from the infamous WalledGarden vending machine known as iTunes (nickled and dimed to death, to which El Capitano Senor Jobs says where you can and can't use it), to which Apple gets XX% receives.

Meanwhile, is old Steve-O gonna pay for my additional data usage to downloand a frickin' 720 (!!!) media? :eek: Thought not. :rolleyes:

"Hey, I got this great movie I wanna share w/ you. Here's my Mac Pro or iMac. Just borrow it and return it when you're done w/ it. Just make sure you lift w/ your back."

18356_500sq.jpg
 
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