RE: [OT] (A little) : Firewire cables...

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I really don't understand why Apple haven't produced a "Mac
Midi" that
> has a bit of expansion space (say, 2x3.5"HD, x16PCIe, x4PCIe,
2xFW800,
> etc, maybe even dual cpu). It's a really big hole in their lineup...

Well I think the idea is that the iMac is supposed to fill that gap but I
don't "need" anything with a built in display ...

I would love a PowerMac as they are damn sexy looking but they are quite
large (physically) for not a huge amount of expandability (basically a Dual
G5 PowerMac can only take two hard discs IIRC) so it's only real advantage
to me over a Mac Mini is the gigabit Ethernet and the ability to whack in
some Firewire800 (or maybe eSATA) cards.

With the Intel Dual Core Mac Minis from =A3399 (including gigabit LAN and
m=
ore
than enough processing grunt for what I use) then effectively paying
anothe=
r
=A31,000 for new PowerMac for pretty much just a couple of additional
Firewire800 ports doesn't seem a great bargain...

As it is, even the 1.4GHz PPC Mac Mini I have here is man enough for most
o=
f
what I do with it (Slimserver, FTP server, File Sharing, Bittorrent etc.) -
it only starts to get a bit bogged down when running the streaming
RealMedi=
a
converter so that I can listen to streamed BBC radio on the SliMP3's.

I'm torn between sticking with the Mac solution I currently have because it
just works and going over to WHS but that has its own problems ... there's
the fact that it has to be easily and reliably scaleable (which happens
easily with the Mac and firewire) but I'm scared silly of hitting the old
"Delayed Write Fail" issue with Windows which rules out Firewire
and USB as
serious solutions to expandable storage. If firewire and USB are out (and
eSATA is out due to difficulties in getting enough eSATA channels out of an
enclosure) then it's down to getting enough SATA channels available inside
an enclosure (really I'd want provision for 12 data drives as well as boot
and optical drives), getting a big enough enclosure and sorting out drive
caddies/backplanes at that ever-important "UKHA_D price". :-D

Decisions decisions eh?

Phil