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Hi.
I am a technophobe on the prowl to replace an aged macbook, circa 2007 model.
My computer is slow, full of crud (and I have a work laptop), so am looking at a mac mini and ipad (for the wife). I already have got the Mrs an ipad, (she is at home on maternity leave).
Is a mac mini sufficient to do basic editing of head cam footage (from either a Contour Roam or Go Pro HD, or similar)?
My main needs are:
media storage
Interweb browsing
basic editing of photos/video
I have an apple tv for streaming music and video, so would quite like to have a central depository of music that is on all the time, unlike my macbook which needs regular shuteye.
I have posted on here before about external storage issues, so hopefully this will kill two birds with one stone.
Short answer is yes it will do all that you want it to. There are cheaper options but if you want to stick to a mac universe then it'll be fine.
We run Mac minis at work they'll be fine for what you require as long as you realise you need screens keyboard and mouse.. We used them to replace old PC's and they work fine.
Whilst I'm on has anyone had experience of the Mac Mini Server?
We run Xserves that are coming to the end of their useful life and are thinking of replacing them with the Mac mini server.
We have a couple of mac mini servers at work that we use to run some VMs on at trade shows and similar.
Been fantastic by all accounts. Just a mac mini running the server OS although because of their form factor the chance for large storage and efficient cooling is pretty minimal!
Thanks. Am looking to hook up to a HD tv, but realize I am going to have to fork out for a mouse and keyboard. Does anyone have any good recommendations for either, other than the mad pricey apple ones - or am I best to buy them and be done with it?
Also, is it worth forking out from John Lewis and going for one with a 2yr warranty, or am I best to buy from Amazon or somewhere else online?
If you've already got a monitor and other periferals, then it's the obvious choice. Mine's hooked up to my a/v amp via an optical hybrid TOSLink and HDMI cable to my telly, so the tv's the monitor, and I stream my music through the amp using Remote on my iPhone or Pad to control it. The Mini is a very capable little computer, I picked mine up a bit cheaper because it was a 2010 model, with the optical drive.
I had the optical taken out, and a 750Gb HDD installed in the space, and bought an outboard cheap optical for ripping CD's.
The shop found an extra 2Gb of RAM that they installed for free, as well! 😀
Neat, tidy little machine, it ought to do everything you would ask of it. Enjoy.
i would buy it from JL simply for the 2 year warranty, but take it back to Apple in the VERY unlikely event it goes all bill gates on you.. 😆
but realize I am going to have to fork out for a mouse and keyboard. Does anyone have any good recommendations for either,
Apple wireless keyboard and trackpad (balanced on the arm of the sofa).
Sounds like you are intending to set yours up exactly as we have ours. You might find that you no longer have a use for the appleTV. If it's a 2nd generation one you'll probably get a good price for it on ebay as they are in demand due to there jailbreak-ability.
Don't buy Apples memory upgrade - waaaay cheaper to order it from someone else and do the 10 second install yourself.
Apple wireless keyboard and trackpad (balanced on the arm of the sofa).
That's what I use, but mine are on a sheet of Foamex display board, held in place with strips of white S/A Velcro. Works beautifully, and there's a place to put a mug of tea or a plate of sandwiches, too! The trackpad is fantastic, btw.
Oh, and the hybrid TOSLink has a fitting on one end that goes into the headphone socket on the Mac, a feature of all Macs, apparently.
Thanks muppet wrangler. Have a black apple tv, not the latest 1080 model, so the 720 model. Might keep it to use in our second lounge (not as posh as it sounds) where we have old hd another tv.
i have a small, older generation satellite surround sound, so can connect it via optical and use the HDMI for the tele.
breatheasy, will be upgrading myself down the line. Did the same thing with my macbook, so much cheaper than doing it via apple.
re: selling the appleTV. When I said a good price I should have said considerably more than you paid for it. They often sell for upwards of £150.
We've got a MacMini sat under our TV being a file and media server. It's also running OSX Server and acts as our time capsule. I can't say I've used Server heavily, but it looks like it will do most things SOHO users would need very easily.
As for its power, it chomps though a DVD including three sound tracks in about 30 mins and deposits it in a nice neat MKV on the HD.
As above, I'm sure there are cheaper ways, but for an unobtrusive small silver box that does exactly what it says it will, I've found it to be a good buy.
I've got one in the living room, hooked up to an HD projector.
Cracking bit of kit, runs Plex and Plex Server, accessing video files on the NAS box over wired ethernet.
My only complaint is the bluetooth range for the mouse and keyboard - at a fairly modest 2 or 3 metres to the sofa, it is unusably jerky.
I use an apple remote (IR) to control Plex and Hippo Remote on my phone to do quick bits of mouse/keyboard stuff, so it is not a huge drama, but I can't for example sit on the sofa and play a game without plugging a wired mouse in on a long lead.
Dave
We've one under the TV also, connected via HDMI. We use it to run [url= http://www.plexapp.com/ ]Plex [/url]and have a 2TB mirrored NAS drive holding all the media files.
The DVD drive is kaput so I've been considering replacing it with an internal HDD but the OS is backed up to a TimeMachine target so no need really. I swapped the old HDD for a 512GB SSD and it flies along.
I upgraded the RAM from Crucial I think, it was about £30 for 8GB - older memory though, newer is no doubt more. That said, can't the newer models support 16GB?
Oh, as for Apple TV, if you have the black one (gen2) and jailbreak it you can run Plex on there too and stream media from the Mac Mini. We have one in the bedroom, handy for iPlayer etc too as you can get plugins for Plex.
Edit: Not sure it's worth paying any extra to run server. Other than the dual HDD which you can do yourself you should be able to install software for most things. Mine for example runs an AirPrint server, DHCP, and some other bits.
We have an old mini that 90% of the time is used for browsing by the kids, but it also comes on (UK) holiday with us and then also runs plex.
We also have a v2 ATV running XBMC in one room and Raspberry Pi running RasBMC in the other room - they both stream video off a HD attached to an Airport Extreme and do iPlayer,etc also. For a total cost of about £30 the Raspberry Pi is an awesome bit of kit and can be controlled using the TV remote!
muppetwrangler - I probably won't ever bother getting round to jail breaking mine, just probably couldn't be bothered to do it.
Just had a quick look on ebay and can't believe people are paying £150+ for them. I almost think, for me, it would be better to sell the old model and just buy a newer 1080p version, if I am keen to still keep an Apple TV after I get a Mac Mini.
The new mini is a very good piece of kit. The quad core i7 version is also very powerful (for such a small form factor PC) and scores highly in geekbench.
One caveat is that if you want to run a few things at once or use heavy duty productivity software then the 4GB it comes equipped with is not enough and waiting whilst it pages to disk can be painful. I upgraded mine to 16GB and now it flies along (as mentioned just buy the memory and upgrade it yourself).
gribble, look at [url= http://support.firecore.com/entries/387605-Jailbreaking-101-Seas0nPass ]Season Pass[/url] to Jailbreak the AppleTV2, its very simple and will extend the use of the AppleTV. I used it for XBMC and the watch again stuff like iPlayer and its great.