Entered CNET Catalog: 10/21/2009
SKU: 0008859093709
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Manufacturer description
If you already have it, chances are you can use it with Mac mini. Plug in your own display, keyboard, and mouse. Turn it on. And just like that, everything works together. You can even swap peripherals with another desktop computer. That's one of the great things about Mac mini. You can mix and match it with just about anything. Mac mini makes things happen. It can connect to any digital display right out of the box. Mac mini comes with Mini DisplayPort output, so it's ready to connect to the Apple LED Cinema Display or a third-party display you already have. You can even connect two displays to see more of your photos, movies, and files. Mac mini gives you ports galore: four USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 800 port, so you can plug in your keyboard, mouse, iPod, iPhone, iPad, digital camera, DV camcorder, external hard drive, printer, and just about any other device you use.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4out of 4 user reviews
Good price but hardware not server oriented
Pros: Only a Linux box can touch the price. Low power consumption. Quiet. Surprisingly fast. Integrates much better in Mac environments than a Windows or Linux server.
Cons: By being based on a desktop design it has some "misfeatures" like unnecessary second display support, graphics chip uses too much of RAM, unnecessary speaker. It needs a second network port built-in and an ESATA connector for external drives.
I'm going to like this one and am anxious to complete the conversion and delete the old Dell server.
Updated on Apr 8, 2010All installed and running now. It's so much nicer -- faster, smaller, less power, silent -- than my old PC server I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. Maybe because Apple didn't offer it? I've got the internal drives configured as RAID 0 and it really flies. Biggest complaints are with the software, and not the hardware -- you can't sync an iPhone to the Address Book server (iPhone OS deficiency) even though the sales literature claims you can. Also, Macs on a LAN use Bonjour to find each, which doesn't pass through the VPN tunnel, so if you connect remotely using VPN you don't get systems popping up in the Finder. I also don't like Mac OS's limitation of only a single windowing session at a time.
out of 4 user reviews
Excellent server and saves me tons of money.
Pros: Plenty of high speed USB ports, small footprint, low heat and power consumption.
Cons: So far nothing.
out of 4 user reviews
Great overall value - Snow Leopard on steroids!
Pros: Fast, small, affordable, lots of disk space. Leopard of any spots - for me it will be a desktop, a sever and a lab box for learning firewalls for work.
Cons: Would be nice to have a Esata connection.
out of 4 user reviews
Nice if you like staring at the words "Please wait"
Pros: Small, compact, includes OSX Server which we have been running on Mini's for years now. So it is an overall savings on hardware/software.
Cons: Out of the box unit hangs on initial system configuration.
No DVD drive to reload OS when system software is non operational.
Further, the lack of a DVD drive prevents a fresh reload of the OS. So you are out of luck if you get a bad software load from the factory.
Right now all we have is a shiny box that displays the words "Please wait a moment while server is configured".
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