A minipartner for your Mac mini
By Peter Rojas 
posted May 26th 2005 7:10PM
posted May 26th 2005 7:10PM
Alright, we get it: the Mac mini has a lot of special friends now. There's already
Micronet's miniMate,
Tytech's M9,
Plasticsmith's Mac mini Shack, and
Belkin's USB/Firewire hub, and now you can add MacWay's
minipartner to the growing list of Mac mini hubs. Like the others, the minipartner is designed to fit underneath (or
above) your Mac mini, and has three Firewire ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and up to 400GB of storage.
[Thanks, Charles, Mason, & Joel]
I don't get it. It's makes your Mac Mini bigger? I'll be ordering mine with Bluetooth.
I don't get it. It's makes your Mac Mini bigger? I'll be ordering mine with Bluetooth.
... and after getting all 'partners' for the mini it grow's bigger than any average pc tower ;-)
It doesn't make it bigger. Don't get any ideas now. You'll just have to thank god for what you have. Being content is the key here.
Forget about the Mac mini - a hub with FW ports *and* 400GB storage - sounds like something I've been looking for for my Powerbook for a while now. :-)
Kap
So what's the point if you have to add 3 more boxes that are the same size of this piece of crap?
Mac people are suckers. Hey I have a video player idea for Apple, it just plays audio, you don't actually SEE the video, you just listen to it on headphones. I call it the I-magination, and it looks just like an Ipod, except it's the size of the phone book.
doner, it sits below your mac mini, so it makes it a little taller. it also adds more usb and firewire ports, along with a larger hard drive.
that's nice that you're ordering your mac mini with bluetooth, but why is that relevant?
all these add-ons..
it means that the mini-mac almost sucks by itself.
I don't get it -- why do they always have to add those LEDs and big type and logos and whatnot? Who in their right mind would want to spoil the sobriety of a mini's design with those horrors?
(Except for Belkin, who -- not quite surprisingly -- does get it right.)
Cool, white pics of the Nintendo Revolution... Oh, wait sorry...
Pretty soon with all these addons it'll look like the size of a regular computer :)
so good
"Pretty soon with all these addons it'll look like the size of a regular computer :)"
have you seen one of these in person? it would take 20 add ons to make this thing the size of a regular computer.
and 20 add ons to give it the same power... :)
sorry, don't intend to be a hater, but can't pass up the joke
Why the trolling?
Why pic on the mac mini? For the mac bashers, shut up, macs have their place, end of story. The mini is perfect for small silent operation. I know its not that powerful, it doesnt have the newest x90-0080776 grafix chip in it, its a good all round machine for normal day to day stuff.
And whats wrong with options? I love it that we can have a very small silent computer, or spend a little extra in space and cash and get more specs. Im very tempted by one of these and a mini as a music and photo machine at home. My PC is great, but noisy, and not on all the time. I could leave this in the living room on all the time as long as the add on hd box isnt too noisy.
Anyone know if / when any of these Mac mini accessories will be available in the UK ?
hmm, i hear that a uni or similar in australia have replaced all linux boxes in a computer lab with macs. still, the article i found it in sounded a bit raving as the person could not stop going on about the os x gui...
anyways, i find this development kinda interesting. its in a way a step back to the amiga and similar where all addons where external. and it makes sense in a way as its simpler for a non-techie to add something to a computer when its external. just plug in the cable and presto.
as for the led, its nice to tell when a hdd is in use, but they should maybe go for a weaker led. those blue ones can be quite bright...
and remeber that the mac mini was from what i can gather a response to the talk about simple surf and mail boxes rather then a home super-computer or high level gaming rig. ie, to pull out our old friend the car, this is a small and compact car, not a sports car.
#11 wrote
"Pretty soon with all these addons it'll look like the size of a regular computer :)"
Actually, it would take at least 5 of these stacked on top of each other with the mini to even come close to the size of a regular tower-type desktop. But 20 USB ports and 15 FW ports later - not to mention if you had 400gb in each one. That's quite the system and still taking up less space than most towers.
This is a cool add-on and one that I'll seriously look at vs. adding a USB hub, a FW hub and an external FW drive.
My only 2 wishes for the mini are:
- more VRAM... 64Mb would have been nice.
- being able to take a 2gb DIMM
Other than those two "complaints", my mini beats my PC in quite a few areas and has been a joy to use in the month I've had it.
mac hating is cute. ...some people just really miss the 90s.
so does this add on just have wires strung from it to the mini? ...seems like there could be a more elegant solution... but 400gb and more firewire and usb... that's pretty nice. all it needs now is an external interface to let this be an HD DVR. if it's under a grand, it would beat out Tivo's HD DVR. :)
What we /need/ is a KVM switch designed to fit perfectly under the Mini, with Blueooth support for wireless KB/mouse
So, where can I actually buy one of these? (I don't understand French.)
So, where can I purchase one of these? (I don't understand French.)
@Richard
I ordered mine at MacWay. It's the only vendor I could find. It is really beautiful, except the blue button could indeed be smaller. And, beware if you don't speak french. You will need it as all documentation comes in french, too. But you could try Tiger's translation widget. :-)
ElGreco
P.S.: I bought this add on to backup my "Mac mini Server" and mine and my girlfriends PowerBooks
ElGreco,
Thanks for the info!
Richard
a teleakcio.hu internetes rekl?ort? a partnerc?k akci?ill.