About to order a mac mini...

[XJustMeX21]

well this is just to ask for some advice.

i am going to order in the next day or so its the 1.83ghz superdrive model. i'm also order a 2gb ram kit from the egg and will do the upgrade myself.

now let me state that this will be the first mac i have used since an apple II so with that in mind is there anything special i need to know or anything else i should order while i'm ordering parts?

also will xp oem work with bootcamp or must it be retail?

Thanks for the help.
UPDATE:
ordered the mac with overnight shipping for 20 bucks. Thanks for all the advice guys

I won't be installing xp or bootcamp right away i do have an extra copy of oem thats the reason i asked about that, Just incase i ever decide to use it.

As far as waiting for the mini update i just can't do it. Besdies 1.83ghz dual core and 2gb of ram should hold up for a little while. i will be getting the ministack i believe for the mac and i may due the internal 7200rpm drive as well.

I do have one more question, I was thinking of ordering the logitech z-5500's because the have optical in which would allow me to have 5.1 on my mini. Will that work or am i missing something?


UPDATE: well i know have it upgraded to 2gb of ram. Let me just say that was a pain in the ass. Alright so all you seasoned mac users help the new guy learn about his mac.
First off how does one take a screengrab in os x? i'd like to show off my little upgrade and have no idea how. As i go though the programs i'm finding some i like alot and some i'm going to have to get used to "Safari" being one. I do love Front Row though . Well if anyone has any tips shoot them my way

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

XP OEM will work fine with Boot Camp - actually I set up my mom's iMac that way.

 

[Zugzwang152]

OEM will work.

I hope you have experience taking apart the mac minis, because it's a gigantic pain in the ass.

 

[XJustMeX21]

i wouldn't say i have the experience but i have done all the research that i can and i feel that i will be able to get it done.

 

[dakels]

You may know this already but be aware the mac mini uses a laptop hard drive, meaning much slower and smaller capacity.

 

[XJustMeX21]

yes but i've heard you can boot from some external drives which would speed things up. was thinking about getting a 7200rpm 250gb or so drive for it

 

[TheStu]

I am fairly certain that Macs can only boot off a FireWire external drive, so make sure you get one of those. Plus the FireWire will get you faster transfer rates.

As far as additional things to get with the Mac, I would actually recommend not installing XP onto it unless you absolutely have to. The best way for you to learn the machine is to use it, and nothing else for a while. OS X is a different from XP in a few ways, some of them fairly drastic. I would also recommend that you get together a list of the software that you use on a regular basis in XP and find replacements for them within OS X. I have found that too many of them were a little bit better than their XP equivalents so now I at least have been trying to find XP replacements for my preferred OS X apps.

 

[DnetMHZ]

Depending on what you plan on using your XP install for you might want to also consider Parallels as an alternative to Bootcamp.
It lets you run Windows right on top of OS X without rebooting. I use it quite often for work related stuff that requires windows and it works great.
You can also run other OS's such as Linux/BSD/Etc.

 

[n0cmonkey]

My iBook and Powerbook have booted off of my USB external enclosure just fine.

Taking apart the mini (at least the better, er PowerPC version) isn't too bad.

 

[Tegeril]

All recent macs can boot over USB. I would suggest VERY STRONGLY that you wait to buy a Mac Mini right now because they are incredibly out dated at their price point and are due for a revision soon.

 

[dakels]

Firewire isn't going to be any faster (real world) then USB2 but I think only the firewire bus will be recognized for bootup. I am not certain for the new generation mini's. Booting off the firewire will most likely be slower though for normal bootup usage. It will be faster on big transfers but the stop and go seek/access of routine stuff will most likely be slower going through the firewire/PCI bus. I haven't tried it on the PCIe bridge though. It may be significantly faster but I think only on the extended transfers not routine seeks which are mostly limited by RPM. I doubt it will be too bad though especially if you are running 2 gig ram so there is less disk caching. It all depends on what you plan on doing with the mini. I doubt anyone buys a mini for heavy gaming and AV usage. You can always get a 7200 rpm laptop drive too if you need.

And I agree with n0c, I opened up a 1st/2sd gen mini and it wasn't too bad installing memory. It's actually kinda cool seeing how compact the insides are. The memory slots are easily reachable on the sides.

 

[TheStu]

Wow, I hadn't heard that you could boot off of USB on Macs... I thought it was only firewire.. maybe it is only firewire for optical drives? My buddy made an ISO copy of his WWDC leopard disc, he then lost the disc and he says that he can't boot from optical drive over USB. But he hasn't burnt the image yet, so maybe he is just blowing smoke. I personally have never had a reason to boot from external, so I just have what I heard.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: dakels
Firewire isn't going to be any faster (real world) then USB2 but I think only the firewire bus will be recognized for bootup. I am not certain for the new generation mini's. Booting off the firewire will most likely be slower though for normal bootup usage. It will be faster on big transfers but the stop and go seek/access of routine stuff will most likely be slower going through the firewire/PCI bus. I haven't tried it on the PCIe bridge though. It may be significantly faster but I think only on the extended transfers not routine seeks which are mostly limited by RPM. I doubt it will be too bad though especially if you are running 2 gig ram so there is less disk caching. It all depends on what you plan on doing with the mini. I doubt anyone buys a mini for heavy gaming and AV usage. You can always get a 7200 rpm laptop drive too if you need.

And I agree with n0c, I opened up a 1st/2sd gen mini and it wasn't too bad installing memory. It's actually kinda cool seeing how compact the insides are. The memory slots are easily reachable on the sides.

Booting from USB works just fine. Atleast for non-optical drives (only tried hard drives, optical drives suck). Although, this may be chipset dependant, and I don't believe its officially supported by Apple.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: XJustMeX21
well this is just to ask for some advice.

i am going to order in the next day or so its the 1.83ghz superdrive model. i'm also order a 2gb ram kit from the egg and will do the upgrade myself.

now let me state that this will be the first mac i have used since an apple II so with that in mind is there anything special i need to know or anything else i should order while i'm ordering parts?

also will xp oem work with bootcamp or must it be retail?

Thanks for the help.

If you're going to pop it open, why not do ALL the upgrades yourself? For a mid-range build, I'd recommend the following:

$600 - 1.66ghz Mac Mini
$300 - Intel T7200 2ghz Core 2 Duo Merom processor
$80 - Pioneer DVR-K06 dual-layer DVD burner
$75 - 2gb ram
$115 - Seagate 100gb 7200rpm hard drive

Other upgrades include an internal Blu-ray drive, a 2.16 or 2.33ghz Merom processor, or a larger 7200rpm hard drive (up to 200gb). If you need capacity they sell internal 250gb 5400rpm hard drives or 300gb 4200rpm hard drives, or you can just go with a 1-Terabyte external Firewire hard drive such as the MiniStack kit from NewerTech.

Also, why do you want to use Boot Camp instead of Parallels?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: XJustMeX21
well this is just to ask for some advice.

i am going to order in the next day or so its the 1.83ghz superdrive model. i'm also order a 2gb ram kit from the egg and will do the upgrade myself.

now let me state that this will be the first mac i have used since an apple II so with that in mind is there anything special i need to know or anything else i should order while i'm ordering parts?

also will xp oem work with bootcamp or must it be retail?

Thanks for the help.

If you're going to pop it open, why not do ALL the upgrades yourself? For a mid-range build, I'd recommend the following:

$600 - 1.66ghz Mac Mini
$300 - Intel T7200 2ghz Core 2 Duo Merom processor
$80 - Pioneer DVR-K06 dual-layer DVD burner
$75 - 2gb ram
$115 - Seagate 100gb 7200rpm hard drive

Other upgrades include an internal Blu-ray drive, a 2.16 or 2.33ghz Merom processor, or a larger 7200rpm hard drive (up to 200gb). If you need capacity they sell internal 250gb 5400rpm hard drives or 300gb 4200rpm hard drives, or you can just go with a 1-Terabyte external Firewire hard drive such as the MiniStack kit from NewerTech.

Also, why do you want to use Boot Camp instead of Parallels?

The Mac Mini uses a socket processor? If so, very sweet. Also, is that Pioneer burner slot loading?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: XJustMeX21
well this is just to ask for some advice.

i am going to order in the next day or so its the 1.83ghz superdrive model. i'm also order a 2gb ram kit from the egg and will do the upgrade myself.

now let me state that this will be the first mac i have used since an apple II so with that in mind is there anything special i need to know or anything else i should order while i'm ordering parts?

also will xp oem work with bootcamp or must it be retail?

Thanks for the help.

If you're going to pop it open, why not do ALL the upgrades yourself? For a mid-range build, I'd recommend the following:

$600 - 1.66ghz Mac Mini
$300 - Intel T7200 2ghz Core 2 Duo Merom processor
$80 - Pioneer DVR-K06 dual-layer DVD burner
$75 - 2gb ram
$115 - Seagate 100gb 7200rpm hard drive

Other upgrades include an internal Blu-ray drive, a 2.16 or 2.33ghz Merom processor, or a larger 7200rpm hard drive (up to 200gb). If you need capacity they sell internal 250gb 5400rpm hard drives or 300gb 4200rpm hard drives, or you can just go with a 1-Terabyte external Firewire hard drive such as the MiniStack kit from NewerTech.

Also, why do you want to use Boot Camp instead of Parallels?

The Mac Mini uses a socket processor? If so, very sweet. Also, is that Pioneer burner slot loading?

Yes and yes.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: XJustMeX21
I do have one more question, I was thinking of ordering the logitech z-5500's because the have optical in which would allow me to have 5.1 on my mini. Will that work or am i missing something?

They will work great, just make sure you get the right adapter cable.

 

[Tegeril]

The reason not to buy one right now is that it is simply not worth the price Apple is asking for it and has been in need of an update since the MacBooks went Core 2. $600 is ridiculous for the hardware you get.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
The reason not to buy one right now is that it is simply not worth the price Apple is asking for it and has been in need of an update since the MacBooks went Core 2. $600 is ridiculous for the hardware you get.

Well, it uses laptop parts...laptop parts are expensive. The only real competitor is AOpen's MiniPC platform which clocks in at around $300, but those don't come with a CPU, RAM, or hard drive. Plus you'll probably never see a new Mac for under $599

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
The reason not to buy one right now is that it is simply not worth the price Apple is asking for it and has been in need of an update since the MacBooks went Core 2. $600 is ridiculous for the hardware you get.

Well, you also have to take into account the form factor, like Kaido pointed out, the only other system even close to that size (that I know of) is the AOpen one, and like he pointed out, it doesn't come with most of the components, so even if it is barebones for $300, you are plunking down a healthy amount of cash to get it decent, and even then you can't even put OS X onto it legally.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Well, you also have to take into account the form factor, like Kaido pointed out, the only other system even close to that size (that I know of) is the AOpen one, and like he pointed out, it doesn't come with most of the components, so even if it is barebones for $300, you are plunking down a healthy amount of cash to get it decent, and even then you can't even put OS X onto it legally.

And really miniaturization costs money. People look at the Mini and think, man that's expensive for such a little computer. But engineering and manufacturing that goes into smaller devices make the cost go up - that's why you can get a 15" laptop for $600 but a 12" laptop costs double that. In computerland, the usual rule is the smaller it is, the more expensive it is. And if you really consider what you're getting for $600 it's not that bad of a deal:

OS X Tiger 10.4 operating system - $129
Intel T1300 Yonah Core Duo processor - $220
512mb ram (2x256mb) - $40
60gb 5400rpm 2.5" SATA hard drive - $50
Combo drive - $50
Motherboard with Integrated Video - $60
Case - $20
Mini PCI-Express Wifi card - $30

There's your $599 right there. Now throw in the tiny form factor, the built-in processor heatsink/fan system, Bluetooth, iLife 2006, and all the other little goodies that come in the Mini and you can see why the price is where it's at. They would definitely sell more of them if the dropped the price, however. I know a ton of people who like them but don't want to pay $600 for something the size of a doorstop. If they were $299 or even $399 they would sell like hotcakes. Couple that with an iPhone Nano and people would switch in droves, I'm sure.

 

[Tegeril]

But you're missing the point. It's been that price without any significant change for months upon months while the prices of all of its components drop. And with Leopard on the horizon, that's yet another reason to wait for the legitimate OS route (that and its 64bit capabilities that you wont be able to use with a Core Duo) and the fact that it's due for a revision that will come in at exactly the same price.

( assuming it isn't discontinued entirely )

 

[XJustMeX21]

Originally posted by: Tegeril


( assuming it isn't discontinued entirely )

To be honest this is why i didn't wait.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: XJustMeX21

Originally posted by: Tegeril


( assuming it isn't discontinued entirely )

To be honest this is why i didn't wait.

a mac mini got me to buy a lot of stuff from apple.....same probably goes for a lot of folks


$$$ in their pockets

 

[dakels]

Cool about the USB bootup. I wasnt sure the newer gen macs could boot off a external USB source.

Also, why add all that stuff to a mini? I guess its cool but a $300 proc upgrade? Thats half the price right there, why not just buy a imac with a core2 duo proc in there and the LCD and full size drive.

Also where are you getting 2gig ram for $75? I want some!