Why hardly any accessories w/ new form factor?

[WOOFITS]

I remember when the original minis came out. There were so many hubs, external drives, stands etc. to match the look and dimensions of the 6.5 square mini. Now the 7.6 square unibody has been out since 2010 and there are virtually no products to match.

Have mini sales tanked? or was there just not enough money to be made on such a niche computer?

[Bandit Bill]

I think companies made less profit than they thought they would. I also recall a lot of forum members complaining about the prices. People wanted niche products at mass produced prices, along with outstanding quality.

There has also always been an air of uncertainty to the life span of the mini (will it be discontinued). Many people are amazed that it still exists.

Current minis also come with much larger hard drives and there are also alternative methods of storing data such as NAS, iTunes, iPhoto sharing.

There is no one reason. I think it's a multitude of reasons that all boil down to not getting a return on investment.

I recall a manufacturer (whos name i forget), used to visit this forum that was stuck with a bunch of unsold stock. I'm certain other members may be a able to recall who it was. I think they were high quality acrylic stands/mounts.

[macmanmacman]

The reason is simple a lot of companies got sued or where sued when there products caused the mac mini's death and a lot of companys also stop producing products because it got to expensive

[Bandit Bill]

[Squid3660]

I thought Newertech's miniStack Max was going to be released last March... it's now the end of June and still no update. But, from the harsh feedback that was received on this board when it was initially announced, I wouldn't blame Newertech for not releasing it.

I personally thought the ministack Max was great the way it was, based on it's description (not perfect, but pretty darn good), but majority of users here bashed it to hell.

Hopefully, Newertech is redesigning it based on the comments. Thunderbolt ports (at least 2) and more USB 3 ports would be nice... perhaps with one or two USB 3 ports on the front (who really enjoys trying to connect a thumb drive to the rear ports on any computer?). An internal blu-ray drive would be the icing on the cake.

Please Newertech! Don't give up on the miniStack Max!

[asmack]

You mean like this?



http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministack



http://www.newertech.com/products/ministackmax.php

[Squid3660]

Can you daisy chain multiple (new) ministacks with USB 3? There seems to be only one USB 3 port on the new ministack, at least from what I can tell from the description. It appears you can only daisy chain this with the much slower FW800. Is this correct? Am I missing something obvious?

[Bandit Bill]

[Squid3660]

BB... thanks for the explanation! Makes sense.

I'm going to order a new Ministack tonight to compliment my new Mac Mini6,2 (MD388LL/A). I'll probably go with the 4TB 7200RPM version. The price is pretty decent. If I like it enough, I'll probably order a second unit as a redundant backup. Or, maybe they'll release the Ministack MAX by then, and so I'll order one of those as a redundant backup instead.