[OZZIOZZI]

I currently have a Mac Mini Core2 Duo 1.83 with 1GB RAM and use a Seagate 640GB  external HD for music storage. I have just ordered a MiniStack external HD enclosure that will take a SATA I or II drive and use USB 2 or Firewire interface to Mac Mini and a 3GB RAM upgrade kit (1+2 GB) (I plan to use Firewire conection to Mac Mini). I drive an external cheapo DAC by TOSLINK optical cable from Mac audio out. I have decided that this is is still better than internal Mac digital out. It can run up to  24/192 via TOSLINK, only 24/96 via USB.

My questions, Best brand size and type for external HD? My current collection runs to about 160GB mainly Apple Lossless, but some HD files and some downloaded 256k MP3s. Any other comments about my system, apart from spending huge sums on cables etc ;-D

PS I plan to drive DAC, external HD from DIY dedicated linear power supply (5v and 12V)

Ozziozzi

[JohnR]

Hi, the best type is an SSD. Samsung seems to be a good combination of value and performance (I've had no problem with any of mine anyway).

The Mini is the 2010 model? I'm just wondering why you wouldn't have put an SSD in it, 160 GB is not a lot and easily within reach of an affordable SSD.

[OZZIOZZI]

I want an external Firewire HD that I can also use to boot an old iMac that has faulty optical drive and to be able to also use it as my external music storage. My previous research suggests that a small (maybe less than 100GB) SSD HD is best as internal drive with only essential system and apps and  to use an external 7200 rpm SATA HD for music storage only. Why do you think that an internal (large ?) SSD is the best idea? I have already ordered the MiniStack External HD enclosure as it matches dimensions of Mac Mini and can sit neatly underneath it. I plan to use Firewire 400 or 800 because of faster data rate than USB. Extra memory is to allow running BitPerfect in memory play mode, hopefully to improve performance of audio output to system.

I can buy a 1TB rotary HD for about $60 wheras a large SSD is 2 or 3 times that price-- thats my main reason for not choosing SSD either internal or external.

[JohnR]

Hi again, the question I was answering was the best type of drive for external (attached) storage Personally I hate having spinning drives in a listening area - if the size of the library exceeds reasonable cost of SSD then go to a NAS (with spinning drives, but in another room).

Reason for suggesting an internal SSD... you didn't say whether you had an internal SSD boot drive, I assumed not. (Actually I'm still not sure.) But if not, one new internal SSD seems like a much simpler arrangement than an external drive. And much faster too. 500GB 850 Evo is $160 on Newegg, vs $60 plus $75 for the enclosure = $135.

I know you said you ordered the enclosure. Sorry But I felt that suggestion was needed, you are of course free to ignore it

[Jonathon Janusz]

I haven't read a lot as to what people think of the bridge chipset in the ministack, so I hope you follow up at some point with your thoughts.    For music, on my core duo mini I have seen a noticeable improvement in sound quality taking the music files out of the internal drive and on to a firewire external.  For me, there was also at least a subtle difference between platter drive external and SSD internal, but I won't comment more than that as to not influence your judgement.

The Evo 850 is a solid SSD drive (the samsung OEM Apple SSD drives are rumored on the street to be the best among the sata drives Apple used), and for the prices these days, you can do well with a 256GB drive for your music.  If you went platter drive, the industry has consolidated and there aren't too many players left (as in the companies actually making the drives).  Learning from my own experience, the only thing I would have changed for myself if I was buying a drive just for music would be to go down to a 5400RPM drive instead of the 7200RPM drive I ended up buying to lower the noise floor.  All of that is moot, however, going SSD as you can't get much better than zero noise from a drive.

For a boot drive, I would see if you could find a 128GB samsung branded Apple OEM drive to put inside the mini.  I noticed a lot of upside when I did mine, and because I'm running an old version of OS X on the machine,native TRIM support was important to me for the boot drive.  Also, I didn't care about the performance difference between going 128GB and 256GB on the SSD because the system bus is slow enough on that model mini that there was no real difference - going any SSD pretty much maxed out the speed on that bus.

[OZZIOZZI]

JohnR the normal HD (5400 I think) is quiet enough for my purposes considering background noise from other activities in and around my house-- neighbours mowing lawns, traffic and othr media events   I have ordered the ministack enclosure as it sits neatly under the MacMini and comes with all the cables I need as well as providing a USB 2 hub for the grand sum of $37US. I have read several good reviews and the aesthetics are important to me. I already have a couple of 160GB HDs that I can try in this enclosure. IF the noise gets intrusive I can always put the MM and ext HD in a cupboard and operate the music server using my iPad as remote. WiFi goes through wood fairly well.

JOhnJ  I have read that Samsung are the gold standard for SSD HDs. I think most people who upgrade their internal Ssd usually put the old Internal SSD in an external enclosure for much the same purpose as I plan or as a backup drive. So it looks like a new SSD is most likely EVENTUALLY. I suspect my music file collection will continue growing to at least 256GB, especially as HD music downloads become more common and I Rip more CDs to replace the low res or compressed files in my collection. That is why I am looking at 1TB external drive to "future-proof" my storage. BTW I have a 1.5TB drive on another iMac that I use as a backup for important files, including music. NAS can be a PITA if you are not particularly interested in messing around with networks. MY hobbies are building speakers and listening to music, not messing with computers. Thats the main reason I use Apple products.

I am trying not to get obsessive in my  computer music system, but rather improve it gradually and reasonably as funds permit. After all, I find my present system more than adequate for my enjoyment. As long as I can hear no obvious distortion, excessive noise floor or computer glitches and the music sounds good then I am happy. I haven't mentioned that I have been a Media Officer, recording studio operator and TV cameraman, I play guitar, ukulele and have listened to a lot of live music in small and large venues, amplified or acoustic so I have a reasonable idea of what passes for "good" reproduction. My system is "good enough", storage is the main issue.

Thanks both Johns for your suggestions.

[OZZIOZZI]

I received the MiniStack external HD enclosure and have fitted it with a 500Gb Seagate 5400 rpm drive formatted Apple HFS+ Extended Journalled. All my music files (and nothing else) are now on this drive connected by fIrewire 400 to mac mini and/or 17". It all works well and I am suprised at the quality of Apple lOssless files played through headphones and even computer speakers. I also have used ministack to boot other computers using firewire and that works well too. USB hub seems to work and provides enough current to charge/ synch iphone and ipad.

Unfortunately I have just wrecked the mac mini trying to upgrade RAM so I am back to using the iMac 17" intel core duo machine and that handles even high def audio (24/96) with no problems. Eventually I will transfer files to SSD drive, but not until the prices come down a bit.

thanks for all the suggestions nd advice

Ozzi

[GentleBender]

How'd you "wreck" the mini? Does it look like it can be repaired?

[OZZIOZZI]

I was trying to upgrade the RAM from 1GB to 3 GB. I sucessfully pulled down mac mini from the top down, replaced the RAM and was putting it back together when I ripped off the ribbon cable to the optical drive when attempting to re-insert it to connector--actually broke off ribbon cable connector which is soldered. I am not very good at micro-soldering so I consider it wrecked. Professional repair would cost more than original purchase price of mini so not worth it. I have learnt a valuable lesson. Leave well enough alone. Mini was working fine on 1gb RAM, but I wanted to upgrade so I could run a later OS and things like BitPerfect, Amarra, PureMusic etc.  I have been advised by local (non-Apple store) repaired to sell off mini as parts and buy a later one with specs I require as the best course of action. I suspect the moral here is "if it aint broke..."
Now I am using an old iMac 17" intel core duo and that sounds pretty good either direct from analog earphone out or through USB or optical connection to external DAC. I am beginning to think that a larger iMac like a Pro might be a better option for experiments and home upgrading as they are big enough to get inside "boots and all" 

Ian

[paul79]

That repair shouldn't cost too much.... I would get a quote at least.

[OZZIOZZI]

I bought the mini (mid 2007 duo core 1gb RAM 80gb HD 1.83 gHz ) for $125. Price to upgrade RAM from Apple $225 price to repair audio. Board connect cable socket $200+. If I press on with home repair/ upgrade/re-assembly it will have cost me for RAM SIMMS, but my labour is free. I might end up with mini with no sound output from internal speaker or earphone socket. I am hoping that USB out may drive external DAC. I WOULD be interested in info about whether USB out to DAC will be affected by internal audioboard not functioning. But I will find that out soon. Best case I will have a mini that is still good for picture editing etc even with no sound. It is just not worth paying someone else to fix problem when I can buy an equivalent machine for $100-150 sometimes core 2 duo with 4gb RAM and 160gb HD advertised for $150.

Hope this helps to explain my reluctance to send mini out for repairs.

Ozziozzi

[davidavdavid]

Spinning vs non Spinning

5400 RPM drives are just about inaudible and work just fine. SSD's work as well, but their storage/$$$ ratio is not great if one's music collection is measured in terabytes. For those not averse to spinning drives, i would recommend the following:8 TB Archive drive from Seagate. When i get back to the States, am getting two of them along with dual hard drive chassis

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Archive-6GBps-Internal-ST8000AS0002/dp/B00XS423SC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463298133&sr=8-1&keywords=8+tb+archive+drive

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Icy%20Dock/MB662U32SR1/

I have my mac connected to my television via HDMI to visually navigate my music libraries from across the room.
A while back I picked up a Toshiba 14" USB travel monitor and have that connected as well, nice for when company comes over and they want to see what is playing on the system, and not have to have the big tv running.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-Mobile-Monitor/dp/B005F0IKHA

And no matter what playback software comes out on the market, i do try them all, i keep coming back home to Audirvana Plus 1.5 because it looks the least like iTunes and a computer program than any other I have come across. And before folks run for their rifles to hunt me down...my digital music library is just about 10TB. Software which necessitates loading collections as an indexed library become unwieldy with so much being loaded.  I wish that were not the case.

Right now about the only thing I would change is my Mac Mini it is a mid 2011 hence USB 2.0 and i have my eyes on a mid 2012 with USB 3.0, that extra speed of file transfer would be a godsend

[dB Cooper]

Wow, I'm a piker. My 'Audio' folder on my external is 200GB (mostly 16/44 lossless with a smattering of 24/96).

[Atlplasma]

Spinning vs non Spinning

5400 RPM drives are just about inaudible and work just fine. SSD's work as well, but their storage/$$$ ratio is not great if one's music collection is measured in terabytes. For those not averse to spinning drives, i would recommend the following:8 TB Archive drive from Seagate. When i get back to the States, am getting two of them along with dual hard drive chassis

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Archive-6GBps-Internal-ST8000AS0002/dp/B00XS423SC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463298133&sr=8-1&keywords=8+tb+archive+drive

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Icy%20Dock/MB662U32SR1/

I have my mac connected to my television via HDMI to visually navigate my music libraries from across the room.
A while back I picked up a Toshiba 14" USB travel monitor and have that connected as well, nice for when company comes over and they want to see what is playing on the system, and not have to have the big tv running.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-Mobile-Monitor/dp/B005F0IKHA

And no matter what playback software comes out on the market, i do try them all, i keep coming back home to Audirvana Plus 1.5 because it looks the least like iTunes and a computer program than any other I have come across. And before folks run for their rifles to hunt me down...my digital music library is just about 10TB. Software which necessitates loading collections as an indexed library become unwieldy with so much being loaded.  I wish that were not the case.

Right now about the only thing I would change is my Mac Mini it is a mid 2011 hence USB 2.0 and i have my eyes on a mid 2012 with USB 3.0, that extra speed of file transfer would be a godsend

There is a thread on Computeraudiophile about drives, and several members were reporting that Seagate drives have become particularly unreliable. That has been my experience as well. Various Western Digital drives seem to be much better (at not failing).

[Phil A]

I use Oyen Digital drives (I have a 4TB and 3TB one in the main system and the same in one back-up system).  I have about 5TB of music and SSD in the current configuration just won't work.  I recently got my Synology NAS up and running and will be looking at things like the Aurender N100H (for the main system) which caches the stuff on a 120GB SSD drive

[jonbee]

Lots of opinions on amazon regarding Nas drives, with a lot of love for western digital red labels.I went with 3tb Seagate Nas drives for my synology ds213, with one doa out of 3 shipped.  After getting two good ones, so far so good, with 2000 powered up hours so far. My experience suggests spend a little more to get the wds.

[davidavdavid]

My current storage setup - your mileage may vary on this. Bear in mind I have A TON of music in my system.

Firstly and most importantly is the enclosure system. I have two drives in this one sleek slimline unit:

http://www.amazon.com/MB662U3-2S-R1-Tool-less-External-Enclosure/dp/B015EUII5E?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A2YLYLTN75J8LR

In this unit I have two (2) 8 TB 3.5" hard drives i use Seagate drives, but for those who prefer Western Digital i am
including links to  both. The Seagates are a bit more affordable:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Archive-6GBps-Internal-ST8000AS0002/dp/B00XS423SC/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1463815277&sr=1-1&keywords=8tb+hard+drives

http://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01BYLY4DM/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1463815277&sr=1-3&keywords=8tb+hard+drives

AND ***** if you are a Mac Mini user and your computer is of the 2011 variety (pre USB 3.0) as is mine, then I would heartily suggest the Kanex Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 adapter. Plug the Kanex into your Thunderbolt port on the Mac Mini and connect your external USB 3.0 hard drive(s) enclosure to the USB 3.0 port on the Kanex and get USB 3.0 transfer speeds. Small price to pay for all the time it will save:

http://www.amazon.com/Kanex-KTU20-Thunderbolt-Gigabit-Ethernet/dp/B00LOLBX5K?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

My Seagate drives work smoothly. For those of you in need of software to duplicate hard drives, I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.

As for the whole Seagate vs WD debate, all I can say is that until the hard drives start failing, the OTHER manufacturer is going to be better.

I own a Synology and have found over time, i prefer my hard drive storage to be locally connected to my Mac Mini and while I use the Synology to make music available to me anywhere in the world, I keep my hard drives in sync using Carbon Copy Cloner to do incremental disk duplication.

Note, when I said i have a ton of music read that to mean 7+ TB. So I have been through the ringer on this and tried out many needlessly expensive solutions. Sometimes simplest and basic is best. If my approach works for you, that's great.