Mac Mini External Drive

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cory1848

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I have the 2007 intel mini and I am looking for hard drive options. Was thinking of installing a 320 gig 7200 drive in it but they are about the same price point as an external 1 TB 7200 3.5 drive. Is it possible to just run the mini off the external drive via firewire or USB2? Would that be slower than using the internal drive? Looking for options, I do a lot of photo work so storage is a premium.

Thanks
 
cory1848 said:
I have the 2007 intel mini and I am looking for hard drive options. Was thinking of installing a 320 gig 7200 drive in it but they are about the same price point as an external 1 TB 7200 3.5 drive. Is it possible to just run the mini off the external drive via firewire or USB2? Would that be slower than using the internal drive? Looking for options, I do a lot of photo work so storage is a premium.

Thanks
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I always think the NewerTech miniStack looks cool under a Mini.
 
cory1848 said:
I have the 2007 intel mini and I am looking for hard drive options. Was thinking of installing a 320 gig 7200 drive in it but they are about the same price point as an external 1 TB 7200 3.5 drive. Is it possible to just run the mini off the external drive via firewire or USB2? Would that be slower than using the internal drive? Looking for options, I do a lot of photo work so storage is a premium.
Click to expand...

You can do it but it will run slower. If you were doing it on a Mac Pro the speed booting through firewire hit wouldn't be as noticeable, but with a Mini its going to be significant.
 
The opposite is the case. It'll be as fast or faster, since the internal drive is a notebook drive (2.5") whereas the external one is 3.5", a desktop drive. The FW400 port is faster than that internal drive, so booting from external will be perfectly okay.
 
fryke said:
The opposite is the case. It'll be as fast or faster, since the internal drive is a notebook drive (2.5") whereas the external one is 3.5", a desktop drive. The FW400 port is faster than that internal drive, so booting from external will be perfectly okay.
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Thats good to know, save me from ripping apart the mini to upgrade the drive.
 
Upgrading the mini is delicate, but not difficult -- I replaced the stock 5400rpm drive with a Western Digital 320GB 7200rpm drive that provides better overall access speed. The toughest part was getting the putty knife to release the tabs along the edge of the mini -- you have to bend just slightly harder than, "Damn, I think I'm going to break this thing"-hard. Not to mention the "pops" from the tabs releasing don't sound all that pleasant or benign, either.

Great tutorials for internal drive/RAM replacement available from www.owcomputing.com.

I've also slapped 4 of the Western Digital Elements 1TB USB drives on mine, for a total of 4.320TB of storage.

Now, I've got a fast internal drive with plenty of space, as well as 4TB of external drive space for under $500.

If you choose this route, though, and if you ever intend on upgrading the RAM as well as the internal drive, I would highly recommend doing both (hard drive and RAM) at the same time to avoid having to go through the pain of opening the mini again. It's not difficult, it's just delicate.
 
fryke said:
The opposite is the case. It'll be as fast or faster, since the internal drive is a notebook drive (2.5") whereas the external one is 3.5", a desktop drive. The FW400 port is faster than that internal drive, so booting from external will be perfectly okay.
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I don't see the logic there. I boot systems from firewire constantly for testing purposes and there is a decreased performance difference. Yes notebook drives are somewhat slower even if they are 7200RPM drives but comparing a 2.5"SATA to 3.5"FW400 the SATA is going to be faster every time. Not to mention I don't think I'd be willing to give up the 1 firewire port that is on a Mini to be my Boot HD.

It isn't too bad upgrading a mini HD. Its about like doing laptop repairs if you have any experience with that. I've done several mini take-aparts and the putty knife thing is somewhat scary if you are squeamish. The biggest thing is don't break the connector on the interconnect board for the data cable when you have to lift the chassis off the logic board. That will be about $150.00-$200.00 repair for a new interconnect board. Had to do several of those because customers have broken them. But if you get butterflies dealing with delicate take-aparts you may want to get it done by an authorized Apple shop. I say authorized because many tech shops won't even install RAM in a mini because they are that scared of them. We had a client in that I was doing a RAM upgrade on his mini that said he had taken it to Geek Squad first before finding us. The Geek Squad manager said they don't do Mini upgrades anymore since a tech hurt themself taking one apart.
 
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Ok so does anyone have any solid test to show if a drive is faster/slower external vs internal? Before I go buy a set up, I would like to know. I was first thinking of the 320g 7200 drive but space is a concern.

I need to clone my drive from my G4 to the new drive so everything is nice and easy. I could just pull the drive from my G4 and put it in an enclosure and be done with it, or upgrade the internal drive of the mini.

Why doesnt apple make an external SATA port on the mini? That would be nice.

I have already had the case apart but did not dig into the machine so taking the case off is no big deal.
 
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