Feed Speed to your Mac Mini

Written on May 17, 2005 by Nick Santilli and 7 people have commented

Slashdot is pointing at a terrific write-up detailing the speed gains in running a Mac Mini off of an external Firewire drive instead of the relatively slow notebook sized hard drive it has inside.

The idea makes great sense, and being a desktop computer (even though it’s small enough to take with you…) makes it a logical upgrade. The writer gives benchmarks of his tests to show the actual speed gains. And depending on the extra parts you may have lying around, you could do this for anywhere from about $50-$200.

I haven’t looked too closely at the slew of 3rd party Mac Mini extenders that offer external hard drives, but it would make sense that they would (or should) be connecting via firewire to enhance the speed of the available hard drive.

I won’t ramble on anymore about this idea. Go read the actual article and see for yourself.

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#1 michael says:
Kind of goes against the grain of the Mini concept… Why buy a mini Mini, only to make it bigger again?

The real shame is that there’s no Gigabit Ethernet port - making server-based storage somewhat of a lame duck.
#2 Nick Santilli says:
I guess it just depends what your purpose for the Mini is. If it’s just a cheap Apple computer, then adding a similar sized external drive isn’t going to be a huge deal. Even then, it’s still many times smaller than something like a PowerMac G5.

Fully agree with the gigabit ethernet port. but again, it’s just a tiny ‘entry level’ machine. for $500, I won’t complain too much.
#3 Rene C says:
The Mac mini is not an iServe, any more than it’s a Doom3 box. If you need that much oomph, you’re not in the mini niche. Mow some lawns and get a last-gen iMac G5 on clearance.
#4 Nick Santilli says:
While my son still thinks it’s fun, I’ll have him mow lawns and earn the money for a G5…

I think the Mini offers a great hackable platform for the brave and bored. It’s a cheap machine to do with whatever you want.

Is there a site by the name of pimpmymini.com? Might be a good idea of the Mini Cooper hasn’t cornered that one yet…
#5 mac soon says:
will the mini be a mac, whne it is not to be used on the net.. will there be better to save some money and wait a while for then to bay an iMac…

would it be nice to know.. what the new line will be…

What is coming on.. from the fab apple you know how..

where is it left for some to say..

alahoe
#6 WryTerra says:
Oh hey, didn’t know my blog did that. Still learning wordpress.

I’m not really offended, by the way, just poorly thought out humour.

Have a good one, guys.