FireWire for 75% Better Mac mini Disk Performance

peterdaly writes "As a proud new owner of a Mac mini, I quickly discovered the internal hard drive performance was so pathetic compared to what I was used to that I needed to do something about it ... preferably on the cheap. I ended up trying a FireWire attached storage enclosure and using an older 80GB drive I had in my closet from a dead PC. My mini got about a 75 percent disk performance increase for about $50 (or $100 if you need a drive). Here is a benchmark of before and after as well as information about my research and upgrade. If you already have at least 512MB RAM, this may be the best performance bang for your buck if you're looking for your mini to be faster and more responsive."

Comments

Re:Too bad

[Shanep]

It seems that to make the mini even worth using is to spend lots of money on upgrades.

No, this is not true. Remember you are at /. No matter how fast a computer people here have, many of them will want to tinker with thier computers to make them faster. Like people who soup up cars.

The tinkering is fun.

The Mac mini is a fantastic little machine. I have an AMD XP2800+ with 2 7200 RPM drives and 2GB of DDR RAM, but I mostly use my little Mac mini because of Mac OS X. A faster computer is always nicer, but part of the minis appeal is its size and price. It runs OS X nicely given this in mind.

I don't get it

[foonf]

There has been a whole spate of these "I bought a Mac Mini, found out it really was a cheap, low-end computer, and then spent additional money to bring it up to a barely usable level" articles recently. Most of them involve either major, warranty-voiding modifications to the chassis, or as is the case here, ugly external peripherals that negate the main attraction of the Mini, its external appearance.

People seem to be buying these things as fashion accessories rather than making a serious decision based on their computer needs. It has one DIMM slot, a relatively slow CPU, and a notebook hard drive -- if thats not what you want, you should look for something else rather than expecting the rest of the world to salute your cleverness in partially addressing its shortcomings. If you don't really need a Mac, you can put together a PC for under $500 with a real hard drive and much better expandability. If you want a $500 computer to run OS X on, you can get a used G4 with specifications similar to a Mini, except again with useful internal expansion capacity. And if you want to spend more than that, well, you have the entire rest of the current Apple lineup.

Re:I don't get it

[revscat]

[Intelligent, coherent argument snipped..] And if you want to spend more than that, well, you have the entire rest of the current Apple lineup.

I agree.

But (and you knew that was coming, dincha) there are people out there who enjoy spending their time putting nitrox afterburners and onboard computers on '76 El Caminos. Some people enjoy taking less technically advanced machines and making them perform better than the original designers imagined.

Now, I personally don't do this, but I can see how someone could enjoy doing that with their time. Not my thing, but, ok.

Re:I don't get it

[EggyToast]

Part of it's fashion, but another part of it is form factor and noise.

The mini is damn small. You can put it next to your monitor, like an external CD drive, and that's your entire computer. Get one with wireless/bluetooth and the only cable you need is to the monitor, right next to it.

That's a far cry from a huge, loud box that sits under the desk. Even the smaller shuttle PCs are big compared to the mini, and much louder (I know, I've had the shuttle PCs, and sold it off because it was too loud).

My girlfriend has a mini and is pretty abusive to it, application-wise. She usually keeps 6-10 beefy apps up at any given time, and while there's some lagginess in opening programs, she's otherwise very happy with it *because* it's small and quiet and does just what she wants.

I've got a 733 G4 at work and I wish I had a mini instead -- the damn thing sounds like it's going to take off, and it's about 2 feet from my head. If I couldn't wear headphones at work I'd likely be crazy by now.

They're already very usable computers. The articles you're reading are by those who want to max out benchmarks and make it appear like a much beefier computer than it really is -- probably more because it's like a challenge than as real usage tests. But as someone who sits a few feet from someone's mac mini, I can say that if the only reason someone's disregarding a mac mini is because it's "not as powerful as a big loud desktop," they're missing the point.

Ultimately, I think we're agreeing but on different points. So don't interpret this as an angry rant -- just pointing out and clarifying from someone who is once removed from a very happy OOTB mini owner.

The Real Crime...

[TheNetAvenger]

The real crime here is that Apple would have even shipped a computer with a 4200rpm drive.

Yes I understand the slight cost difference and the slight possibility of heat difference, but a 4200rpm Drive? Give me a Break; it is almost 3 generations old in technology.

It is hard to even buy a laptop drive that is not at least 5400rpm anymore, and the 7200rpm and upcoming 10000rpm drives equal desktop hard drive performance.

They saved what, maybe $10-25 on the computer by using the 4200rpm drive, and yet I would imagine almost every user would rather pay the extra money to have a computer with a hard drive with 'normal' performance.

How is this innovative or cutting edge, when the technology they are shoving at Mac users, and first time Mac buyers that are not technical was top of line 5 years ago?

Apple can do SO much better than this, and we need to remind Apple that if they want to be the innovators and 'technology' leaders they can't get away with giving people sub quality performance and outdated technology.

I know a lot of people here love Apple and their Macs, but there are times when you need to tell Apple what you think and PUSH them to DO the right things and PUSH them to provide truly the best technology they can.

(In. example, you still can't buy a Mac Laptop with a high resolution LCD Screen, you still can't buy a Mac with graphics that are even in same class as top of the line PC graphics cards, The G5 is a great CPU, but even OSX (yes even Tiger) does not fully even utilize the features of this CPU. Tiger isn't' even a real 64bit OS, and should be (apple controls all the hardware, this should be easier for them than Microsoft and yet Microsoft is the one with a real 64bit OS for consumers. There are numerous other issues that truly bother me when people tell me they are the 'technology leader when it comes to graphic design or imaging' - technically the hardware falls short of what is available to the PC world.

One other note on the G5, if Microsoft can take a tri-core G5 based CPU and put it a Video Game Console (Xbox360) at 3+GHz, why can't Apple do this in a desktop system and be a technology leader?

Ironic that the hard hitting G5 based Tri-core CPU from IBM is running Windows NT and Direct X for gaming and will be sold for playing Games.

Ok, I got off a bit on an Apple Rant, but darn it I used to love Apple back in the late 80s, and they keep disappointing me and disappointing me. I had so hoped OSX would be the saving factor for what I had expected from Apple, yet it is still catching up to Microsoft and Open Source OSes in a lot of ways and Apple still is NOT providing the cutting edge hardware that they 'market' that they are.

Apple fans, don't just accept what Apple gives you is always great, question it, compare it to the PC world, and if it isn't truly the level you expect from Apple, TELL THEM. Maybe some good user feedback will push Apple a bit more.

Take Care all... and sorry about the long rant. :)

RAM issue not a disk issue...

[Duncan3]

Spend the extra money on RAM instead, the cacheing will more then fix the drive RPM issue.

Like any computer, once you run the apps once, they load near instantly.

And if you're doing heavy file serving, well... that's not what a mini is for now is it ;)

Re:My similar story was rejected

[keytoe]

Half the Mac diehards rate that as insightful, the other half make excuses and try to justify why the standard Mini drive is so slow.

The standard Mini drive is slow because it's a freakin $500 computer - but it's in a unique and interesting enclosure.

Apple doesn't make commodity hardware, and they never have. Even though this system falls into the 'commodity' price range (and barely, at that) that doesn't make it a commodity box. You're paying for the engineering it took to stick all that shit into a tiny, silent enclosure.

If you want power, buy power. If you want cheap, buy cheap. But understand - Apple doesn't make cheap, and they never have. You can always build something yourself if you want a good mix of powerful and cheap - but good luck shoving that into an enclosure that even resembles the Mini.

And good luck running OS X on it.