Re: Mac Mini and External Firewire Drives

["noel_pilot" <HA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm looking to do something similar shortly, first thing to bear in
mind is that I believe the mini only has Firewire 400, which should
increase the availability of drives.
Cheers
Noel
Happy New Year!

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "rb_ziggy" <rb.lists@...> wrote:
>
> I think this may be a question for Phil Harris but input from others
> very welcome.
>
> I use a Mac Mini as a HTPC - mainly for (ripped) DVD playback.  Thus
> far it's been a bit experimental but I'm happy with the set up now so
> am ripping DVDs.
>
> To date I've been using a NAS unit with 512Mb (after raid 1).  This
> has been fine for MP3s, storage of photos and general personal network
> storage for the family.  But not enough for DVDs at 7Gb per disc (I
> dont want to compress the Video_TS format).
>
> So I'm thinking of firewire (800) attaching more storage direct to the
> Mini (in this case it doesn't need to be directly NAS as most duty
> will be direct to the Mac and if I need further network access,the Mac
> can act as a server). So looking for suggestions on SMALL and QUIET
> external drives of 1Tb that I can attach to the mini.  These will sit
> in a small Hi-Fi cabinet in the lounge so quiet (certainly no louder
> than sky HD box) really is important (it's why I've a Mini doing the
> work of the HTPC).
>
> In my case 1Tb will do fine for now and 2Tb will see me for a good
> long time in future I think.
>
> In this case I'm prepared to sacrifice Raid 1 capability for shear
> space.  If the drive(s) quit, I'll re-rip.
>
> If I can't get a quiet local firewire HD then I'll have to go full NAS
> again and bung them in node 0.  So any thoughts on the cheaper end of
> the NAS boxes would also be welcome (i.e. I looked at the Western
> Digital MyBook World II drives but they get mixed reviews on ethernet
> speed, reliability and the bundled access software with its DRM).
>
> Thanks
>
> Richard
>