Mac mini

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jimmy83

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Just after some advice please guys. Since owning an iPhone/iPad/ATV I really would like a full blown 27'' iMac badboy! :D but just can't afford one :crying:

ALways told myself to go for the full iMac experience and save and get the 27'' but my current C2D PC is pretty slow now so looking at the Mac mini.

What are peoples thoughts? Uses will be LR mainly then just your usual chrome etc.

Only thing that iam not sure about it how I could be arrange my HDD's , any ideas on this? Maybe some kinda icybox or caddy? Or maybe even the HP server box that keep coming up on HUKD's, and yes iam aware that hopefully the mini will get a refresh next week :D

Thoughts?
 
Hi, I have a couple of Iomega Minimax drives, I think they are the ones you mean and look similar to the Mac mini in silver. Come in 1tb and 2tb flavours.
 
Cheers guys. Would the mini run LR ok do you think?
 
Hmmm 480 quid for a SSD, don't think I will bother will one of those then, shame the stock HDD is only a 5400RPM spinner :(
 
Im running a 2007 gen purchased from here and having no troubles. Ample space for nearly 100 movies so far, not changed HDD yet but for LR, I tend to use an ext HDD for that.

As for LR running on it, so far, 12mp RAW files have worked fine without any issues. I think the only time I saw the coloured wheel was when I was shutting down after updates. Other than that, I enjoy it.
 
Cheers! Do windows and OSX use different files types? IE will I be able to chop and change files/folders around in each OS?

I need tame idea how to sort out all of my HDD's really.

Do you use an apple monitor/trackpad/KB/mice with it?
 
jimmy83 said:
Cheers! Do windows and OSX use different files types? IE will I be able to chop and change files/folders around in each OS?

I need tame idea how to sort out all of my HDD's really.

Do you use an apple monitor/trackpad/KB/mice with it?
Click to expand...

I will let to check but I cannot see any reason why Adobe would force the Mac version use a diff format for the catalogue vs Wdinows. Ill check that out tonight.

Yes, I used the magic mouse/keyboard setup. Still getting used to the multi finger gestures/taps.

Im running a Dell monitor from a few years ago, just need to sit and calibrate it. On my to do list.

I am hoping to later down the line just has some sort of NAS to keep everything in one place and not have to worry about clogging up my main HDD. That can wait for now.
 
Jimmy

Ran a Mac Book Pro for a year or so, driving an external monitor. Not dissimilar to using a Mac Mini. I had no problems with using it this way. I now use an iMac but still have the MBP.I have run LR 4 on this same machine and ran into no problems. Problem with the Mini is that it does only has 4Gb of memory as standard so largish files in Photoshop may be a bit slow. Might be worth upgrading to 8Gb.

As far as OSX and Windows files are concerned,it depends on what file systems you have . I ran my windows files as NTFS and used the" NTFS for OSX " programe on the Mac to read and write to these. I had no problems with moving files around using the Mac using this. You can get this from the Paragon Software

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ about £15.00

Rumour has it that new Mini's may be anounced in the next week or so. Rumour only.
 
It seems to be a pretty strong rumour though with suggestion that the new mini will ship with 8gb ram now.. :)


Same event on the 23rd is supposed to announce new iMacs, iPad mini and a tweaked iPad 3 too, so lots to hope for there :D
 
Cheers fellas, the magic looks great aswell. Looks uncomfortable to use but all the reviews ive read say its fine even with extended use.

Yeah I need to figure out some HDD plan of action really, as all my data is windows based atm.

digitalfigure, yes cant wait for it :D Ooooo standard 8GB ram will be handy :D Do you reckon it will come with USB 3 and drop the firewire?

hmmm, any idea how I can use two monitors with it? New mini has HDMI and TB... ive got a 24'' and 19'' both with DVI/VGA not sure if you can just use adapters or not. I know what it's like when you don't use apple products with each other.
 
Personally I'd hope for both USB 3 and FireWire, I use FW800 with my dv cam and drobo so I rather hope the fw stays.


I think there is a thunderbolt to fw adaptor though, so it's not a deal breaker :)
 
digitalfailure said:
It seems to be a pretty strong rumour though with suggestion that the new mini will ship with 8gb ram now.. :)


Same event on the 23rd is supposed to announce new iMacs, iPad mini and a tweaked iPad 3 too, so lots to hope for there :D
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure the gen before that had an opening for the base so it was user upgradable. Ill have to pop in to see the new gen once out. :)
 
Chappers said:
As far as OSX and Windows files are concerned,it depends on what file systems you have
Click to expand...

The file type is the same between Mac & Windows. File systems are another matter and are I don't think they're relevant to the OP

File systems are relevant if you're moving drives between OSes

Bottom line is that a .psd file from Photoshop is the same on OS X and Windows

The same is true for pretty much everything, the only caveat being that some manufacturers (step forward Microsoft...) like to change file types with new versions of software

Nick Froome
 
bolide said:
The file type is the same between Mac & Windows. File systems are another matter and are I don't think they're relevant to the OP

File systems are relevant if you're moving drives between OSes

Bottom line is that a .psd file from Photoshop is the same on OS X and Windows

The same is true for pretty much everything, the only caveat being that some manufacturers (step forward Microsoft...) like to change file types with new versions of software

Nick Froome
Click to expand...

Cheers Nick. I would be interested to hear how apple users iMac/MacBook/mini users store/arrange all of their hard drives...
 
At one point the Mac Mini was actually quite fairly priced, I owned one from the C2D era and it was a lovely computer (if a little short on hard drive space), unfortunately though it was blighted by Leopard which is hands down the worst ever OS X that Apple have ever made.

These days though I think the Mac Mini is very expensive for what you get (you don't even get an optical drive), so I'd have a real hard think about what you're getting in to. If the Mini wasn't so expensive just now I'd probably buy one again now that Intel OS X has matured.
 
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trencheel303 said:
At one point the Mac Mini was actually quite fairly priced, I owned one from the C2D era and it was a lovely computer (if a little short on hard drive space), unfortunately though it was blighted by Leopard which is hands down the worst ever OS X that Apple have ever made.

These days though I think the Mac Mini is very expensive for what you get (you don't even get an optical drive), so I'd have a real hard think about what you're getting in to. If the Mini wasn't so expensive just now I'd probably buy one again now that Intel OS X has matured.
Click to expand...

Yeah true, new model is 499 now. But you could never make that kinda system for the money tho.

Plus I should be able to get 20% discount as a friend of a friend works there...
 
trencheel303 said:
At one point the Mac Mini was actually quite fairly priced, I owned one from the C2D era and it was a lovely computer (if a little short on hard drive space), unfortunately though it was blighted by Leopard which is hands down the worst ever OS X that Apple have ever made.

These days though I think the Mac Mini is very expensive for what you get (you don't even get an optical drive), so I'd have a real hard think about what you're getting in to. If the Mini wasn't so expensive just now I'd probably buy one again now that Intel OS X has matured.
Click to expand...

Agreed. One of the reasons when an older gen came up for sale here, I went for it in a heartbeat. Only niggle is upgrading parts are a chore since its just a long winded process to open up.
 
Jimmy

With regards storage and external hard drives I have 3 running on my iMac. The first is a 2Tb FW800 which holds the current images, plus 2 USB 2 drives. One is a Time machine back up for the Mac and the other is a 2 Tb back up for the external main image storage drive. Back up for this is by Integeo Back up manager.

I think if I was starting from scratch I'd still store my images on an external drive, but use 1 additional drive, partitioned , one for Time machine back up and another partition for back up image storage. As the new Mini has USB ports I'd opt for USB drives rather than Firewire on the grounds of cost. Thunderbolts would be nice but I think still a bit too expensive
 
Thanks Chappers. I doubt I would use time machine only due to money more than anything atm. The mini is all I can afford atm. Happy it now comes with USB 3, althought all my current drives are USB2...
 
I've got a 2009 24" core2duo iMac which I've upgraded to 8gb ram. I've also changed the stock 320gb hard drive to a 2tb one and also removed the cd drive and replaced it with a 120gb ssd drive.

The machine now flys..... I use it for Lightroom and iTunes streaming to my apple tv's and its been going strong for ages.

I back it all up to a hp microserver which is hidden away in a cupboard.

I don't know but the new iMacs look like they will be a pain to upgrade yourself if you wanted to add more ram etc.. So if you don't know what your doing then you need to buy the best machine you can afford from the start.

If all goes well I hope that my current iMac lasts me another 2-3 years. At which point in think ill upgrade to the latest Mac mini and an apple Cinema Display.
 
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neil_g said:
£80 for a samsung 128Gb SSD. DIY (y)
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I had a conversation about it in apple store. They wouldn't even touch the machine afterwards, let alone honour warranty if you replace it :bang:. You might be Ok, but that's a lottery if motherboards blows up for an unrelated reason a few months later. MBP (not retina) are the only ones with replacable HDDs.
 
daugirdas said:
I had a conversation about it in apple store. They wouldn't even touch the machine afterwards, let alone honour warranty if you replace it :bang:. You might be Ok, but that's a lottery if motherboards blows up for an unrelated reason a few months later. MBP (not retina) are the only ones with replacable HDDs.
Click to expand...

really? i thought apple were pro user upgrades like drives and memory.. (its been a while since i looked at the mini granted)
 
I have a 2009 mac mini, just upgraded from 2gb ram to 8gb and from the stock 120gb hard drive to a 128gb ssd, I use it for photoshop (cs3 at the min) and it works fine. If you get one out of warranty, upgrading ram etc is pretty simple, from new, I would not want to open it up but apple do charge a fortune for ram etc.

As far as extra drives go, I have my readynas duo (with all photos and music) connected to a gige switch which is connected to the mac, works a treat.

I would say more than capable for your needs. The reason I upgraded mine was the £110 layout for the ram and ssd are considerably less than a mbp!! now need to get the latest osx and photoshop and will be happy......... for now :)
 
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Finally got my Mac mini yesterday :D

I intended to setup the LR catalogue on an external HDD, but it does look like you can :(

I dont really want to put the catalogue on the internal drive as that will soon fill up. Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
Finally got my Mac mini yesterday :D

I intended to setup the LR catalogue on an external HDD, but it doesnt look like you can :(

I dont really want to put the catalogue on the internal drive as that will soon fill up. Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
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I thought you could set the catalogue up on the main drive but store the images on a different drive. That's what I want to do when I get my paws on the new iMac :)
 
digitalfailure said:
I thought you could set the catalogue up on the main drive but store the images on a different drive. That's what I want to do when I get my paws on the new iMac :)
Click to expand...

Correct.

It's only the catalogue file that has to be on an internal drive, the raw/jpg can be anywhere.
 
digitalfailure said:
I thought you could set the catalogue up on the main drive but store the images on a different drive. That's what I want to do when I get my paws on the new iMac :)
Click to expand...

neil_g said:
Correct.

It's only the catalogue file that has to be on an internal drive, the raw/jpg can be anywhere.
Click to expand...

Well the problem was the HDD was formatted to NFTS, re-formatted to fat and moved the catalogue and photos to the external HDD, which is what I wanted originally. So all good (y)
 
jimmy83 said:
Well the problem was the HDD was formatted to NFTS, re-formatted to fat and moved the catalogue and photos to the external HDD, which is what I wanted originally. So all good (y)
Click to expand...

That shouldn't be an issue, just enable ntfs writing in terminal. Or format in hfs+ if you don't need osx/win cross compatibility.

I'd avoid any legacy file system like fat like the plague. Far too many downsides.
 
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neil_g said:
That shouldn't be an issue, just enable ntfs writing in terminal. Or format in hfs+ if you don't need osx/win cross compatibility.

I'd avoid any legacy file system like fat like the plague. Far too many downsides.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Neil, I done some research and pretty much everything I read on google said format to fat32. I've nor done that an setup my LR and catalogue.

Cross compatibility would be ideal as Iam slowly going o be migrating from win7 to OSX and probably keep my win7 for a few bits XBMC etc. I've got a good 2TB worth of data music and photos formatted to the windows NFTS format.

Hmmmm Iam unsure what to do now.
 
Do you use NTFS Neil?
 
I know you have your new mini now but I got a late 2012 i5 Mac mini and put 16gigs of ram in it myself and it's lightning fast! Photoshop CS6 opens in 2 seconds flat.

Are you getting any screen flicker at the top of the screen? Apple released an update for this but it hasn't worked for me.
 
Happy Snapper said:
I know you have your new mini now but I got a late 2012 i5 Mac mini and put 16gigs of ram in it myself and it's lightning fast! Photoshop CS6 opens in 2 seconds flat.

Are you getting any screen flicker at the top of the screen? Apple released an update for this but it hasn't worked for me.
Click to expand...

Yup will add more RAM and SSD when I have some cash. I only had the screen black-out once before the firmware fix. Updated the firmware on Mon and no issues so far! What connection are you using?
 
jimmy83 said:
Yup will add more RAM and SSD when I have some cash. I only had the screen black-out once before the firmware fix. Updated the firmware on Mon and no issues so far! What connection are you using?
Click to expand...

I've go two 24" displays one using the hdmi to dvi and the other using thunderbolt to dvi. The blacking out seems to be ok but the top bar the top line of pixels seem to flicker always have with the mini maybe it's just my monitors lol
 
Can you test them on a windows machine maybe? Try just connecting one aswell.
 
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