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Mac mini Maximized With 3.5" Drives
Demolition writes "You just knew that someone would get around to this, didn't you?
In this how-to article from AppleTalk Australia, a step-by-step guide describes how to transplant a Mac mini into a micro-ATX case and a method to connect standard 3.5" hard drives to it (using do-it-yourself 2.5"-to-3.5" IDE adapters). Only some minor case modifications and some added cooling are needed to complete the project."
Part of the mac's allure is it's stylish looks. This is just as dumb as putting a PC in a mac mini case.
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
[Using a Kip voice from Napoleon Dynamite]
That's what I'm talkin' about.
Why would you do this?
Worst. Idea. Ever.
The whole point of the mac mini is it's small form factor, transplanting it into another case to upgrade the HD is simply absurd.
and already nuked.
Anybody have the article?
(And seriously, if nobody ever R's T Fing A, why do servers go down faster than a hooker for a benjamin?)
Looks like they used it to host the page..
Up in flames already.
...without ripping your Mac mini apart and sticking it in a PC enclosure, you could use any capacity 3.5" disk you wished in conjunction with Mac mini by using any 3.5" drive enclosure with FireWire (and/or USB 2.0), including some sure-to-be-released FireWire/USB 2.0 enclosures that will mimic Mac mini's appearance, and be designed to sit underneath or near a Mac mini and still be aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps some vendor like El Gato will even make a FireWire PVR/tuner solution WITH an integrated 3.5" drive bay, in the same type of case as Mac mini.
(Preemptive response: Yes, FireWire 400 is more than fast enough for this application. Yes, even for a media server. Yes, even for a PVR. Yes, I know USB 2.0 doesn't support booting. If you want booting, use FireWire. Yes, I know Apple says you shouldn't stack anything on top of Mac mini. That's why I said Mac mini would stack on top of it. Further, it's very likely NOT because of heat, but because the AirPort and Bluetooth antennas are directly in the top of the case, and instead of making a bunch of convoluted requirements about when and if it's ok to stack something on it, they just said no stacking. But, again, moot, because you could stack the mini itself on top of such a hypothetical enclosure or device. Or, set them side by side.)
The Mac mini really is almost a perfect media center box:
Acceptable processor and video card
DVI, VGA, S-video, and Composite video out
1/8" stereo audio out, or digital audio via FireWire with one of several adapters
FireWire and USB 2.0
10/100 ethernet and modem
Optional 802.11g and Bluetooth
CD-RW/DVD or optional CD-RW/DVD+/-RW
Remote control via Apple Remote Desktop or VNC (included in the free ARD Client 2.1)
Very small, very elegant, and very quiet operation
All that's missing is a tuner and a PVR application, and that's a nightmare to wade into, what with what's necessary to tune satellite services, and the infancy of CableCard.
What's wrong with having a long IDE and power cable outside the case and connecting that to an internal HDD? I know a friend who uses an IDE extender to do this.
coral cache
the answer is ofcourse so you can use the macminicase for your nano-itx mobo :P
airport and some network attached storage...
why void the warrenty on a minimac when you can simply buy an airport and use network attached storage? this is worse than a pointless hack, its a bad one.
It completely ruins the point of having a Mac mini. Frickin' ugly as hell too. I mean, if you want a RAID this badly, leave the beautiful Mac alone and go along with some sort of network storage/fileserver solution. Easier to set-up, candy for the eyes, and a lot less hackish.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
How could someone be so heartless as to butcher a mac like this?
Combine this with this articlehttp://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05 /01/30/2213249&tid=222&tid=174 from a few days ago, and you would have a miniMac in a Mini-ITX case, and a Mini-ITX in a Mini Mac case. It's a plot we've seen before. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/e pisode/68818.html
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I've lost count of the number of "mod your Mac Mini like this" stories that have been posted here in the last month. Most of them deal with increasing the power or expandibility. I find this kind of ironic, considering that the Mac Mini's market seems to be mostly people to which power and expandibility are definitely not primary considerations in a computer buying decision.
It seems their server is running tpc via AppleTalk. Long live PhoneNet!
-dameron
Instant slashdotting!
So although I can't RTFA, I will say that part of the reason I would buy a mac mini would be the case design and form factor. Having to rip out its guts just for a 3.5" drive, no thanks. Interesting nontetheless.
or you could just slap a drive in a firewire case and use that instead...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Let's use the coral cache, since the server already seems to be working hard enough. Loads really fast... I'm surprised slashdot doesn't run all the links in articles through coral servers.
Small form factor is nice, but if you want to throw it in your basement as a server, it's main benefits are:
1) It's cheap
2) Draws about 65 watts, so your electric bill will be lower than using an old G3 tower or something
So, in that case, if you want to use it as a server, a nice 400 GB 3.5" IDE drive would be great. Who cares about the case if it's in your basement.
Now, if they can only figure out how to get Gigabit Ethernet in there...
Oblig. they must be running teh server on it haha !!
How else am I going to get the pictures from my Sony Mavica photocamera into iPhoto?
I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone decided to mod their mini into a standard PC carcass. What's next? How about putting the Mini inside a vintage Apple II box?
//e), just for giggles.
Since the mini came out, I've been hoping I can stuff it inside an old Apple IIGS (or, even better - a
Anyone up to the challenge?
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
I always wanted a Mac but they were so damn ugly. If only mac minis had been designed to look like e-machines. Today truly is a great day.
Sacrilege aside, putting a Mac Mini in a PC case has one key definite advantage:
It would let you sneak a Mac into workplaces whose IT Manager(s) have a "no Macs ever, over my dead body" policy.
Just think: you could have a larger case containing a regular PC, but with the guts of a Mac Mini placed in the space around empty drive/PSU bays.
Hide a KVM switch somewhere and bingo... Windows/Linux when the PHB/IT Manager is around, Mac OS X when you want to get some work done!
Mac mini Maxi
By: aeberbach
Feb 8 2005
The Mac mini Maxi - how I attached extra storage to make a mini server.
This article involves doing things to your Mac mini which may well destroy it. You should not try this unless you are prepared to lose your entire Mac mini investment, and you should definitely not try it if you do not have an appreciation for the dangers of power tools, electricity and the jagged edges found inside PC cases!
When I woke up in Australia the morning after the MWSF keynote speech had come and gone, the Apple store timed out for 30 minutes or so before I was able to get my order in. It was a long wait until the 28th when the mini finally shipped, then the 31st before it was delivered. I wasted no time in getting the cover off and upgrading the memory, and was immediately impressed by this little machine.
However 2.5" notebook hard drives are a serious limitation. For one they are limited to 100GB - I have more than that just in FLAC-encoded CDs, and I have half that much just in RAW-format images. The mini would make a great little server - quiet, cheap to buy new, low power too - if only big drives could be attached. Knowing that the mini uses 2.5" IDE drives I decided it was just a matter of making the physical connector right, and started this project about a week before I actually got the mini, luckily I guessed right. The speed increase that comes with using 7200 rpm drives is not to be sneezed at either (the largest 2.5" 7200 rpm drive I know of is just 60GB).
There have been more than enough photo essays about unpacking the mini and disassembling it in various levels of detail. I'm going to jump right in and show you the part that mattered to me, the daughter board that connects the optical and hard drives to the mainboard. You won't see this view of it unless you disconnect both drives.
On the top is the optical drive connector. This is a standard connector but it's surface mount and difficult to buy - not something you can easily solder up at home. Below that is a 2mm-pitch 44-way connector, mating with a standard 2.5" drive - aha! Since I had adapters that let me use these drives in a desktop PC, I figured the reverse would be possible. And also I guessed that the optical and hard drives are simply master and slave devices on the IDE bus. A simple adapter would let me connect two normal IDE drives, be they optical or whatever. But while the adapter to connect 2.5" drives to a desktop machine is easily available, an adapter to connect 3.5" drives to a machine expecting 2.5" drives is not. Obviously 3.5" drives won't physically fit in laptops and there are different power requirements too so I could believe that such a thing wasn't available.
Taking the easily available adapter and just reversing the sexes of the connectors might seem like an easy way to do this but then the positions of the pins are swapped - pin 1 would become pin 2, etc. - a sure way to damage the machine or the drive or both. Each pin must be mapped correctly to the same-numbered pin on the other side of the adapter.
Where to put this server? Clearly 3.5" drives weren't going to fit in the mini's case. I settled on the Aopen H420B micro ATX case. If you're a switcher then Aopen might be a familiar name in cases. This is a fairly typical example of a PC case - steel sides, plastic front, clunky, covered in styling details that don't really help its looks. However it is roomy, comes with a power supply and as PC cases go is fairly compact. Another view shows that it is ready to house two 5.25" devices and a maximum of four 3.5" devices, although if you ask me stacking drives together in such a confined space is asking for heat-related trouble.
That this case is not as stylish as the mini isn't a big deal - its intended use is as a server, and it will be out of sight. I intend using it to store MP3s, images and video, and will stream music to various places around the house. It will share drives and be a convenient first backup location for work
That the mini-mac has a Firewire port. Lots of HD's out there for relatively short money that attach to Firewire ports.
While I'm at it.
I'll place the Mini into a Cube. =)
if part of the allure is its looks, then what's dumb about putting a pc in its good looking case?
or are you using reverse psychology and you actually think this article ISN'T dumb?
The appeal with a Mac Mini is it's size/form factor. WHY is this being done? I'm hoping the title of the article means it's been "maximized" by its size and not it's capabilities. This is just stupid.
Or you could just carry in the Mac mini hidden inside your briefcase and hide it under your desk, without the fake case.
Really. Some relatively talented industrial artist working for Dr Bott/LaCie/etc will design a fixed firewire drive bay that is exactly the same size as the mini, and may offer some other functionality like Compact Flash/SD/etc reader. Fixed 120GB, or a hotswap with cheap trays.
Good accessories come to those who wait.
'nuff said.
you all know how the mac is about it s stylish looks, but even still besides that.... what a waste! why not use firewire external drives?
Now you're thinking! But that might mean cabling it up every day, or if leaving it under the desk overnight, the risk of the cleaners pushing it out and it being discovered. And IT Managers are a suspicious lot, just look at the film Gattaca.
It doesn't even have a floppy drive. How should I backup my work if I have no floppy-drive?
This sucks.
How can anzone work with such a piece of shit.
I imagine that with the low price, low power usage, and ppc architecture (not many binary sploits for Linux on ppc...) many people would want to use these things as small servers. The problem is that the Mac Mini hard drive sucks ass - it's slow, only 40G, and the small form factor means upgrades are expensive. Perhaps the most important part of a server is a good hard drive.
By putting the Mini into a PC case, you get the room to add a large fast hard drive, and the air flow needed to cool it.
How about getting that apple to light-up? Stopping stuffing it into another case, or stuffing a PC into the Mini's case.
What actually might work..is if one must put a bigger harddrive in it, say 400GB, because you have a specific use for the mini in mind that requires this amount of storage, than you could consider tossing out the optical drive and use the extra space so that a 3,5" might fit. (cooling problems aside)(power supply problems aside) If anyone is going to try this please send me the pictures before your site gets /.-ed
or you attacht iPod shuffles in RAID for that extra bit of storage..
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:BF5g6HUsNXwJ: www.appletalk.com.au/articles/index.php%3Farticle% 3D4433+&hl=en
For $150 you can add a 7200RPM 2.5" Hitachi TravelStar drive. Surprisingly, these drives run cooler than many 5400RPM 2.5" drives while providing the performance of a typical 7200RPM desktop drive. Best of all, you won't have to hack up your Mini (thereby violating the warranty) to install it.
2 of the 4 major model families of G4 would have interested you:
Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver) and Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Door) systems both had room for 2 5.25" optical drives, PLUS 4 internal 3.5" drive bays. In the case of the MDD, there were two ATA/100 busses and one ATA/66 bus (for optical drives).
Additionally, how many accessories are you talking about adding to Mac mini? A drive and a tuner? And if someone makes a Mac mini-like enclosure for this - which is very likely, given the history of Mac and iPod peripheral makers - then it's even less desirable to cram it into an ugly PC case.
It occurs to me that instead of putting a nice little computer in a big ugly case, it would be much easier and probably wouldn't cost much more (over the cost of an internal 3.5" drive) to just get an external firewire hard drive. The LaCie ones are metal and would go along nicely, and they're 7200rpm too.
The Mac Mini is small enough to fit, whole and unblemished, into any old Apple model (except maybe the Cube, and I'm sure the guts would fit into that once the case was off).
Fit a Mac Mini into a Timex-Sinclair, and then I'll be impressed. =)
PS. I wonder how you'd type command-T on the membrane keyboard.
now you have done it..time to dig out the Apple IIc
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It'll be more interesting when more and more projects come out showing how they got this small form factor into situations that PCs couldn't really get to. Makes a perfect mobile computer for the car.
Free Mini Mac
The Mac mini is not marketed by Apple as a server.
That's why they made Xserves.
The Mac mini is (and will always be) an entry-level Macintosh for the Macintosh curious who were previously turned off by pre-Mac mini computer prices.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
the Mod? or not refusing connections from slashdot?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Case mods are a kind of hardware hacking, and hacking is something you do just because you enjoy doing it. It's the geek equivalent of those blue-collar guys on King of the Hill, who will move into a house and knock down and put up walls for no particular reason.
re: It completely ruins the point of having a Mac mini.
No, that's what YOU think the "point" of a Mac Mini is. To many (if not most) of us, the point is that it's an extremely affordable Mac.
re: Part of the mac's allure is it's [sic] stylish looks. This is just as dumb as putting a PC in a mac mini case.
Dumb to you. Cool to someone who didn't buy it for its sylish looks.
Holy crap, people. This is Slashdot. Some of like to take apart things. Some of us like to take cheap computers and make them perform like expensive computers. We're hobbyists and tinkerers. Why take apart the Mac Mini? We don't need any reason better than "because we can."
Hell, if I were to build a 5-desk office that needed a simple mail server and file server, the Mac Mini is just a RAID away from perfection, at less than a quarter the price of an XServe.
The Mac Mini is a beautiful piece of hardware. I'd love to have two -- one that never gets turned on or used, just left on the mantel in a glass box with the fine china, and another that's gutted, rebuilt, and folding 24/7.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
A URL was given and you couldn't use it, so now it's down. Well done slashdot, wakeup and smell the bandwidth. Not everone can waste money.
CyBrTaz
Looks like MirrorDot got there too slow!
/. effect!
Why aren't links posted via Coral Cache?
The whole point of it is to remove the
Have you metaroderated recently?
Hmm... we submitted this last night, but it got rejected.
Here is the correct URL to use: http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/miniserver/
That one doesn't rely on SQL, so it will work.
Also - can the first post be edited with this URL instead of the other one?
http://www.appletalk.com.au
What about the lack of noise?
Since you are going with mini-ATX in any case (sic), why build in a comparatively slow Mac mini when you could use a mini-ATX board with an Opteron and get a real 64-bit platform for about the same money in the same space?
The project is cool for its own sake of course, but there doesn't seem to be a real use for it.
Oh, and people freaking out over the "sarcriledge" - it's a computer, that's all. A piece of metal and plastic. If you really get upset about something like this, I suggest it's time to take a hard look at your priorities and your life.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Apple no talking
Server has failed query
The mac sits in beige
NOT! (FP or Excellent)
we almost slashdotted /. !
i waited nearly 30 minutes to get to the reply page!
finally RTFA and i understand what he was getting at, but seriously, if you can't be bothered to find an aesthetic and
clever way to implement an external storage system(http://mini-itx.com/news/83991250//) then it's just a half-as$ed job.
"...that's as white as it gets; all the bits are on..."
Some people have more money than time, some people have more time than money. I think this is a pretty good solution for someone with more time than money.
Hmm, I have a several no name portable usb 2.0 hard drives, and all are bootable.
Google it up.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I gave my Apple IIc to the GoodWill. I knew I should have kept it!
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
When I first read this, I thought they meant that they had added a 3.5 inch floppy drive to the Mac Mini! :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Nobody would buy from spam either, right?
78% Percent of users who report receiving spam daily
11% Percent of users who report receiving at least 40 spam per day
14% Percent of users who report they open spam messages to see what they say [Yikes!]
4% Percent of users who report they have purchased a product or service advertised in a spam email
So maybe 4% RTFA too? That's logic for you, bad logic, but logic none-the-less.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I hope my ISP and AppleTalk.au don't mind - But here is Quick mirror to take the load off AppleTalk
http://users.on.net/~matrox/appletalk.htm
So he destroyed a brand new Mac Mini, transplanted it into the Micro ATX case with zip ties and runs two power supplies just so he can have a larger hard drive in it? I wonder if he realises that for half the cost of the Mac Mini he could have got a cheap Semperon 2200+ box that would have worked just as well. He could have even spent up big and built a more powerful server for the money he spent! Push comes to shove if he *really* wanted the Mac Mini with a larger hard drive he could have cut a small hole in the vents of the chassis and run the cable out through there and put the hard drive underneath the Mac Mini. No extra hardware required, no firewire or USB conversions just plain old vanilla IDE
you can sacrifice a PCI slot and put in a 3rd party card. i know they will acknowledge large drives. in the situation of an older G4 tower (100MHz mobo) you can get a good boost from adding an ATA133 card (like the one Sonnett makes). you can use the built in drive support for backups or something that do not need the size/speed. not optimum, but not a bad fix.
MacAddict had a thing a few years ago where they took a G4 400MHz AGP sawtooth (100MHz motherboard) and added an 800MHz processor and an ATA133 card and ATA133 drive. the new drive gave their benchmarks as much of a boost as the processor upgrade (in most tests). i'm sure it's in their archives online. i have no idea when they did this, but i remembered the info because i own a G4 400. i am guessing almost 2 years ago?
I'm just finishing up the docs on my conversion - I've implanted a Dell Axim PocketPC into a Compaq Luggable. The biggest challenge was connecting the Axim's QVGA to the luggable's 80x32 amber CRT...
The neat thing is, I've got more power in the luggable now than when it was new, and it wieghs about 15 pounds less, as well.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
I see snowwhite get dumped in a pile of dung.
. . . at the end of the process it's still a mac right, so who cares?
Just shut the frig up.
Ok?
Thanks.
All of these people saying that this was stupid, or unneeded and even "Why?". My question to all of you, is.... Why not?
Yay, I have a sig.
He should mount the pc case inside a main frame case.
Maybe someone should clue this guy into external hardrives.
Using a Mac mini as a server is like using a Ferrari to haul freight.
His ambitions would've been better served by using that AOpen case and Maxtor hard drives with a cheapo x86 mobo/cpu and Linux. It would've been just as quiet (probably more so since he'd only have on PSU -- he could even splurge a bit and buy a quality quiet PSU to replace the stock one).
Then he could've kept his quiet, stylish mini on his desk where it belongs!
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
Next up, a kit to make your Ferrari look just like a Pontiac Fiero!
Gee, looks like somebody doesn't want
"Why would someone deface a poor defenseless Mac Mini like this?"
"Because the hard drive is slow (4200 RPM), and this is cheap."
The guy stated that he wanted to build a server that was a) cheap, and b) quiet
In short, he is an idiot.
It is FAR cheaper to obtain an old Pentium based PC, which can easily be found for free as compared to the Mac Mini, which is $799 in Australia.
This project is not a "cheap" way to build a server, it is an expensive way to build a server.
Then there is the noise factor. Yes, the Mac Mini is quiet, much quieter than an old PC.
But this is not where the story ends. Firstly he is making his Mac Mini almost as noisy as a PC, just by putting in a 3.5 inch HDD and running a PC powersupply complete with a PSU + FAN in it! The only other source of noise in a PC is the CPU fan and I explain below how that can usually be removed completly anyway. In such a scenario, a PC would make exactly the same noise that this Mac Mini does.
When looking at typical, stock built PCs, there are four sources of operating noise to consider.
1) PSU Fan. Both the modified Mac Mini and the recycled Pentium PC use a mini tower case, ergo we can expect the same level of PSU fan noise to emanate from both solutions. In both cases an aftermarket "near silent" fan can be fitted to minimise any noise. In any event, we can rule out any PSU fan noise that is present because both solutions will theoretically produce identical levels of noise. PSU fan noise is not a differentiating factor.
2) CPU Fan. This is one area where the Mac Mini will beat the stock Pentium PC. But there is no reason you need to stick with the stock configuration. It is an easy matter on most old PCs to underclock the CPU. This in turn allows you in many cases to run your Pentium using a large, passive heatsink alone ie, it becomes just as noiseless as the Mac Mini.
3) HDD noise. The modified Mac would use the exact same 3.5inch HDD as the Pentium PC, so we can rule this noise out too.
4) GPU cooler. The mac mini doesn't use a seperate GPU cooler, and niether would the PC. It would most likely have some crappy old Trident or S3 based 2D card that has no fan but is perfectly acceptable in a server.
The short story is that we can make a recycled PC just as quiet as this modified Mac mini so the noise issue is moot.
Consider that the Mac Mini option would cost you something like;
1.25 Ghz Mac Mini - $799
Minitower PC case - $50
3,5 Inch HDD ~ $150 (depending on what capacity you want)
= $999 (Australian)
compared to a recycled PC;
2nd hand Pentium 233 - $50 (probably free but lets use a nominal figure anyway)
Large passive heatsink - $25
New PSU fan - $15 (the old one might be a bit worn)
Linux/FreeBSD OS - $0
= $90
Basically, this goose has wrecked an eight hundred dollar Mac to build a ninety dollar server.
What a moron.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Oops, forgot to add the $150 for the 3.5 inch HDD to the PC server pricing. You can redo the mat I'm sure.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
The real fun would be to stuff it into an old Mac Classic toaster and hook it up with the monitor.
Could probably use it to gut and upgrade an older iMac.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Mac ITX
Do that with a Mini.
Amy
What sort of workplace lets you bring your own computer in and connect to the network?
What a bizarre idea!
The author of the article makes a big deal about heat and hard drives. I have built and rebuilt lots of desktop systems and I've seen lots of things burn out, but I have never, ever seen a hard disk fail on a computer that wasn't on a RAID-0 system and wasn't doing constant, heavy-duty through-put (all of them off-line video editors, where you almost always expect a drive to fail 'any day now'). I did buy one drive that quickly showed itself to be a dud and replaced it with an identical model with no further failures.
What's the deal? Does anyone else here go through conniption fits every time you install a new HD?
You could bolt some overclocker's dead Athlon to the inside of the case and run that jet turbine fan.
the namespace grows ever more crowded.
Why bother with fancy
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Mac minis will fit inside some of the larger PC cases, and if you set your fans up right you could even have it inside a running PC.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Because the hard drive is slow (4200 RPM)
Some are 5400 RPM. Luck of the draw I heard.
OS X will run X11 desktop environments natively, so you only have to hit a key combination to go from a full-screen X11 environment back to OS X. You could also run Windows on Virtual PC and complain about how incredibly slow it is. ;)
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Put it in a 2u rack mount case and I'll be a happy camper!
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
I wonder why they chose a PATA over a SATA drive for their mac-mini. Laptop SATA drives are available aplenty http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/5k100/5k100. htm
or is it because you still need PATA for CD/DVD drive ?
I'm not even a Mac guy, and the first thing that I thought of was "Geez, get a couple of external firewire drives." That would have been about the same price, would have looked better, would use less electric (enclosure power supplies vs. the ATX power supply used for the 3.5" hard drives), and performance would probably be as good as or better than his master/slave IDE hard drive setup.
Who says you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear? ...Not a mac zealot!
Just remember: doing sensible things like using clients as clients and servers as servers, isn't profound enough to get you onto slashdot.
To blog is sublime
Any IT manager that would refuse an OSX machine in favor of a Wintel machine shouldn't be an IT manager. Plain and simple.
I'm an IT manager, and I speak from experience. Unfortunately, I spend most of my time dealing with Wintel machines.
Personally, I bought a Mini Mac just for sysadmin purposes. I like the idea of a machine that I can mount NFS shares and easily burn to DVDs (nothing against k3b, which is a great program!).
665: The mark on the forehead of Satan's slightly less evil brother, Stan.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/quicksilver_no
Note the last photo. It's cropped a bit close, but you can see where that metal part surrounding the drives is large at the top but smaller on the bottom, making it only appropriate for Zip/floppy-sized drives.
A mini case is 6x6x2.5 = 90 c.i.
MyDixie wrote: "A small form-factor mini-itx case is still a small form-factor case."
Mini-ITX is a motherboard form factor that measures 170mm x 170mm (6.7" x 6.7").
The Travla C134 Mini-ITX Case measures 7" x 10" x 2" = 140 cubic inches.
A factor of ONE AND A HALF, but it only accepts 2.5" hard drives.
The Travla C158 Mini-ITX Case measures 12" x 11" x 2.1" = 277.2 cubic inches.
A factor of THREE, but it accepts 3.5" hard drives and a PCI card.
More than powerful enough for hosting 3 email addresses...
Just tell me which three e-mail addresses.
Any IT manager that would refuse an OSX machine in favor of a Wintel machine shouldn't be an IT manager.
It's not refusing one Mac OS X machine in favor of one Wintel machine; it's refusing 155 Wintel machines and one Mac OS X machine in favor of 156 Wintel machines. Some level of uniformity makes it easier to administer all the machines.
Heck if you're going to use a //e just open the lid and set the Mini inside. There's plenty of room.
Your only challenge will be retrofitting a VGA monitor inside the old Apple ][ Display case.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm bought a duel G5. Ripped out the guts and crammed it all into an old Packerd-Bell case I had in the garage.
1. do silly mini mac mod and post to /.
2. ?
3. profit!
Consider that the Mac Mini option would cost you something like; 1.25 Ghz Mac Mini - $799 [...] 2nd hand Pentium 233 - $50
You're comparing a PII clocked at 233 MHz to a G4 clocked over five times as fast. Won't this cut the throughput of your application server?
About 2/3 of the way through the article:
'Finally came the big test - with everything attached I hit the switch. BONG...it's alive! '
No buddy, a BONG is the thing you were smoking when you came up with this inane idea. Whats next, putting the ipod into an old-school walkman shell?
8)
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
a kit to make your Ferrari look just like a Pontiac Fiero!
But wouldn't disguising your Ferrari automobile as a Pontiac have a potential to cut your auto insurance premium?
While I understand your point about built-in functionality being preferable, there are USB digital audio 'dongles' available which aren't too expensive and are also fairly small. I am going to be adding one of the following to my Mac mini (if it ever gets here - jeesh).
Edirol UA-1x
M-Audio Transit
Hope this helps.
Gee, i never would have guessed
e /b eer.jpg
http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/ipodshuffl
If there are any americans that actualy bother drinking fosters (i no i havnt), then get yourself some real aussie beer (if you can). I recommend the beer the shuffle is compared to in the above picture.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Is anybody actually surprised that you can connect a hard drive to a Mac Mini?
Or am I too jaded? Is the great feat here that somebody managed to open a computer case?
Or does the Mac Mini contain salvaged Area 51 technology which shoots lasers when exposed, and did he develop a force field generator to be able to safely locate the ATA connector?
Or did his wife expressly forbid him from buying the Mac Mini, and has he frozen his wife inside a time bubble while devising a way to hide the Mac Mini?
But then how does he unfreeze her?
Can't wait to hear what happens next!
No put you can raid 5 with some USB harddrives and convert it to a LAN drive. ;)
/ index.htm
I not sure if this has performance enough for you but you can then put a WIFI at the back and have a network raid 5 server
http://www.iodata.jp/prod/storage/hdd/2004/usl-5p
Sorry this in Japanese only.
Lars
...this is pretty much the worst article ever.
As if anyone could know that...
Why not get it to accept 5'' floppies while your at it?
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
you forgot step 2: Fire Rick Berman out of a cannon and charge $5 a ticket to watch....
The Mac Mini may not be marketed as a server. But like the HTPC use which it also has not been marketed for, I have seen multiple people speculate about using one in such a capacity.
There is already at least one company offering (somewhat cheap) Mac mini hosting. You get a whole Mac mini (not shared), you can either buy your own and have them house it, or lease to own.
It's actually a really nice idea, since it's about as dirt cheap as a standalone unit can get, and the small size and low power make it a great deal for the colo company. It's a lot easier than letting people just throw SFF boxes at the colo provider which may have differeing power needs and might not stack well.
After all, most web pages around could easily be served off a Mini running Apache (which comes standard) as they will not will not really be CPU (or even possibly disc depending on what is being served) bound.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's just about small enough to hide altogether in a small drive bay!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After reading about the iPod shuffle and floppy disk RAIDs, I thought this was going to be about hooking up a 3.5" floppy disk drive to the mini.
Mac Mini in mini-ATX case boots for furst time
... ..
Mac Mini:
That's odd, it feels so drafty... my case I can't feel my case! What is going on? Wait, computer two across the room has an iSight!
Mac mini opens iChat and connects to Computer Two
Mac Mini:
That's odd, I can't see myself anywhere... zoom in... refine picture... there's nothing just that giant brick and....
THE HORROR!!!
Mac Mini connects power supply to ground directly across processor core - bet you didn't know it could do that! HCF opcode lives on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It seems to me that something like a MacMini was meant to populate the other end of the network infrastructure. If I want a server, I build a server. Modding is fun, but if the point is to use it as a server, I can build a special purpose server at a lower price tag than that. Plus just as a bonus, the system is standard, so when the inevitable problems occur, you can fix them by running to the local pc shop and buying something off the shelf. If you just want to prove you can do it though, happy modding.
you know how long Gentoo would take to install on that 2nd hand pentium 233 you speak of?!?!?!!?
psshhhhh...
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
I still think Canadians suck. Hard.
Also add an old 486 with Linux+SAMBA to let both computers access the same drives over SMB :)
I saw the article a few days ago. He didn't need to "rip out it's guts" fortunately. He removed the top of the case, the optical drive and the laptop HD. He built an adapter to go from the laptop HD connector on the Mobo to a standard HD ribbon cable.
He secured the mini by attaching the bottom half of the case to the interior of the PC case with cable ties.
This was also pointed out previously by an AC, so maybe you didn't see the comment.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
i have a powerbook g4, and my hard drive failed. as a "keep working right now" solution i pulled a 7200rpm disk into a firewire enclosure off the shelf, and booted from that instead.
HOLY CRAP! my powerbook is now sooo much faster. boots in 25% of the time. ram is over 1G. the ONLY time the thing feels slow is when i have (no joke) 15 medium to heavy apps open, while i try to play World of Warcraft.
its 2 months later and i'm still running it like that.
as an added bonus, when we travel i just bring the enclosure, and boot my wifes powerbook with it and get -exactly- my familiar environment. an unplug and reboot and she gets her powerbook back.
similarly, when i do get around to having the hd replaced (man, the do-it-yourself job with the new pb's is a big pain) i can use any loaner while its in the shop and have -exactly- my familiar environment.
i would -never- have guessed how cool this is.
The WD Raptor 10000rpm has transfer rates from 72 (inner) to 54 (outer) MB/s. A latest-gen 7200rpm drive have around 60 to 38 MB/s. A 5400rpm 2,5" drive even less, and doubly less for being smaller (less area/round). In addition, a desktop drive now has 8 (some even 16) MB cache, which is a great performance boot at times.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
We used to do exactly that mod to Amiga 1200s all the time. You get a 44 way connector and cable, tease the wire apart on the other end and crimp on a regular 40 way IDE connector. If you were particularly sane, you even soldered in a seperate power connector (rather than using the power on the 44 way) so you had plenty of juice. No Amiga in our user group escaped with its warranty sticker intact... Why? 3.5" drives are heap cheaper.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
If we're really going to compare those two systems then let's be serious about it.
So your $90 PC has 1/40th the disk capacity, runs about 1/10th the speed, and doesn't run the software the guy wants. And you were calling him a goose?
I really don't think your comparison was even close to fair. A comparable x86 system would have been a Celeron or Duron 1.1GHz. A system like that, with 256MB RAM, is still around $250AUD second hand. You should have also included the brand new $150AUD HDD on both sides of the equation. Add 54Mbps wireless and a decent 100Mbps Ethernet card for $100AUD. Add a DVD/CDRW for another $70AUD. The second-hand PC now costs $570AUD, doesn't have firewire, is a Frankenstein hodge-podge of bits, and still doesn't run MacOS X.
And frankly you missed the point anyway. This guy modded his Mac mini in an unusual way. If you didn't get the point then maybe you need to reconsider if Slashdot is really your cup of tea.
In other news, Australian 'engineers' transplanted the engine from a priceless Bugatti into a 1986 Nissan Crew Cab light pickup.
The engineers were later heard to complain that the engine 'lacked pickup'.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
The point of the mini was to win converts by offering a low entry point to the Mac. They can't be making much if any margin on the thing.
They would probably make more money by just selling a version of OS X for standard PC hardware. They could sell it for $149 with a $99 annual maintenance fee. Start adding up extra sales of iLife, etc and you could be talking about real money.
The problem with the mini is that it is still a fairly high price just to try. I also think that the performance is not going to stand up to a standard PC at that price point which would have a much faster and larger hard drive and more RAM.
How about putting OS X for the PC out there with a free 60 day trial? Imagine being able to install OS X on an existing Windows PC that was rotten with spy ware. People would gladly pay the $149 to keep it. I know people who are shelling out $100 out of desperation just for a virus scanner and cheesy anti-spy ware software that they hope will fix the problem only to fall victim again. If Apple developed an easy way to install OS X over Windows while saving documents, pictures, etc. they would have a real winner on their hands.
Apple would make more money this way and they wouldn't have to tie up the capital required to manufacture and distribute the hardware. They could still sell the higher end hardware which they probably make a good margin on. There will always be that small group that want a real Mac.
Transplanting a Mac mini, in to a ATX case would be just so ridiculous. I would buy a Mac mini for its looks and compact size. If I was desperate to add extra hard drive, why would I spent whole lot of money and time screwing and transplanting the creative mac mini on an ATX box? shheeesh.......I'd just buy an external hard drive, as the prices for external hard drives have dropped so much.
Don't forget that Mac mini's have usb ports!!!
Making your job easier is not your job. Your job is making other people's jobs easier
The problem is that in order to make users' lives easier across two platforms, HR would have to hire additional IT staff. Unless you can make a business case that the Mac will improve your value to the company by at least the trebled salary of an IT professional specializing in Mac OS X, then it's better for the business's bottom line to keep everyone on the same platform.
Does one really need a 1.X GHz CPU to accomplish that?
Video was mentioned. Can a PII 233 decode a DVD and encode video to DivX in a reasonable amount of time?
We did the same with Amiga 1200 that had an internal slot for 2.5" HDD: using a custom made 2.5" to 3.5" ribbon, and either stuffing the bigger disk into the case, or like i did, plug a hole on the back to make the ribbon go outside and plug the 3.5" disk, using also a PC power supply for the external 2 GB HDD (and later, 4x CDROM !). Not very nice (using the top of a Verbatim floppies packing to support the psu switch, and the box of an accelerator card to fit the HDD into) but it still works :)
Actually, the mac mini is small enough you don't have to take it out of it's case to hide it in a PC case. Hope the boss doesn't look too closely at the "new drive" I installed in my tower desktop :-)
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Answer me! Tell me why you marked the parent a troll!
This guy is obviously a complete idiot. Why didn't he just attach a Firewire external HD? It would have cost him less, been quieter looked better and been both more upgradeable AND resalable.
What an idiot.
That was classic intercourse!
I'm really interested in the adapter he had made, but would really like for the drive to be powered by the current power supply. I want to do something similar to the mini-itx projects and put it into an old se or a radio or something unique.... But I would love a faster internal drive.
In the article he suggests changing the pin sex wouldn't work... is this true?
Any ideas how to make this happen?
P.S. Not all Mac users are judgmental dweebs.
*Disclaimer*
I am an Apple user, but please don't hold it against me.
I'm not rich.
People I meet don't call me a snob.
We should all rejoice when someone mods a mac!
Whether it's to stick it in a cars dashboard or send it up in a satellite, This Is A Good Thing(TM).
Face it, that little adapter he had made will be available for sale soon! He is even selling the ones he has left over. Then any of us will be able to take advantage of any tips and tricks modders work out for us!
I want the choice of having a 3.5" as an internal drive. Maybe it's new case is humidor or a gas can, or some other item, but it should be my choice (whether or not it makes sense to you)!
Adaptability will insure a stronger future for the mac.
Modders don't want to shell out for a laptop just to hack it up, and buying a crt imac is kinda silly for modding too.
Really I wish Apple would sell the logic board to the public!
I can't wait to see the mini used as a robotics platform!
I think it begs to be done. http://everymac.com/systems/apple/network_server/s tats/networkserver_700_200.html
Tons of space for HDs, and with the drawers replaced with minis that swap, some custom inteface they could plug right into, there's no need to tear the mini apart...
The Admin and the Engineer
And how the fuck do I get to a DOS prompt?
groomed (202061)
"Riiight. And such a challenge it must have been. Connect wire 1 to wire 1. Connect wire 2 to wire 2. Connect wire 3 to wire 3. Repeat. What a testament to man's ingenuity. "
Would you do it for me then. I'm actually a little intimidated that I might mess up. Post a link to the website that you will sell them at. Call it a Mac-mini accessory. I'd really love it if you keep it under 9.99 plus shipping, but I realize you really want to charge 19.95 or 24.95 for it. Realize if you overcharge, then more of us who want to do this will continue to kludge something together on our own until it's reasonable.
I want my Mac-mini in a cuckoo-clock.
Sure, the Mini is cool by itself...but this guy was just trying to make it more usable for himself. Not everyone is an aesthetics first type of user. Plus, the Mini is so cheap...he can just buy another one for looks.
I must be wakewalking through dreams.
Since Slashdot shows your autoappended .sig only to readers of your posts, not the writer, you might not have noticed the irony of what we got to read:
"it's slow, only 40G, I know this is sorta off topic but I remeber having two 47MB hard drives, I thought that was a lot. Also the fast 386 running at 33mhz!!!
--
Once you have flown, you walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been & there you long to retur"
--
make install -not war