Mac Mini - Upgrading Graphics + Hard Drive

Hey guys, Im looking into getting a great computer for under 1500$. Im looking at the Mac Mini with the Intel Core Duo. This would be my first Mac. I customized it to be maxed out. I has a few questions though.
- How good is the integrated graphics for Mac like Halo, UT04, Call of Dty, ect.?
- Is there a way to upgrade the graphics on the Mac Mini other than overclocking?
- Will any Serial ATA Hard-Drive work in the Mini? I want more than the 120 GB hard drive because I have alot of music, and I plan on putting alot of music on it, and I just dont know if 120 will be enough.

I have a total of 26GB for Mac OS X plus my applications and a 10GB Windows partition. So if you add 10GB for scratch space I have a total of 36GB unchanging used space leaving me 38GB usable disk space.
My Users data current spans 22GB with a 9GB music library and 5GB software (Mac OS X and Windows) installer files. All of my videos, DVD rips etc, go onto my 250GB external drive.
I have to admit I do feel rather cramped at the moment although it is a rather temporary measure for me. The reason is that my mini is ultimately going to become a cheap Mac OS X server (so 80GB plus a 250GB external is fine for that purpose) and I am to get myself a Mac Pro (or whatever they'll call it) later this year and it'll be ordered with a minimum of 500GB (preferably 1TB).
As for you, If you intend on holding large amounts of video on your drive, something which FrontRow encourages, then even 160GB will probably not enough. Just like Bozz mentions, you're better off going with a stock 80GB drive and keeping the saving for an external such as a Iomega MiniMax or a LaCie Mini. They'll both stack nicely with your mini and save $125 (from the Core Duo 80GB) on them both by not upgrading the internal drive.

Similar Messages

  • What's the easiest way to add storage to a mac mini. (1TB hard drive but only 32G of real storage). External device, internal or partitioning?

    What's the easiest way to add storage to a mac mini. (1TB hard drive but only 32G of real storage). External device, internal or is there some way to partition? I tried doing so but received a message that there wasn't enough free space to partition. Seems like a 1TB drive should have more storage than my Ipad

    Its worth confirming what free space you have on your drive: 
    go to:   Apple Menu > About this Mac >  More Info > Storage
    The bar chart shows how much free space there is on the drive:
    Please realise that partitioning does not create extra space so this wont help you.
    If your free space is less than 20 % you should get extra storage with an external USB or Firewire drive, any make or model will work.

  • Mac mini solid state hard drive does that replace the 2 by 1T hard drive

    mac mini solid state hard drive does that replace the 2 by 1T hard drive

    There wouldn't be enough room in the Mac Mini enclosure for 2 Fusion Drives since they are really just a SSD and a Platter HD working in conjunction. Could really be smoking in a 4 Drive RAID box though. I am speculating here but there is only 1 additional partition allowed in the Fusion Drive. My thought is that the current Management Software would get thoroughly confused with multiple partitions probably due to mount points not being able to register in a normal manner. IMHO the Fusion Drive is another crutch for the normal/average user that doesn't want to be bothered with file management protocols.

  • How do i move files from mac mini to external hard drive

    how do i move files from mac mini to external hard drive

    The simplest method would be to drag & drop the files you want to move to the external drive using the Finder. Just open both the source and destination locations in separate Finder windows.

  • Can I use my old MAC MINI as a hard drive, or do I need to transfer all the data to a new Mini?

    I would like to get the new MAC MINI, but I was wondering whether I could somehow just keep my old mac mini as a storage drive and continue to use its DVD drive since the new mini doesn't have one.  Has anyone out there done this?  If not, what is the best way to transfer data from one mini to another?

    See Here for Transferring from Old to New...
    http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html

  • Using Mac mini as External Hard Drive for time machine

    I know this can be done but I am not sure how. How can I set up a mac mini as an external hard drive. Can this be used as a drive for time machine?? Any help is appreciated, Thank you.

    Personal file sharing (which may require Leopard on the Mini) or by connecting the Mini to your other Mac via Target Disk Mode. I wouldn't recommend that latter, though; too much chance of inadvertently erasing files critical to the operation of the Mini.

  • How do you reformat a la cie external hardrive to Mac mini. The hard drive is currently in windows format.

    HHow do I re format a la Cie external hard drive for my Mac mini operating system. The La Cie currently is showing a windows format.

    Choose Utilities from the Finder's Go menu, open the Disk Utility, select the drive, click on the Erase tab, and reformat it.
    (120904)

  • Access files on mac-mini from external hard drives hooked to PC...

    Have two external hard drives hooked up to my PC. I am in the process of daisy-chaining (via firewire cable) from the one external-Hrd-Drv (only one that has firewire input) to my MAC-MINI. APPLE STORE REP says it will pick up BOTH hard dirves (through a "daisy-chain" -like cycle) and that their icons will just pop-up on my mac-mini. So, it's all hooked up and then I clicked over to the mac-mini and there's NOTHING. Both hard-drive icons are no where to be found! There still ONLY found on my PC, of course. Once a again, I was told that my mac-mini would pick-up or access both hard drives from my PC by JUST using a firewire cable! I've done that and I'm having no such luck. Is there a way to do this? Please Help...thanks!

    Can you re-state exactly what drives are connected to which computers, and how?
    An external hard drive plugged into a PC (or, indeed, even another Mac) on your network will not automatically "show up" on your Mac mini, no matter whether it's USB, Firewire or what. The only way you can even connect to it from the Mini would be to share it out from the PC as an SMB/CIFS (Windows file sharing) share across the network.
    Matt

  • New Mac Mini Server, two Hard drives, Can I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

    New Mac Mini Server, has two Hard drives, could I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

    I haven't purchased a Mac Mini at this time and I may not if I can't use it as a non server. I need to update my system I would be better off buying a new Mac with Snow Leopard the last app that will run Rosetta. The Mac Mini Server has a quad 2.0 processor and 4 GB RAM and two internal hard drives and should out perform my dual 1.25 G4. I can run PPC apps on my G4 but it is 8+ years old and seems to be getting noisy. I don't want to tie myself to another old machine. I want a machine that will work with Intel Apps I was hoping that the two hard drives would allow me to boot from the second with Snow Leopard and use Lion on the first drive to be able to keep up to date with all my other universal apps and Mac OS up grades. The application I use the most is my CanvasX app with drawing & vector effects, text & typography, sprite technology, painting, image editing, and multimedia tools are all in this one app but will not be updated to run Intel apps. I am frozen in time because my most valuable Application won't be updated and Apple has cut me off by not supporting PPC in Lion and onward; Apple used to backward support but I guess that they are no longer as user friendly and concerned with a happy user. I have always been a loyal Mac user and I will not migrate to Windows under any circumstance; I hate windows!
    Thanks for your prompt response,
    Dick Deaton

  • Mac Mini, the main hard drive is almost full with a file type "other." what is it and how do i get rid of it

    I have a Mac Mini 'server.' it has 2 500gb hard drvies, the main drive has 440gb of 'other' files on it. when i restart my computer it looses another gig or 2 to the 'other file.'
    how do i get rid of it? it is something that appears on the iphone and ipad as well.
    any idea's
    thanks

    The 'other' is unlikely to be a single file in a single folder, it could be thousands of files. You are therefore going to need to track the culprite down more.
    There are utilities you can buy that will visually show you which folder is the biggest. However you can also do this in Terminal.app free of charge.
    If you launch Terminal.app from the Utilities folder then do the following commands -
    sudo du -h -d1 /
    This will show which folder at the top level of your boot disk is the biggest i.e. contains the culprite. You then need to
    cd bigdirectory
    and do
    sudo du -h -d1 .
    (the full stop at the end is needed)
    Which will do another check in the bigdirectory and let you see which sub folder or file is the culprite, you may have to repeat this a few times till you find what you are looking for.

  • How to use mac mini as external hard drive

    trying to wipe an old mac mini and use as external hard drive for my iMac.  Help!

    Connect them with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable and start up the Mac mini with the T key held down. If desired, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it.
    (86231)

  • Kernal panic - mac mini, external firewire hard drive

    hi, i've got a lacie fw400 hard drive, that i've had for about 3 years...works fine on an old intel mac mini, but when i connect it to a new mac mini with a fw800 port via a fw800/fw400 cable, it causes a kernal panic on waking from sleep.
    is anyone else seeing this behavior? any idea how to fix?

    OK, dismount and disconnect the LaCie drive.
    Check that the directory of your boot drive is healthy*:
    http://www.macmaps.com/directoryfaq.html
    - * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

  • Mac Mini disconnects USB2 hard drives when in stop

    Hi,
    I am having a problem with my mac mini Core Duo 1.66.
    I have some hard disks connected.
    The firewire works just fine, while the usb2 raid0 stripe is disconnected every time the mac mini goes to into sleep mode.
    So the mini goes into sleep mode. Then I wake the mini from sleep and the drives are disconnected (Device removal info window appears).
    Also the reliability of usb2 is not at pair as the ppc machine I've had in the past ...
    This is very annoying, since all the links in the finder bar are lost ..
    It was doing it with 10.4.6 and now 10.4.7 too.
    But suddenly this problem started with 10.4.6. It wasn't always present.
    The drives uses Oxfor 912 chipset, also they've been working great on any previous mac since 2 years ..
    Any idea how to solve it?

    Connect the drives to a USB Hub?
    It happens that the mouse and keyboard no longer work.
    It happens that I have to unplug them and then to unplug and re-plug the keyboard and mouse to make them work again.
    One of the drive is not showing in the disk utility (The usb2 is a software raid0)
    It used to work in USB2, and then it progressively went worst and worst and now it no longer works.
    But it works perfect in firewire. But the performance drops in firewire to 25-22Mb/s
    Also USB2 memories sometimes are unplugged, disappear from the desktop.
    I have a sandisk memory, not just the cheapest.
    Maybe I bring the mini to apple.

  • Brand new Mac Mini,  No Maciintosh hard drive icon on desktop

    How do I get the Macintosh HD to show up on the desktop. Brand new Mac Mini 10.6.2.
    Without the HD icon I have no access to the applications directory.

    Use the Finder menu 'Preferences' - 'General' tab.... 'Show these items on the desktop: [√] Hard disks'

  • Back up files from Mac Mini to external hard drive

    how do I back up the files and pictures to External Hard Drive before i Install the newer OSX Snow Leopard. current OSX is Leopard 10.5.8
    any Helpful Tips and Tricks will be appreciated in basic step by step which I am not a Mac Expert.
    Thanks!
    Jay

    Disk Utility can make a bootable copy of OS X onto a properly formatted External HD, but I prefer to use Carbon Copy Cloner because it is easier. Plus not only can you boot from the clone if you run into trouble, but you can continue to use it as part of your normal backup strategy.

Maybe you are looking for