1 Topic by moog

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Topic: Mac Mini alternative?

I'm still on the fence regarding an always-on music server to relieve my MacBook Pro of its streaming duties. The Mac Mini is appealing but just a little too expensive for what it delivers imho. I stumbled across this today:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/produ … p;ref=dthp

So for £329 incl shipping you get a decent CPU, 3GB ram, 500GB hard drive and Windows 7 in a form factor similar to Mac Mini. In contrast, the minimum spec Mac Mini at £510 has a 160GB hard drive and lower spec components overall (perhaps CPU excluded?). At that price level the Dell packs a Blu-ray drive, 6GB memory and 1TB hard drive. Not that it necessarily matters for iTunes streaming into an AEX...

Must say I'm tempted... But I would miss OS X.. Or would I? Still on the fence...

I would control iTunes remotely using the iPhone, and for anything else (eg Spotify) remote desktop into the server. Any ideas on how you best remote desktop into a Windows 7 machine from a Mac laptop?

Last edited by moog (2010-03-10 00:36:40)

2 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

By the way I just read in the other thread about Tranquil PCs. Look interesting too. Although it ships with Windows Home Server... Supposedly this doesn't co-exist well with iTunes?

3 Reply by Rednaxela

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Has the fit-PC2 ever been mentioned at this forum?

Should be an interesting option too if it's music-only you're after.


Edit: In -> at.

Last edited by Rednaxela (2010-03-10 08:49:21)

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4 Reply by billt

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

moog wrote:

I would control iTunes remotely using the iPhone, and for anything else (eg Spotify) remote desktop into the server. Any ideas on how you best remote desktop into a Windows 7 machine from a Mac laptop?

Remote desktop client is available for the Mac, although you probably need one of the expensive versions of W7 to enable the RDP server. Otherwise there's VNC which is available for all common OSs. The new version of Mac RDP client even seems to be reasonably stable.

If all you are doing is streaming music you don't need much computing power. For a bargain server how about http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153.

5 Reply by Labarum

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

billt wrote:

If all you are doing is streaming music you don't need much computing power. For a bargain server how about http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153.

That's amazing. I knew they existed, but hadn't noticed they had got so cheap!

Brian

6 Reply by Rednaxela

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

That one should be able to run full-HD video with linux XBMC (through VDPAU. It's not fanless though.

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7 Reply by Labarum

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

billt wrote:

If all you are doing is streaming music you don't need much computing power. For a bargain server how about http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153.

Have you got one of these Bilt? Have you surveyed the alternatives? At that price and size I am tempted to buy one, stuff it in a suitcase and take it to Cyprus - it's silent, are nearly. I can use it for a Squeezebox server and run iPlayer (via VPN) to get UK TV.

Brian

8 Reply by Darren

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

What I like about the Mini is:

- Front Row built-in
- Mine came with a IR remote
- Screen Share from my MacBook Pro
- Bit perfect optical output, plug and play

Shake your Snaic with me.

9 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Darren wrote:

What I like about the Mini is:

- Front Row built-in
- Mine came with a IR remote
- Screen Share from my MacBook Pro
- Bit perfect optical output, plug and play

It's a wonderful piece of kit, no doubt.

Thanks for all the alternate suggestions too. Unfortunately it seems many of the minis either lack CD/DVD or run Linux or both. Am not so interested in Linux as I want to run iTunes and Spotify on it (and I already have a Linux file/mail server). Although, I must say, that Acer is just ridiculously cheap!

I'll keep scouting and also look out for refurb Minis on the Apple store.

10 Reply by Bull.ed

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Moog,

You may want to hang on a bit for the ideal Mac Mini.

http://hddaudio.net/viewtopic.php?id=974

11 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Thanks. Another find, after some more googling:

http://www.mini-itx.com

They sell bundles (case, motheboard, memory etc) around various mini cases and CPU configurations. I just put together a setup around Atom 330, 2GB memory, 320GB 3.5" hard drive and slot-loading DVD-writer and a tidy (small) case for £250. No OS included though.

12 Reply by billt

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Yes, I bought one last year when they were £20 more expensive. It's in the kitchen used as a music player rather than a server. It's not silent, either it has a fan or you can hear the hard disc, but it's not annoyingly loud. Also it doesn't have a digital audio output.

I try and keep track of the low power computer market, but I don't do anything as organised as survey it! But I don't think you'll beat that Revo for a cheap, adequate, computer for undemanding tasks.

Bill

13 Reply by Labarum

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

billt wrote:

If all you are doing is streaming music you don't need much computing power. For a bargain server how about http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153.

£129 with Linux from eBuyer

£135 with Vista from http://www.redstore.com/ACESYS730

Never hear of them but have used eBuyer and they are good.

I dont need any more computer than that!

Brian

14 Reply by dtakias

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Another vote for the Acer AspireRevo here.

In fact if you are planning to run W7 on it, you should forget about the R3600 and aim for the R3610 which uses the Atom 330 CPU, has 2 physical cores and supports hyper-threading so you will be able to handle 4 threads at a time. The same ION based graphics will easily handle all your HD Multimedia needs. It supports VESA mount so you can place it behind a monitor/TV that supports that.

I am getting about 30 of those in a few months for one of the primary schools I support. The ridiculously low power usage will save the school almost 1K per year in electricity costs compared to a modern desktop.

If you can afford the version with 4GB of RAM get that one and W7 x64 will fly on it. Otherwise the 2GB with W7 32bit will still do the job.

My two cents ;-)

15 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

I just bit the bullet an ordered a mini for £477 from Laskys.com. It's more than I was planning to spend, but also slight change of plans. Rather than just music streaming over AEX I'll have it permanently hooked up to the TV and optical out into the DAC. Means trouble free Spotify without Airfoil drop-outs (see http://hddaudio.net/viewtopic.php?id=814) and also Last.fm etc, and in such a configuration I much prefer OS X over Windows and its fiddly audio drivers.

Means I'm also freeing up am AEX which will be used to drive a pair of Audioengine A2 in the bedroom!

16 Reply by Darren

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

moog wrote:

Rather than just music streaming over AEX I'll have it permanently hooked up to the TV and optical out into the DAC. Means trouble free Spotify without Airfoil drop-outs

Good. I just use the Mini as a source connected to ADM9 via optical and a plasma via DVI/HDMI. It means LAN bandwidth becomes a non-issue, so trouble-free music and video.

I used to stream films to my PS3 via an ext HDD, old laptop as a server, router, etc, but it added so much in the path compared to simply storing a film on the internal HDD and playing it via a cable straight in to the TV.

Shake your Snaic with me.

17 Reply by lucan

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

That is much what I do now but instead of the mini, I use an Atom based, ASRock ION 330HT unit which works out a couple of hundred quid cheaper. Add about 70quid for the blu-ray drive option.

http://www.asrock.com/Nettop/overview.a … ON%20330HT

18 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

That does look good too. And it has digital out and a DVD drive which many of the other brands are missing. For me though, for all all-round device against the TV I accepted in the end to pay £180 more to get OS X. In terms of hardware bang for the buck, there's little doubt I got less for my money (smaller hdd, no hdmi, etc).

19 Reply by Bull.ed

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

moog wrote:

That does look good too. And it has digital out and a DVD drive which many of the other brands are missing. For me though, for all all-round device against the TV I accepted in the end to pay £180 more to get OS X. In terms of hardware bang for the buck, there's little doubt I got less for my money (smaller hdd, no hdmi, etc).

moog,

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10 … urces.html

I understand that the Mac Pro update will be announced within the next few days. It is hoped, the Mini too. If not you can use a DVI/HDMI adaptor.

20 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

I did my homework on macrumors.com and understood the Mini is mid cycle! It would be annoying if they released an upgrade in the next few days - mind you, I should be able to cancel/return the order.

No doubt they will release an upgrade eventually though with hdmi as you say. The competition has it and has had it for a while. Sure, you can use a DVI->HDMI adaptor but a) that creates cable mess which violates the Mini 'minimalist' ethos and b) DVI doesn't carry audio so you need yet another cable for audio out (not a problem on my case as I'll want to feed straight into the DAC in any case)...

Anyhow, don't make me regret the decision now please... Hehe.

Last edited by moog (2010-03-16 00:17:39)

21 Reply by record_spot

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Dinky looking little thing, good HDD at 500Gb, but not so hot chipspeed at 1.5Ghz and the Athlon isn't AMD's best chip (the Phenom).  The graphics card is integrated, but no big deal if that's not your bag.  Music streaming, then probably fine and for the money, yes, it's good.

I picked up an HP Pavilion laptop the other day; very good spec, a little more than twice the price you'd get the Dell mini for, but performance-wise, it leaves it standing (accepting that this probably doesn't meet some of your requirements if space considerations are an issue).

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavili … 3-pdt.html

Last edited by record_spot (2010-04-06 21:16:05)

Marantz SA7001-KI, Mission 752, Sansui AU-717
HP Pavilion DV6 Laptop - Apple Airport Express (WAV & 192kbps files)

22 Reply by asou

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

Also read whilst setting up my Acer Revo that you can get OS X running on that Dell Zino pretty much out of the box.

With that in mind that is a hell of a bargin!

23 Reply by moog

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Re: Mac Mini alternative?

That would be ideal, I agree. The problem with these Hackingtosh type solutions though is that they tend to stop working with a future OS upgrade from Apple. It's an arms race between Apple and the bios/boot loader hacking types who come up with new ways of circumventing the built-in checks to ensure OS X only runs on Apple hardware.

Wouldn't it be nice if Apple gave up on this and started selling OS X as a stand-alone OS to run on any compatible hardware... Not likely to happen though as that negates the need to pay the 50-200% premium for Apple branded hardware, so they'd be shooting themselves in the foot big time. Oh well.