Mac mini - the secret to silence?

A few months ago I talked about tricking out a Mac mini and creating a silent, high-performance desktop machine with a tiny form factor. I'd recently built a reasonably quiet server from the parts I had lying around from an earlier project and those from an existing Pentium 4 machine. The server lives in the basement and provides us with file sharing, HTTP, FTP, SQL and VPN services. It's got drive redundancy and is quite secure (protected by tight system security, good firewalling and Labrador Retriever).

Back to the mini. I broke down and bought one. Just the basic model w/a 1.66 GHz Core Duo CPU, 512 MB RAM and a 60 GB 5400 RPM hard drive. Since my plan had always involved chucking the CPU, memory and drive, it didn't seem to make much sense to consider any factory enhancements (Apple's prices and options leave something to be desired). I've been having a blast with it and I'm realizing just how much I missed having a Mac. Perhaps most importantly, my mini makes no detectable noise (it's approximately 18" from my left ear) and it's not warm to the touch. Although I've been very happy with my Alienware Sentia notebook for everyday work, I've been feeling that having a single point of computing failure doesn't make sense for a guy who makes his living writing code. Plus, I like to stay abreast of new technologies and Intel's Core Duo / Core 2 Duo lineup features concurrent processing, various CPU instruction extensions and virtualization support (I'll have more to say on this in the near future).

My intention is to build a dual-booting Mac/Windows box using Apple's Boot Camp. I'll use OS X for personal stuff and Windows for doing my work. The first order of business was to boost the RAM. 512 MB isn't really enough for any graphically-intensive OS these days. In addition, the mini's graphics chipset 'steals' some of the system RAM for its own use. I ordered 2 GB (2 x 1 GB) of Corsair ValueSelect PC2 5300 RAM from newegg.com. That was the easy piece of the puzzle. The remaining pieces include a larger (since I'll need separate Mac & Windows partitions) and faster hard drive and a Core 2 Duo CPU with the 4 MB L2 cache (2.0 GHz and above), in that order. I'm currently looking at several hard drives in the 100 GB - 160 GB range with spindle speeds of 5400 - 7200 RPM. 5400s offer more capacity while 7200s offer raw speed. The 7200s also throw off more heat, which concerns me in a tightly-packed fanless case. The hard drive decision may prove to be the trickiest piece. The Core Duo and Core 2 Duo CPUs have very similar thermal profiles (way to go, Intel!), so I'm not so concerned about the CPU swap. I might even hold off on it for awhile if I see the expected benefits from the RAM and hard drive upgrades. The only _real_ difference between the Core Duo and Core 2 Cuo lines is 64-bit support, which is currently not much of a motivator. The Core 2 Duo features an average 5 - 15% performance increase over the Core Duo.

My mini also has a ComboDrive, which can't burn DVDs. I'll eventually replace it with a SuperDrive (which can burn DVDs), but this isn't really on the critical path. This isn't the kind of rig that gamers would want. The Intel 950 graphics chip is fine for light 3-D work, but not for intense gaming. I'll have more to say once I get the 2 GB of RAM installed.

Comments

[Mark Mischke]

The iMac would certainly have been a reasonable option, but I've never liked machines that integrate the guts and the display in one box. Just a personal preference. Besides, I already had a nice LCD monitor and keyboard/mouse sitting around doing nothing.

For me, much of the modded-mini appeal is in the geek factor; pushing things a little beyond Apple's 'official' limits (and, of course, voiding my warranty in the process ). Plus I find the form factor really appealing.

Alas, the mini's disk performance will never stand up to the iMac's 3.5" 7200 RPM SATA drive, nor will the graphics.

[Howard]

If you are going to go to all of that trouble, why not just buy a 20" iMac? It'll probably cost you the same as your tricked out Mini, but you'll have a built in monitor and dedicated vram.