Teardowns of New Mac mini Posted

[billb]

See below
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2011 Mac mini 2.7 GHz i7 with
16GB RAM, Samsung 512GB SSD
MacBook AIR 11 Inch
Mac mini, Model 1.1, 2.33 GHz C2D Proc
20" iMac G4 PPC

[billb]

[saul]

Wow, this got me thinking. I've bought Mac mini's because they don't come with that old technology called Keyboard, Mouse, or Monitor. But they tricked me! They still come with memory, a processor, and storage. How could anyone buy this 70 year old technology?

Another trick: The 2010 model pretends to get rid of the power supply. But others have found that it still has one. They hid it inside! What a despicable company Apple must be.

[Squid3660]

Saul - LOL! Those bastards!

[dag777]

I think he (rtheil) is right, so I couldn't follow all the sarcasm you boys spread here ...
I love my MacMini, but it doesn't instantly mean I agree with everything what apple is cooking for us ...
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Mac Mini 2,53 GHz, 8GB RAM, 80GB X-25 M SSD+1TB HDD

Mac Mini 2.53 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB XT 7200 RPM HDD

iPhone 3GS 32GB

G4 1,25 DP PowerMac

[saul]

The name is "Mac mini." By that very name everyone should know that it is not a full size/full featured machine. It does some things very well but is still a niche product.

Apple makes machines for a purpose - to do what they think people need. rtheil said that he wanted to learn C development but then found fault with the hardware components that had nothing to do with learning. None of the issues he came up with would prevent him from his stated goal. If, in reality, rtheil bought a Mac to be the best/fastest high tech toy then he was misled somewhere.

He did have a point about false advertising. I don't see on the web site where Apple stated 300mB/s. It would be wrong if they did.

Lastly he stated "Returning the Mac withing a couple days." Why is he waiting?

[JohnnyBoy]

[MacDSmith2]

I blew up the text so I could read it... this is hilarious! This guy needs to go build his own Mac Mini then he can put whatever he wants into it. I can't believe he called Apple and told them all this with a straight face. Some Apple engineers must be shaking their heads on this one...

==================================

I get the mac mini home, and start looking around and checking specs. First thing I see is that the negotiated link speed of my hard drive in the system profiler, is 1.5 gigabit, but the controller is capable of 3 gigabit. I called Apple, and people were so confused by what I was talking about. Finally, I got the request sent to engineering. Engineering's response was "This is as designed, as we only install SATA I drives in all Mac mini computers." Wow, seriously? You put a drive with technology from 7 years ago in my 1 day old Mac? LAME!

Further research leads me to a section on the mac mini configuration in the apple store where you can choose a hard drive. It says “All Mac mini models include standard Serial ATA hard drives with data transfers up to 300 megabytes per second”. Now, if you know how to convert bytes to bits, you'd know that 300 megabytes is about 2.4 gigabits. This means to me that I will receive a SATA II hard drive in my computer, connected to a SATA II controller, as only SATA II and SATA III are capable of 300 megabytes per second.

I called Hitachi to confirm with them that in fact the drive in my Mac is a SATA I drive. And even though it's a desktop computer, this drive has the free-fall sensor in it. So, here I am with a BRAND NEW Mac, and its hard drive is technology from 7 years ago.

I'm awaiting another response from Apple engineering as to why the web site says one thing, but they are doing another. More importantly though, I am trying to get the word out to everyone so that people will stop buying Mac mini computers. Why would anyone buy a machine that knowingly has technology in it from 7 years ago? This is without mentioning that the optical drive is only 8x vs. the standard 16x-22x drives in PCs today. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in dropping $800 in something that contains technology from many years ago. Especially since it's only been 3 days since it was announced by Apple.

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Retired: Altair 8800, PET, TI 99/4A, Apple II
Mac Plus, Mac II, Mac SE/30, Quadra,
20th Anniversary Mac, iMac Purple, G4 Blue & White, iBook Clamshell
Active: Mac Mini (OCT 09) 4 GB RAM, 2.66 GHz, 500 GB HDD

[dag777]

I will respond only once, because it looks to me very pointless after I read all the replies. I don't care that "C development" and all that "Returning the Mac withing a couple days." talk.
I'm interested only in facts and I can remember that the information:
“All Mac mini models include standard Serial ATA hard drives with data transfers up to 300 megabytes per second” was on apple web site, in the configuration process of your MM order.
Now, it's not there. So you will probably laugh, but apple has really learn something from this guy.

You surely want a proof, right? Ok, so navigate, let's say, to German apple store and configure your MM order. And what do we see there?

"Alle Mac mini Modelle sind mit standardmäßigen Serial-ATA-Festplattenlaufwerken ausgestattet, die Übertragungsgeschwindigkeiten von bis zu 300 Megabyte pro Sekunde erreichen."
http://store.apple.com/de/configure/MC270D/A?mco=MTgxNjEzNzQ

It's exactly what rtheil wrote before, only in German, nothing more, nothing less ...
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Mac Mini 2,53 GHz, 8GB RAM, 80GB X-25 M SSD+1TB HDD

Mac Mini 2.53 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB XT 7200 RPM HDD

iPhone 3GS 32GB

G4 1,25 DP PowerMac

[philiparcario]

it is half speed for a very simple reason. it has 2 not one sata connections. you won't get it beyond 155mb/sec for either drive if you have a server or a modded esata like like I have. this is why they did not bother to add an expressCard or an esata jack.

if they did you would realize it max speed without a lot of effort. see this link


http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showthread.php?t=213477 .last two pages

this is my esata hack. you can buy a 2.53ghz refurb and build this for another hundred bucks. so at 689 you have a complet machine ready to hookup to a pair of esata drives. since the two drive will neve write faster then155MB/sec you can buy two of these



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111110&cm_re=sans_digital-_-16-111-110-_-Product


for 60 bucks



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=samsung%201tb%20f3


two of these for 150 bucks 210 more and for a grand total of 900 have a mac midi with 2 1tb hdds that runs in the 110MB/sec write speed. small foot print. the top can look better then I did. It can go back to stock fast.
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2010 Mm 2.4 C2D oem 320gb hdd 8gb ram
2012Mm base 2.5 with 16gb ram diy fusion drive
2012Mm quad with 8gb ram oem 1tb hdd

promise pegasus r6 3x 3tb + 3x 4tb =21tb hdds
lacie little big disk 2x 512gb ssds
synology 2tb disk station

[billb]

[kpmedia]

It's a good machine for doing some Mac-only work. Not everybody needs a "full" whiz-bang computer. OS X, some decent RAM and CPU, and a couple of apps are all I care for. (DVD Studio Pro, for example.)

Maybe some testing.

What concerns me about these new models are the power supplies. That just doesn't strike me as an upgrade.
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I am platform agnostic. Mac, Windows and Linux are just tools to me!
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