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Mac mini's New Friend
Thijs van As writes "The miniMate, MicroNet's new external disk drive and port replicator, is created specifically to complement Apple's new Mac mini. With available storage up to 400GB, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 3 FireWire ports, the miniMate extends the capabilities of the Mac mini. Looks impressive if you ask me."
Cute, but can you also connect it to a PC given the right formatting?
That's slightly misleading, since you have to use one of each of those to connect the unit to the mac mini and use those ports as a hub. Still seems pretty neat though. 2 firewire ports can be very handy.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
.. they went to all that work to make an extender box for the mac mini, and ship 'standard' firewire/usb cables .. 7" and 9" long, respectively.
..
pfft. if they were a real Apple accessory company, this box'd have its own little, short, 'smart'-looking cables which are neat enough, and only long enough, to stretch from mac mini port to hub port.
niggly point, but a point nevertheless. if i'm going to buy one of these things for my mac mini, i want it to be -neat- and not end up promoting ratsnest cable propagation
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
A daisy-chain of these! (note: not a beowulf cluster) It would be similar to a Navi brick system. I still want some sort of expandable bus standard. It sure would be great to add a video card by pluggin in an expansion brick. Unfortunately the RFI involved in external cables and the shielding required make this difficult.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
From the website:
MM80 $149.00
MM160 $179.00
MM250 $249.00
MM400 $499.00
As much as I like the form factor I would have a real hard time buying one of these, but if I did it would have to be the 250. Can you stack 'em and get an extra 100GB + twice the ports for $500?
Kawaiiiii! Guess I know what the girlfriend is going to want for her birthday... sigh. The new 15" Pbook finds yet another obstacle.
Geek girlfriends kill you one accessory at a time.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Apple might have a case that the MiniMate infringes on the trademark it has established with the Mac mini on the grounds that it has copied its trade dress.
Looking at the front of the machine, there are no markings on the Mac mini to let you know that it is an Apple product, whereas Micronet is emblazoned on the front of its MiniMate. If the Mac Mini is covered on top by the MiniMate or the pair are stacked in a rack/cabinet/cubbyhole, one might think that both boxes are made by Micronet, effectively causing a likelihood of confusion "or to deceive as to the...origin...of the goods." (this last language is taken straight out of Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act.)
I know most /.'ers won't have this problem of confusion but I believe that the standard is according to some "reasonable person of the community" standard, and whether they would be confused by the trade dress...
I think Apple went after a Chinese (or Taiwanese?) company a few years ago for its bondi blue iMac lookalike....but they seem to have a more favorable view of add-ons like this one that resemble the original product without performing the same functions (the huge iPod accessory market is further proof of their leniency to accessories that piggy-back off their designs without directly competing with them).
They really should have included an USB Sounddevice with optical Audio in and out and an analog Audio in. That's really missing.
Otherwise, this is an expected product.
Isn't this just an outright advertisement posing as News for Nerds? You think I could get an 'article' into slashdot if it was just touting a 30% sale at DealRam or Newegg or something?
... "new external firewire drive that stacks perfectly with Mini, 3 additional USB2, 2 additional Firewire 400, 250 GB for $99!" Maybe with some more exclamation points so it looks really news-like.
:-)
The only time I would think a product like this was news was if the price was stupidly low. Like
Sorry for the rant. Glad to see there have been so few dupes (possibly none?!) in the last two weeks.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It's only misleading if you don't assume it has to attach to the Mac somehow. It doesn't claim to be a Bluetooth or WiFi network-attached hard drive. Also, one of the USB ports is a USB B port, so that one could only be used one way: to attach to the computer.
But then they could have designed a proprietary harness port and a special cable with a connector for that port on one end and USB and Firewire on the other if you'd preferred. It would raise the price though.
I like how its under-the-computer design resembles Mac hard drives of old.
But someone's going to have to get one, open it up, and see if it is possible to swap in normal internal drives and what type of drive it uses, e.g. serial or parallel ATA, desktop or laptop.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
...they messed up on one thing. The majority of the USB and FireWire ports should be in the FRONT of the box, not behind it. If you're going to market your hardware as a port expander, the least you should do is make those ports easier to access than the ones already on the CPU box.
What the Mini really needs add-ons can't provide: a FASTER external bus type (FireWire800), not more ports. I like the Mini, but I just don't understand why Apple saddled a machine designed for external expansion with FireWire400. Unfortunately, USB 2.0 is woefully inadequate for mass storage.
they did this because they don't figure people are going to do any of that. they did this to compete with low priced pc's. my guess is that many mac mini purchases will be replacing pc's. my dad bought an emac only beacuse he wanted replace his 5 year old imac, and didn't want to buy a monitor too. if you have a montitor, then "switching" is easy. it'll also work great as a second mac at home, something to ssh/vnc into. remember, it has a laptop hard drive, so it's not a power machine. if you need that, you'll buy an imac, or power mac. people who buy minis won't need FW800 and people who need FW800 won't buy minis. it's the ibook/powerbook difference.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
User #38 and this is the first time you've noticed a blatant Slashvertizement?
Are you a new user who bought this account from somebody else, or have you simply not been paying any attention?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Mac OS X can boot from any FW HD, so connect your mammoth HD using Firewire, use http://http//www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html Carbon Copy Cloner to move your System folder over, and watch your Mini guzzle NOX.
Also, its a shame that they don't offer a bare-bones setup with no HD. I'd rather just pull the 160 giger out of my windows box and have the mini take over file serving. Alas.
It's also worth asking if the pricing makes a lot of sense. Pay $500 for the mini, then another $99 for a ram upgrade, plus $150 or so for the hub. As cool as it is, it's not the most economical venture. And I'm taking for granted a spare USB Keyboard and mouse.
I think what the Mac Mini really needs is a KVM ability.
It would be great if I could plop a new MacMini next to my existing PC, plug my current Keyboard,Video,Mouse in the MacMini, and then connect the MacMini to my existing PC. Then I could press the switch on the MacMini and toggle between the two machines.
I could then have the best of my old and new systems at the same time.
From their specs page:
-OS Support : Mac OS X v10.1.5 & greater, Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Maybe you are right, but this is the first device I see that integrates an USB hub and a Firewire hub (to be honest, I didn't know that it could be done) in a external hard disk enclosure. I live in Mexico, the price for these things are:
-USB hub: US$ 15 -38
-160 HD: US$ 90-120
-FireWire Hub: never seen one here
-External HD enclosure: US$ 60-100
Really, the price of this unit is low, if the quality of the enclosure is similar to the case of the Mac mini, then it is cheap.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Guess you didn't notice the caveat about how no one else has bitched yet.
Of course it happens regularly, but you have to speak truth to power... You have to stand up and shout "damn you slashdot for posting an advertisement as news!"
Additionally I'm not even that pissed about the 'ads as news' in and of itself... it's just stupid that it's not even like a newsworthy ad. It's just "ho hum, another external hard-drive that isn't worth it". A dollar per gig?! Even with a 10 dollars worth of USB/FW hubs? It's a fucking travesty. ('Course now I'll get 5 posts saying "it's a great value having those hubs and stuff built into something that costs 50% of the machine in the first place; I'll then have to retort, ad nauseam, about how "it leaves out some of the glaring oversights of the Mini itself, notably, a line in." Why are you going to spend that much money and not want the sockets on the front? )
Anyway, if you were a subscriber you could see this surely isn't a purchased account, but it's more fun to troll, isn't it? Fortunately your comments usually add to a discussion, so we don't all have to write you off for this one lame post.
Sorry to rant, I guess you asked for it.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It's just "ho hum, another external hard-drive that isn't worth it". A dollar per gig?! Even with a 10 dollars worth of USB/FW hubs? It's a fucking travesty.
Actually, as somebody who just bought a Firewire hub for his mini (The EyeTV 500 is a terrific gadget for turning the mini into an HDTV PVR, but it doesn't play nice on a Firewire daisy-chain at all!), I would have almost considered buying this thing a couple months ago. I currently have two external drives (a 250 and a 300), both in el-Cheapo Firewire+USB2 enclosures, and while I came in under $1 per Gig (counting the enclosures, but not counting the hub), the 400GB drives I was looking at did not.
So $400 for 400GB + a Firewire port replicator is a way I might have seriously considered at the time.
I'm kind of glad I didn't, though. If the time comes when I want to add another half-TB to my storage, I'll probably just RAID everything in a single box instead, and then I can sell off the old enclosures to friends of mine. That would be a tougher sell had I bought something this specialized.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
... the more things change, the more they stay the same ... http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/512_hd2 0.htm
I think their name on the front isn't very attractive. Would be nice to find a way to get rid of it.
If I bought the item, why do they need to continue to advertise to me?
Doesn't stacking the mini impede the airflow? http://www.macintouch.com/macmini05.html
They clearly aren't paying attention to what people who don't already own Apple hardware, and some that do, want. External hard drives and hubs are easy to come by, but a Video IO packaged into a Mac Mini sized device with IR would be *perfect* for all those people looking to turn the Mac Mini into a media center, or generaly integrating it into their AV setup. I'm sure there's a market for this, especially since it adds hard drive space without having to go inside the Mini, but as far as a port replicator solution, it's only got half of the ports that a great many would-be customers would like to see.
The costs we're talking about here are consumer costs -- what the consumer bears as she buys items one piece at a time, all with their own warranty terms, packaging, shipping blah blah blah. Those costs are inflated to make profit. Bulk purchasers enjoy a reduced cost per unit (vendors often sell bulk at a reduced rate because they in turn enjoy an efficiency). The manufacture should be buying [components] in bulk. I can't believe I'm explaining this.
A manufacturer, or a systems integrator makes money by packaging his know-how and leveraging his ability to work at scales the consumer can't into a desirable product. Economies of scale is like 7th grade education. If you made it out of high school, why are we having this discussion?
So, to directly answer your question: How do I expect the manufacturer to make any money off this [mac mini external drive]? I expect them to be able to buy hard-drives cheaper than I can, I expect them to be able to manufacture or purchase enclosures cheaper than I can, I expect them to get usb and firewire hubs cheaper than I can. So, If I can buy the components for the same cost as the manufacture and build it for the same cost it takes them to ship it to me then wtf am I buying? Where is the value? Finally, given that bulk ISVs/manufacturer CAN and DO enjoy economies of scale, I expect them to be making LOTS of "money off this thing", because they aren't passing a dime of that economy on to me.
HTH, cheers.
(p.s. when the GP was talking about 30 for the enclosure, that price is reduced by combining the enclosures fw / usb electronics with the hubs' electronics, they are saving even more money, i.e. making even more profit... so, not to keep ranting, the manufacturer saves on electronics, materials, power conversion, and media, and yet somehow, the cost is the same as all of these components seperately. Why not pay more for less?)
All of this is a long way to say the same damn thing I said hours ago: This device is overpriced and is therefore not news.
"News flash: neat component for excellent price!"
is much more interesting than
"News flash: barely novel component at mediocre price."
Again sorry to rant. Nothing personal.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
When trying to load the HTML presentation, I get this:
This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to show properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
If you would like to proceed anyway, click here.
Whoops...apparently what I should have said was "a MacMini is better with a KVM switch", like this. That would have been less typing. Live & learn :-)
For the price of a *properly outfitted Mini plus the price of this little widget, you could just get either an iBook or maybe even an entry level iMac G5. I'm not saying this isn't filling someone's niche out there, but for the lion's share of users, you might as well get a better processor or go portable if you're starting to get into that kind of spending. But, if your needs are matched up to a Mini (i.e., tight spaces, etc.), then I can see this widget being useful. Otherwise, I think it's more of an accessory than a necessity.
YMMV.
*by properly outfitted, I mean a machine that will likely be using those extra ports, etc.-- 1.42 GHZ, superdrive, and 1GB RAM. That, of course, is disputable. If you have to buy a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then you're really spending some money. Oh, don't forget the "AppleCare" (you might need it!) Now you're looking at ~$1,250.00 (give or take).
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
How does the eyeTV 500 work with the Mini? I've heard the peanut gallery say the Mini doesn't have the horse power to do HD...
Far exceeds expectations.
On 1080i broadcasts, there is some (very rare) frame-dropping which can happen during very fast camera-pans, but otherwise it does rather well. Even when it does happen, it's subtle enough that most house-guests don't notice it unless I point it out to them.
720p broadcasts, such as "Tru Calling" on FOX, play smooth as silk, as long as I'm not running other stuff in the background or moving anything else on the firewire bus.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have a KVM switch which is USB based.
It supports 2 VGA monitors, and has 4 USB ports on the console.
I have my wireless keyboard/mouse from Logitech plugged into it.
It is hooked up to a Windows XP machine and a PowerMac G5.
It works well, EXCEPT I dislike the delay when switching from one computer to the other. For general use I run a program called Synergy (available on sourceforge) which allows you to drag the mouse from one computer to the other, with keyboard focus following the mouse.
Cut & paste of plain text works reasonably well and it makes having a Mac, and PC on the same desk a dream to work with.
If all that's holding you back from buying a MacMini is the thought of adding a second keyboard and mouse, forget it, go out and buy one. USB based KVM switches are readily available.
(If you need one with PS/2, and USB support you might have to look harder).
I recommend both a switch box for those circumstances when synergy doesn't work, and synergy for all other times.
Dragging a mouse from a PC running Windows XP to a machine running Mac OS X is sure to impress your friends, and you can throw a linux box into the mix too!
That name makes me picture a very small Australian.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
The Mini is 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 -- I used to work on a Titanium PowerBook G4 with ports that were more out of reach than those on a Mini.
Do that math:
$500 - Mac mini (w/40GB)
$75 - additional 512MB RAM
$25 - bluetooth
$500 - Minimate with 400 GB
-----------
$1100 + S&H for 440GB G4 w/ bluetooth
So for about $1100 you get a great home media server that is SMALL but has a ton of room for audio and enough for some video until it can be off loaded onto optical media
or for $200 more ($1300) the iMac G5 with an 80 GB drive. Sure it has a terrific screen, faster processor, but even the yet-to-be-released version is rumored to have 512MB RAM, less than the mini configured above. And the HD is too small to store a large music library or more than a few movies.
The needs addressed are totally different. For the home entertainment server, the Macmini/Minimate combo is the way to go. You don't need a beautiful 17" flatscreen or the G5 processing power. The G4 is totally capable and the extra drive space is copious. Not to mention if you are interested in the asthetic, having a beautiful and small home server in the stereo rack will draw plenty of oogling eyes.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.