Mac Mini beefed up soon to be my main machine

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Soldato
Joined
7 Aug 2004
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So iv just sold my MBP 15" which, while a great machine I just dont need its portability, so I took the plunge and have ordered a mac mini 2.53ghz, 4GB ram with 320gb harddrive. HOWEVER I shall be adding to that my 128GB Crucial M225 :D, SSD mac mini goodness :D, just curious, the SATA controller in new mac minis is SATA2 I hope ? Ill be flashing the drive to the latest firmware before installing it and using the 320gb as an external drive. Is snow leopard SSD drive ready ? in that.... any of the drives special features specifically for SSD enabled yet in snow leopard? I know hopefully I should have a responsive and quick mac, will be connected to my dell 2407.

EDIT: Also, any rough ideas when DDR3 8gb will become a sane price ?, currently £360 for 2x 4gb, when 2x2gb is £90 tops, less than £200 would be ideal, how many years though ? :(
 
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OSX doesnt yet support the TRIM command unfortunately, however my 160GB Intel is still blisteringly fast in my 15" MBP.
 
BluZiff said:
OSX doesnt yet support the TRIM command unfortunately, however my 160GB Intel is still blisteringly fast in my 15" MBP.
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I've got a x25-m 160GB sitting on my desk now waiting to go in my macbook pro as it happens, will be interesting to see if it helps my old warhorse until I buy a new one...
 
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I've just gone from a macbook unibody aluminium to the mini. It's superb. Takes up far less room and has more ports/less cable clutter.
 
Hades said:
A Matrox TripleHead2Go would solve the multiple monitor issue on an MBP.
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Well out of date tech, its vga only I think :eek:abit pointless really.

SIAT said:
I've just gone from a macbook unibody aluminium to the mini. It's superb. Takes up far less room and has more ports/less cable clutter.
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Awesome, sounds good, yeah the 5 USB ports is something im defo going to use, whats spec you have ? Is it nippy ?
 
Combat squirrel said:
Well out of date tech, its vga only I think :eek:abit pointless really.



Awesome, sounds good, yeah the 5 USB ports is something im defo going to use, whats spec you have ? Is it nippy ?
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It's the top spec 2.53ghz one, it's faster than my macbook, but only very slightly. Unless you are doing heavy photoshop work with complex filters or heavy video edit etc, you won't have a problem.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Does this mean we should manually be running a 'Garbage Collection' program (or whatever they're called) instead then?
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Im not bothering to be honest, OSX will support it soon and its stupidly fast in the mean time.

Im sure I wont even notice when they do introduce it, its also part of the reason why i picked the Intel drive as over time degradation seems to have much less of an effect on it than other drives (according to benchmarks that I read when purchasing).

Big Red, put the drive in now and install it wont take long and will amaze you the first time you open every app on your dock and they all launch simultaneously, with no bouncing.
 
I put my first SSD in a 5 year old ThinkPad the other day. The MBP will have to wait until >=250GB is a reasonable price :)
 
BluZiff said:
Im not bothering to be honest, OSX will support it soon and its stupidly fast in the mean time.

Im sure I wont even notice when they do introduce it, its also part of the reason why i picked the Intel drive as over time degradation seems to have much less of an effect on it than other drives (according to benchmarks that I read when purchasing).

Big Red, put the drive in now and install it wont take long and will amaze you the first time you open every app on your dock and they all launch simultaneously, with no bouncing.
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I was going to do a fresh install on it this evening actually, I got round to taking every screw out until I got to the last two and then realised I left my set of torx drivers at work...bother!
 
well after all that planning and selling of mbp.....iv gone back to a windows machine, now now dont get me wrong, love osx and macs, there great, however........I just cant justify the costs here, dont worry iv had the shakes in leaving such a nice to use os and system :P, however, essentially, the software I use.......its the same, LR2, CS4 and internet, *there is essentially no difference in the software im using*......iv kept telling myself that, and, to be honest, there really isnt, I just live in those 3 programs basically. It has been a headache transfering all my harddrives back to ntfs from hfs+ but im getting there, also iv kind of got a useless time machine now, so may sell it.

I must admit the the speed increases in doing all I do with stuff day to day is im afraid, drastic, especially as iv got the SSD in pc now, I built this 'gaming' pc a couple weeks back, and last night sat there looking at it......iv got a perfectly useable computer right there, why do I need a mac mini ALSO.....i dont, so iv gone back, so for ~£370 I got:

Core2Quad 6600 @ 3.5ghz
8gb ram (which would have been £300 alone on mac mini)
ati 5770 (good for games)
550watt

with other bits i already have, crucial m225 etc its VERY fast, there was always a very slightt sluggishness from the mbp, dont get me wrong it was fast, but the 2.4ghz just didnt have enough omph, and the 4gb ram limited, etc.

So, ill be honest , while osx is nice, its just not any different really day to day, and iv found some pc software thats essentially time machine, but for pc, so ill back up my stuff to drobo from that, any thoughts of software on macs that can be had on pc ?

The only thing im missing is ilife, specifically the ease of use with iweb.....anything like iweb on pc ?, if not i can do dream weaver, its just not as automated.
 
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