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For most of us, the Mac Pro
is unattainable at $2,500 and up. The Mac mini offers good performance
but limited expansion at $600. And Apple seems set against anything
between those two models except for the all-in-one iMac.
This leave those of us who want two internal hard drives and an
internal SuperDrive out in the cold. At present, the only option we
have is an external hard drive.
The Cube
Remember
the G4 Cube? Introduced
in July 2000, it was one of the most beautiful computers ever released
by anyone - and almost as limited in expansion options as the Mac mini.
The Cube had one 3.5" hard drive bay, one slot-loading optical drive
bay, and an AGP 2x slot for its video card. There were no extra drive
bays or PCI slots for adding new features.
You could put in a bigger, faster hard drive. You could install a
faster CPU or two. And you could put in a more powerful video card. All
of these made the Cube hotter, and PowerLogix came to the rescue with
its
PowerCube enclosures, which improved ventilation but didn't improve
its expansion options.
The 2009 Mac mini with Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics is a good
machine, although far less expandable than the Cube. There is no video
card slot, so you're stuck with the pretty good GeForce graphics.
There's no room for a third drive, so you're limited to two hard drives
or one hard drive and a SuperDrive. It may be possible to transplant a
faster CPU.
Current Mini Expansion
In its latest incarnation, the Mac mini has two SATA ports on
its motherboard, along with five USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 800
port. These SATA II ports do not appear to support
port multiplication, a feature common in the PC world that allows
the use of two to five SATA drives with a single port. In short, the
current Mac mini is limited to two SATA drives.
Ever since the first Mac mini shipped in 2005, there have been a
host of third-party companion drives available, which made it easy to
add an external 3.5" drive for more storage and speed. Most of these
also include USB 2.0 and FireWire hubs, making them great
peripherals.
A New Chassis
What if someone were to design a replacement chassis for the Mac
mini? What is the potential?
Without port multiplication, it would be possible to add more drives
using USB or FireWire. FireWire 800 is significantly faster than USB
2.0, and since we're designing for performance, let's go that route.
NewerTech already sells the miniStack v3, which includes one 3.5" SATA
drive bay, a USB 2.0 hub, and a FireWire 800/400 hub. It retails for
$110 with no drive or software. With 5 USB ports on the back of the Mac
mini, we could probably dispense with the additional USB hub.
Let's design the new enclosure to support two 3.5" SATA hard drives
and the Mini's SuperDrive. Two of the drives could connect to the SATA
ports, and the third could use a FireWire 800-to-SATA adapter connected
to the FireWire hub. For backward compatibility, make sure there's at
least one FireWire 400 port.
Instead of a 2" high Mac mini plus two 1.5" high companion drives -
the only way to add two 3.5" hard drives - the replacement chassis
would probably be 4.0" to 4.5" high. It could use the Mac mini power
supply to power the motherboard and SuperDrive along with a secondary
power supply to power the hard drives. Perhaps it could also be offered
with a unified power supply at extra cost. And with a second
FireWire-to-SATA connector (again at extra cost), you could also use
the Mini's original 2.5" notebook hard drive.
Pricing
Looking at prices for external dual-drive enclosures as well as Mac
mini companion drives, I suspect that this modification kit could
retail for US$199 - and possibly as little as US$149. Except for the
enclosure itself, all the pieces to make this already exist.
I suspect this would become a serious alternative for
performance-minded Mac users who want a bit more than the Mac mini
offers. It has a second hard drive for RAID or Time Machine, and 3.5"
drives tend to be faster, higher capacity, and less costly than
notebook drives. This could put a dent in Mac mini Server sales while
creating a larger overall market for the Mac mini.
As much as I love NewerTech's miniStack drives, I would find a Mac
mini with two internal 3.5" drive bays a far more attractive option.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Performa 630, introduced 1994.07.01. The first desktop Mac with an IDE hard drive could accept a TV or radio tuner.
Remember
the 
In its latest incarnation, the Mac mini has two SATA ports on
its motherboard, along with five USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 800
port. These SATA II ports do not appear to support