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."

Comments

But what is the point?

[Primotech]

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.

All together now:

[__aailob1448]

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.

Re:All together now:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.

The other "whole point" of the Mac mini is that it's low cost. This adds a much faster hard drive which is probably the slowest component in the Mini, and Hard Drives are cheap.

I'm seriously thinking about updating the HD of my mini...

Re:All together now:

[mejesster]

Don't you dare tell me what the "whole point" of any computer is. I'll tell the computer what to do, thank you very much. I don't care what apple thinks it should do.

Re:All together now:

[Jeff Albertson]

Apple decides beforehand.

They're 'leaders' and 'innovators' and don't you dare presume you know better than them regarding your needs.

Re:All together now:

[Ohreally_factor]

It's a sign of how far slashdot has gone downhill. You get a bunch of comments like, "The whole point of the mini is it's small size/stylish case/OS X/whatever."

Wrong. The whole point, if there ever is such a thing as a whole point, is that it's a computer, and can be adapted to the users needs. Sometimes these adaptations are clunky (like the techTV guy that was unable to stuff a PC into a mini case), sometimes they might appear clunky, but are functional (as in the mod under discussion), and sometimes they are elegant. Sometimes they're just fun.

no replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

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?)

Or...

[daveschroeder]

...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.

Re:Or...

[MyDixieWrecked]

well, there actually ARE reasons for wanting to do this...

having a small formfactor box is pointless if it's surrounded by external devices. If you pop it into a single enclosure with all the extra drives and whatnot encased in a single unit, it's a lot easier to manage and you don't have to worry about toppling. It probably also will increase the lives of the devices since they'll be moved less (moved all at the same time rather than in small increments).

I took apart a G4 and popped it into an ATX case so I could have 2 optical drives and room for more internal HDs. Also, I liked the idea of having a window and UV cathode tubes illuminating the internals...

A small form-factor mini-itx case is still a small form-factor case. The project (althought I didn't RTFA, it's fried) doesn't say to put the mac mini's logic board into a full ATX tower, does it?

Re:Or...

[3waygeek]

Download the free FireWire SDK from Apple, and you get a virtual DVHS application that makes your Mac's 1394 interface look like a digital VHS. Combine this with a HD tuner that has FireWire out, like the Motorola 6200 series used by Comcast and others, or the Samsung T165 ATSC tuner, and you're most of the way to a PVR.

an idea

[Profane MuthaFucka]

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

Why?

[ravenspear]

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.

Truth in advertising.

[dameron]

It seems their server is running tpc via AppleTalk. Long live PhoneNet!

-dameron

Not really

[useosx]

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...

Re:Not really

[Jack Auf]

If you want to use it as a server then why not simply leave it in the original case, plug in a firewire drive, and throw it in the basement (or under the fridge, or in a closet, or....)

Take the money that you would have spent on a case and spend it on a FW enclosure and a disk and come out ahead.

putting a mini inside an Apple //

[BobWeiner]

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?

Since the mini came out, I've been hoping I can stuff it inside an old Apple IIGS (or, even better - a //e), just for giggles.
Anyone up to the challenge?

Finally!

[Shnizzzle]

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.

Protesters, have you thought of this USEFUL reason

[michaeldot]

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!

Just wait for the accessory.

[copponex]

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.

The point is using the Mini as a server

[tetromino]

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.

Re:The point is using the Mini as a server

[sensate_mass]

On my mini 1.42, I bench about 50% faster with a 7200 rpm 8mb 250 gig Firewire over the stock 4200 rpm 80 gig 2.5". The speedup is very obvious in use. Oh, and I boot from it.

What is this latency of which you speak?

Re:The point is using the Mini as a server

[tetromino]

What is this latency of which you speak?

All benchmarks I've read show that firewire has much worse latency than IDE. A quick google revealed that average IO response time is 17.8ms for firewire and 0.12ms for IDE for a particular Maxtor drie (note: the 0.12ms figure is almost certainly because they were hitting data in the hd cache; otherwise it should have been more like 5 ms for the ide case). I am guessing that if you are streaming data, firewire is not too bad, but random access on a firewire drive will not give you good performance.

I recommend you to run a benchmark after connecting your drive directly to your machine's IDE cable.

Re:The point is using the Mini as a server

[TheHonestTruth]

You're getting confused by the fact that firewire is beating something that is extremely slow.

He's not confused, it's his point. Internal drive, 4200 RPM == slow and sucky. External Firewire drive, 7200 RPM == spins fast enough to make up for the connection latency. Therefore, an external 7200 RPM firewire drive is faster than a 4200 IDE. I'll confirm the boot up speed difference. My iBook boots much faster from my LaCie FW drive than from its internal drive. Random access and normal usage though? I can't make any claims in that regard.

-truth

Why not... add a 7200RPM 2.5" drive?

[ikewillis]

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.

Re:Why not... add a 7200RPM 2.5" drive?

[merreborn]

You can pick up a 200 gig 7200 rpm 3.5" drive for at least $30 less than your 60 gig 2.5". We're talking $0.75/gig vs. $2.50/gig.

appalling level of cluelessness today

[X_Caffeine]

re: The whole point of the mac mini is it's small form factor
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.

Re:Mac mini is not marketed as a server

[tetromino]

Mac Mini server = $500 + $200 for good 250G IDE hard drive + $50 for case = $750.
Xserve = $3000, and you still need to buy another drive (shipping 80G hard drives in a $3000 server? pathetic).

Now, you might have a spare two grand lying around. I don't. If I want a ppc server, Mac Mini is what I am getting.

Or...

[JanneM]

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.

Re:Mac mini is not marketed as a server

[i.r.id10t]

I'd mod this as underrated... but I'd rather comment.

My server is a Debian running iMac - 400mhz processor, 384mb ram, 20gb drive. More than powerful enough for hosting 3 email addresses, and serving a LAMP based site that gets a few hundred hits a week, my only complaint about both it and the Mac Mini is the lack of a second hard drive for redundancy/backup, but for my small scale purposes just rsyncing / to my ~/server-backup on my workstation is a perfect solution.

I can top that...

[bshroyer]

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.

Re:As Napoleon Dynamite would say...

[suckmysav]

"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.

Re:Protesters, have you thought of this USEFUL rea

[MidnightBrewer]

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. ;)

I'm not even a Mac guy...

[HouseOfMisterE]

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.

I'll prove you wrong

[InfiniteWisdom]

More than powerful enough for hosting 3 email addresses...

Just tell me which three e-mail addresses.

BONG!

[taxevader]

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)

The Internal Conversations of The Converted

[SuperKendall]

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.