Customizing a new mac mini - buying 'strategy' ?

I've done my homework and thanks to help here, decided i want a 2012 Mini - i7 to replace a 2007 iMac in my main studio
control room. I want to customize this box with maximum ram (16g) and an SSD HD.
Having said that, what's the most economical path to getting this done? I know that i can't buy a Mini from Apple Store that
won't come with a stock 1TB HD and 8G ram. Ideally i'd like to shop for any holiday 'deals' to get the memory and SSD drive...
IF i can get a pared-down Mini at a lower price than Apple Store, because i'm going to wind up replacing the existing internal
HD anyway. What's the strategy here? Does anybody sell a pre-configured Mini with the SSD - otherwise i have to basically
buy a Mini that comes with an HD i'll probably want to replace. It's about the noise factor as much as Flash drive vs mechanical -
since it's for a recording situation.
Thanks for any ideas. This will be a nice business write-off for this Tax Year and if i can save a few $$, all the better.
Mike

Hm. A different spin on things indeed!
Well i'd be interested in more opinion on that. What have heard from many users is that all in all a Mini in a self-engineered studio setting like I've described has stayed relatively silent in mono/two-track recording and even multitrack with processing draw for tasks like you mention - DSP, editing, etc. I know that with a 2007 dual core iMac in front of me doing essentially what i'd be doing on the Mini, noise - fan or otherwise - hasn't really been a big deal.
But, if what i've seen/heard on music user forums is correct, the Minis should be similarly close to silent in typical use. Of course the SSD part of the equation is relatively new. Still i thought the quad core power of this generation would easily handle the processing demand to the extent that it would Not tax the system (?)
Of course there's always isolating the device - but if i'm going that route, might as well buy a refurbed Mac Pro or something as it sort of defeats the whole notion of a small powerful Mini to fit this application.

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I'm a former blackberry user and not a mac user, so I hope I'm clear in my explanation.
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http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/
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Admiralali wrote:
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Customizing a new mac mini - buying 'strategy' ?

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