New Mac Mini released

[Turboglo]

My Mini is a 2006.

 

If $700 (the cost of a new Mac Mini) meant nothing to me, I'd do it without thinking twice. But like everything else, I want to know that I'll get a reasonable improvement in sound for the money. Unfortunately, it's not very convenient to buy a computer to audition as a music server so I have to rely on the kindness of strangers (spoken in my best Blanche Dubois).

 

[driven -- by sound]

@khollister; phil townsend & a few others who motivated me to "Get in there!" So, on 2 February I got off the fence and bought a SSD for the mini. Couldn't get it to say "A-a-a-h-h-h" and open wide enough, so it sat. And I paced... for two weeks.

 

Yesterday, I finally got around to shoving that bad boy down its throat! Members here seem to be evenly divided about hearing or not hearing an audible difference.

 

Did it make a difference in my own system? GOT A COMPASS?! The sound stage opened up in every direction! Richer in detail and more coherent. And 64-bit (kernel & extensions) playback is definitely a plus.

 

I enjoy memory play among the few players out there for OS X, so I'm glad I got the 8gb of ram from OWC. How would I compare the SSD;8gb ram; 64-bit playback; Wireworld Electra 5* power cord against my previously stock version?

 

Sitting in a parked car at Dockweiler State Beach overlooking the Pacific (L.A.). One day, I'm there with the car's windows down and T-top removed. Another day in a drop-top convertible with everything down. You'll get a breeze and sun with both, but one will clearly be more open.

 

[khollister]

"Yesterday, I finally got around to shoving that bad boy down its throat!"

 

Kinda like the pretzel M&M commercial - "you're not putting that in here?"

 

Glad everything was worth it in the end. I can't image going back to screwing around with CD's - so old school :-) I do have a handful of SACD's I would to figure out how to rip the stereo channels at 88k, but that's a relatively minor issue (less than 10).

 

The worst part of the SSD swap isn't actually removing the old HDD and installing the SSD, but futzing with the adhesive paper shield and stick-on thermal sensors. It is pretty ingenious how Johnny Ive's guys shoehorned all that in there on the new Mini's, though.

 

[wgscott]

What you observe is correct -- macs dynamically assign whether a usb port is standard or high-speed based on whether it detects USB 1 or USB 2 devices plugged into it. The only way I know to circumvent this is to plug your device into a powered USB adaptor, but that strikes me as a really bad idea.

 

[wgscott]

I had the original G4 PPC mini and it was by far the worst computer I ever owned made by Apple that wasn't made of bright colorful molded plastic. It put me off buying another mini until 2009, which I didn't regret a bit. (I also bought a second one at work to use with a Zalman 3D LCD monitor). When the 2010 model came out, I swapped out my home 2009 for it, and turned the old one into a poor-man's iMac by getting it a non-glossly Samsung LED display.

 

The 2010 version is worth every penny, but if you want to pinch a few anyway, find a student or someone with an academic discount to buy you a present. It only saves you $50, but maybe that would sweeten the deal. It is a great computer, and you can hook it to your TV with an HDMI, which for me was the main reason to purchase it. The graphics card is 2 times faster than the 2009 version, FWIW.

 

I looked more closely at the OWC page I linked, and it turns out you can install 4 gig of memory in the 2007/2008 models, but they can only access 3 gig. WTF?

 

 

 

[wgscott]

Maybe I should get an SSD. My kids are building snowmen at our coastal California house.

 

[driven -- by sound]

Internal SSD? Without a doubt! So pleased and impressed I was, I even thought about putting my music system upgrades on hold until I could buy an SSD for my PC.

 

And with my next breath I snapped out of it!!! I will ALWAYS put my Mac mini - tube amp music system in front of the line for upgrades (big country kool-aid grin). I'll address getting an SSD for the PC eventually...

 

You've quite the view - I can imagine you sitting inside with headphones and good music, uninterrupted, while you watch the Snowmen go up through the window.

 

Post Script.: Absolutely love the Hunter S. Thompson quote!

 

 

 

[driven -- by sound]

I sat down and watched the tutorial from OWC Thursday night. Had I the proper tools and no extra cash, I would've done it myself. But, lacking the tools along with having a concern about the sensors led me to a computer shop.

 

Murphy's law - I picked it up at the shop and all was good and brought the little one home. Had things to do so I didn't even put it back in the system until 2200 hrs. As soon as I powered up the fan kicked up and stayed on high.

 

Returned to the shop the following day and we discovered the adhesive would no longer stick; sensors came off in transit. So, the tech taped them both back on and now my mini is running swift and silent.

 

Turns out that the very thing I was worried about happening to me, happened to me anyway at another's hand!

 

Currently, spending my Sunday night trying to figure out a way to isolate or reduce the noise/vibrations from the firewire HDD. Maybe a regulated transformer 12vdc-1500mAh; LifePO4 battery pack. The SSD is only 60gb, so I'm gonna want to work the HDD out somehow...

 

[wgscott]

... about putting in the largest SSD I can (my music library is currently 110 GB) and disconnecting my firewire drive before playback.

 

 

[driven -- by sound]

Admittedly, it is getting a bit late (0300 hrs). But I'm almost certain it looks like the Dapper fellow is walking your dog! In the last few hours I've been playing with samples - internal vs external, memory play on/off and so on.

 

I actually like the sound of tracks playing from the SSD w/ no memory. Some tracks sound a bit more engaging but there is no free lunch. There's a penalty to pay... and it's steep! but you know what they say, "You gotta pay to play!"

 

It's the whole ram/swap and frequent read/write thang that will threaten your good times with the SSD. That the tracks revealed more life and dynamics on SSD w/no memory play versus memory play on SSD or HDD makes it a bit tempting for me. This may not be the case with others in their systems.

 

In the event you do go BIG with your SSD, watch your read/write activity. I like cake... and I like to eat it too. So, periodically, I may play from disk (SSD) but conservatively. Best to you!

 

 

 

[khollister]

wgscott - do you already have a small SSD internal for the OS? I would first try the SSD in the external case in place of the HDD to see if that solves the problem. May be no reason to go inside the Mini.

 

If it is a case of installing a SSD anyway and just going bigger to hold the library, sure.

 

Are you using a 2.5" or 3.5" external drive currently? If it is a bus powered 2.5", try using an external PS (usually an option) - it might be the power draw causing the problem. My OWC external actually sounds better using the external PS rather than bus power via firewire.

 

[wgscott]

Currently, I do not have an internal or external SSD. (The only SSD I have is one I put in my old Macbook Air when the conventional drive gave up the ghost. With that, I hear no difference, fwiw. It is not a great drive, but is the only one that fit.) So if I upgrade the mini, it is just a question of whether I get it a ~40GB drive verses one big enough to house my music library.

 

The external drive is a 3.5" Oyen Digital Firewire drive with an external power supply (I found I needed that in order to serve videos -- the mini is also hooked up to the family TV.

 

[wgscott]

the tracks revealed more life and dynamics on SSD w/no memory play versus memory play on SSD or HDD

 

That's really remarkable. Presumably, with no memory play, the music is still being read into memory, but it is being streamed in rather than loaded all at once.

 

Our pup is pulling the stick arms out of the snowman and chewing on them. He's now at the point in life where I have to help him get up, so it was great to see him enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like snowman ampuation. It was quite disarming, in fact.

 

[khollister]

So the only potential downside I can see from using a single internal SSD for both OS and music is if there could be drive contention that might influence the sound. This seems rather unlikely, but you never know. The safe thing to do is use a 40 GB internal and a larger SSD in an external 2.5" case, but that is going to be about $180 more (100 for the 40 GB and 80 for a good case).

 

The other option is to get an external SSD to solve your current issue and continue to use the internal HDD for the OS, however you won't realize the sonic improvement of getting rid of the internal HDD.

 

[wgscott]

Do you think it would help to have a separate ~20GB partition for the operating system (on a large internal SSD)?

 

[khollister]

No - I wouldn't partition SSD's - no advantage whatsoever

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

The only reason I would partition an SSD is so I could reinstall the OS without touching the other partition. That's it.

 

[wgscott]

Would it help if I had a small SSD for the OS as the major drive and replace the CD drive (which I seldom use now that all my CDs have been ripped) with a large slave SSD?

 

[khollister]

OK - no performance advantage :-) In fact, I seem to recall reading it might have negative consequences due to how SSD's manage memory cell write cycles. I STRONGLY advise not doing it.

 

[wgscott]

Thanks. You've given me a lot to think about. I clearly need to learn more about SSDs.

 

If you permit me a couple of more silly questions, and then I will shut up and go away (I can't explain it, but I have this subliminal need to look for some black-market Dr. Dre headphones.)

 

1. If I have an SSD for the OS, would setting the hibernatefile to /dev/null (using pmset) improve the disk's performance and lifetime? (I never hibernate the computer.)

 

2. Is this a case where turning off disk journaling might do more good than harm?

 

3. Does pmset's disksleep have any meaning for an SSD?

 

[khollister]

I don't think there is a way to do that on the new ones - the only brackets I've seen to do that are for the older Mini's. You needed the Mini Server model if you wanted to do that. Just put the other SSD in a 2.5" external case and use FW800.

 

[Phil Townsend]

I'm wondering about the life and death of an SSD devise.

What happens to them?

Why do they die?

And what happens to the data?

Can they be fixed?

 

Just the basic questions of existence, I guess.

 

[khollister]

I would be more inclined to set the hibernatemode to 0, which does not write the RAM to disk, I believe.

 

I do not believe journaling will significantly impact the SSD write life. I have mine turned off for supposed sound reasons (I did it without testing) but am prepared to rebuild the drive if it doesn't recover gracefully from a sudden power interruption.

 

I believe SSD's ignore the disksleep command.

 

No need to shut up or go away since you have a Golden Retriever :-)

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

FYI - Storage Search is a great site for SSD information. The site is a bit hard to navigate but there's lots of information available.

 

http://www.storagesearch.com/

 

[driven -- by sound]

@ wgscott

 

Having read further, I have a better understanding on file swapping for virtual memory and the importance of having enough Ram to prevent it.

 

Also, I nixed the idea of importing and deleting frequent Playlists. But having a favorite playlist that simply resides on the SSD for playback is fine without constant updates/changes. You'll be fine.

 

Now, if only the prices of large SSDs would fall...