I have a Mac Mini setup as a HTPC with direct output to a SONY 52XBR4. I have been busily adding my music and movies, and have run up against the space limits of the Mini HD. Three related questions:

1. I would appreciate suggestions on what HD to use with the Mini to store iTunes content. Price, reliability, size recommendations appreciated.

2. Any pitfalls/setup suggestions so that the OS can "see" the files on the other HD?

3. Any experience with using Time Capsule? Can you stream movies over a wireless network without pauses or dropped frames?

Thanks in advance.

Paul,
I have an almost identical setup (Sony 46XBR4 instead of 52) and I use this "MiniStack" external drive/USB/FW hub that fits perfectly with the Mini's shape and extends its connectivity:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MS2F7750GB16/
It comes in different sizes or an empty enclosure if you want to add your own HD. It has intelligent power management and is quiet when in use. OWC, which sells them, is great to deal with if you need support/returns (no, I'm not a shill for them though!).

I have my 750 GB set-up in 3 partitions: 1 a Time Machine backup for my internal HD, a small bootable partition with OSX and system/disk utilities installed, and the large one for media files. You don't need to use any special tricks for the OS to see files on the external drive, but depending on how your iTunes library is organized you may need to specify a directory on the external drive for your iTunes library.

I do use a trick, though for sharing media files between users and using the space on the external, which is to alias the "Music", "Movies" and "Pictures" directories in each user's home directory to a shared "Music", "Movies" and "Pictures" directories on the external. Make sure you set the permissions on the directories and files on the external drive so that everybody has Read and Write access.

No experience with a Time Capsule but streaming files over my wireless networks has worked well for me, although I haven't done it with HD yet.

Good luck!
Freddy B.

3.5" disks have more capacity, but also require their own power and can be noisy.

I added a couple of the WD Passport 2.5" drives to my mini. A 320GB drive and a 250GB drive. They are very small, and quiet. And they are bus-powered , so there are no additional cables (other than the small USB cable).

The 2.5" drive is fast enough to support simultaneous HD recording and playback too.

that seems like a good cost effective solution. For a bit more money, time capsule will also add GBit ethernet speed and access to the shared files without the alias trick.. either way - a good solution....

ken

Best hard disk companion for Mini?

I don't think there is just one. And I think Time Capsule is probably still too new to evaluate accurately in terms of home theater--if you're not wired, don't forget your mini still has "g" wireless. So give it another week or two, and we'll probably know for sure.

Are you just looking for media storage space--media that you don't really care about losing and that's easily replaceable, like a ripped dvd, the originals of which are tucked safely away? If so, you have a TON of good options--and after using different externals I think the most important feature you're looking for is a drive & enclosure combination that will wake, sleep, spin down and spin up well with your Mac. That's what really mattered most to me--followed closely by warranty. Not brand (because ALL drives might fail and ALL manufacturers might suffer from some production glitch) and not connection (firewire, usb et al--there can be good and bad firewire, and good and bad USB.) You can get something pre-assembled (drive and enclosure) or buy the drives and enclosures separately and assemble it yourself. Look at warranty terms and price and make your own decision.

I've always tended to buy enclosures and drives separately--I like longer warranties and the ability to swap drives and open everything up without affecting warranty. Though the commercial branded external drives have started shipping with better warranties these days, 3-5 year rather than 1, you still aren't supposed to open them up, and if you ever had to get at the drive to try to retrieve data you're stuck: either send the whole thing back to the manufacturer and LOSE everything, since they'll send you back a different unit or risk voiding your warranty trying to get at the drive inside, and they don't make their enclosures easy to open up. I've opened a bunch of these up anyway, and can speak first hand. I have:

a Seagate FreeAgent that my Macbook sometimes doesn't recognize connected as a USB2 device, showing up as USB1 instead;

a 500GB WD MyBook 'Home' edition that is not capable of booting a PPC Mac over firewire and there's no fix for it;

two LaCie d2 FW800/400/USB2 that each have had their cheap power supply replaced under warranty, and that have been rock solid since;

and I'm sure everyone has a slightly different set of experiences and gripes, major and minor. But generally I've been happy with everything, though I researched ahead of time to make sure which chipset and bridge these enclosures had, and made sure they all spun up and down well with Macs. The enclosures that I've purchased without drives--Stardom Sohotanks with swappable drive trays and a Stardom SohoRAID--have been totally rock solid.

It comes in different sizes or an empty enclosure if you want to add your own HD. It has intelligent power management and is quiet when in use

This is very good advice.

USB gets a bad rap amongst us long-time Mac users, but frankly USB or firewire can handle your music and movies just fine--and a 500GB or a 750GB SATA inside just about any enclosure will make a big difference for you. Intel Macs can boot off of USB now, which negates one of the big advantages of firewire with a PPC Mac. Still, most of us here swear by firewire: there's less overhead and draw on your CPU with firewire because it "works" differently than USB, and the enclosures with Oxford firewire chipsets/bridges tend also to be the ones which wake/sleep and spin down reliably with Macs. You'll pay a little more for an enclosure with firewire in addition to USB and/or eSATA, but I think most of us here feel it's still worth it--and valuable--to have firewire as an option rather than NOT have it. Apple hasn't completely allowed firewire to drift into irrelevance yet, though the handwriting has been on the wall for years.

I'll also throw something else out just for you to file away for later: it's not too early for you to start thinking bigger picture, start thinking about long term strategy and thinking past just this first single external drive purchase: that means think how you're gonna grow, think backup, redundancy and availability. Figure out for yourself what's important, what needs to be protected, how much of a budget you have and then you can start figuring out how to go about it.

3.5" disks have more capacity, but also require their own power and can be noisy.

Also really good advice by tji--fan noise (if an enclosure has fans) and drive "whine" can really annoy. This brings up another issue: your music and movies can actually be stored anywhere on the network or around the house--they don't necessarily have to be directly connected to your mini via firewire or USB. Leopard makes it very easy to share over the network. And this:

Any pitfalls/setup suggestions so that the OS can "see" the files on the other HD?

is usually a non-issue with respect to connection type, i.e. firewire or USB; it's more of an issue in terms of file type or format--what you rip your video to and how you convert and store it, whether Front Row will see them, whether you want to fit into the iTunes ecosystem restrictions and keep video in a format that an aTV would also be able to play, if you might purchase an aTV or two in the future. Front Row, for instance, can play back VIDEO_TS, the aTV as it ships cannot.

If I still had a mini, I can see the attractiveness of a Ministack and it's certainly easier to connect an external hard drive than pull content from elsewhere on the network. Most of us here have external enclosures connected to whatever Mac we have at our HDTV. Right now I have 1.5TB of storage regularly connected to the Macbook in our main home theater:

1. a 300GB Seagate FreeAgent via USB--for movies
2. a dual-drive Stardom SohoRAID (2 x 400GB SATA) RAID-1 enclosure via USB--for iTunes
3. a 400GB LaCie d2 via firewire--for EyeTV high def

Our main iTunes library is just under 400GB at the moment. To protect that investment of time I bought that dual drive bay enclosure to keep a perfect RAID 1 mirror of it, on a second drive, which I then remove and tuck away for safe keeping in the condo. I'm protected in case of a local fire as well, keeping a third copy at my parents house that I swap out and check maybe every 3 months. I know that's really anal, but drives are cheap these days, so why not? I don't ever want to re-rip and re-do all those playlists and metadata. That iTunes RAID-1 started as 2x250GB SATA drives years ago, then I swapped in 2x320GB, then 2x400GB, next, who knows? With drive prices falling so low, becoming so big and so fast, we're in a golden age of affordable storage options compared to where we were just 2-3 years ago.

The key for me, as far as protecting what's most valuable, my iTunes library: if there's ever a power surge, a glitch mounting or dismounting that external which prompts some kind of corruption or controller failure, or that drive simply fails--I can be back up and running in seconds.

I have my 750 GB set-up in 3 partitions: 1 a Time Machine backup for my internal HD, a small bootable partition with OSX and system/disk utilities installed, and the large one for media files.

I like Freddy B's thinking here for how to partition a single drive external--except I'd suggest altering it just slightly: that second "small bootable partition" should be large enough to do a bootable SuperDuper clone of your Mini hard drive. Time machine is nice, and SuperDuper is complementary: you won't be able to rebuild from Time Machine quickly, it'll take hours; with a SuperDuper clone you just change your startup disk, reboot and you're back in business. That can come in handy in the home theater when family and friends are coming over or you're about to record something crucial. With TM as one type of insurance, and a SuperDuper clone as another, you'll have more bases covered.

OWC, which sells them, is great to deal with if you need support/returns (no, I'm not a shill for them though!).

I'm a big fan of OWC as well.

Just so you know, that 1.5TB I have at the Macbook is maybe 15% of my total storage--the rest is around the house, inside of or connected to other Macs. And putting a 200GB Hitachi 7K200 (7200rpm/16MB cache) inside the Macbook was one of the best things I did to tweak overall performance.

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice, not only regarding hardware but also the planning and philosophy of backups.

Paul

I'm looking for an external HD to attach to our MacMini HTPC.


I don't want or need a NAS and would like to use to an attached drive or drives.

I use a couple of MiniStacks at work. That makes a great 'mini server' but they are too noisy.
Any suggestions?

I've got a LaCie and find it reasonably quiet.

When my Intel Mini hit the wall on its internal drive, I went to my local computer store and picked up a SeaGate OEM 1TB 7200rpm drive and an external USB2 enclosure. I spent $87 out the door for the drive and enclosure.

I put the new drive together, plugged it into the Mini's USB port, loaded a fresh copy of OSX Leopard on it using the Mini's superdrive, and followed the instructions to transfer all files and programs from the old Mini drive to the new external drive. I made the new drive the start up drive and hid the Mini internal drive on the desktop.

It works like a champ, actually seems a bit faster with the new 7200 rpm drive, and the external enclosure hides behind the Sony. Took maybe two hours to get everything moved and up and running. Now I have tons of room, and all works well with my time capsule. And much easier than tearing into the Mini to replace the hard drive.

I went to my local computer store and picked up a SeaGate OEM 1TB 7200rpm drive and an external USB2 enclosure. I spent $87 out the door for the drive and enclosure.

I like the approach of buying a drive and enclosure separately.

Two potential problems to watch out for with this approach, though, are that 1) many of these less expensive USB-only enclosures don't spin down properly with Macs, which means you're out of luck if you'd like your mini to just go to sleep during periods of inactivity in the HT and 2) the USB bus is slow, relatively speaking; writing to and from a USB external drags compared to firewire 400, 800 or gigabit transfers. Not as much of a limitation if you don't have much content, don't move it around much and your home network is small, i.e. just one Mac at home.

I'm looking for an external HD to attach to our MacMini HTPC.

My advice--get an enclosure with USB as an option, but avoid using it.

Longer term, you'll probably be better off spending a little more upfront for an enclosure with a decent Oxford chipset (that will spin down) and firewire 400, 800 and USB2--then like localnet suggests shop around for a good deal and put a big, quiet, cool-running drive inside. If you have a new mini with firewire 800, you'll really appreciate this option. I don't have any experience with the recent Seagates, but I'm on a good run with recent Western Digital drives: a 1 TB "Black," a 1 TB Green power and a couple of 640GB Caviar WD6400AAKS, previously sold as SE16 and now as "Blue." These are all very quiet drives.

Sounds good.

I've used the WD 1TD Green drives before and they would be perfect. I'll see what I can find for enclosures.

iomega mini max tb

I ended up putting a WD 1TB 'Green' drive in a Startech SAT3510U2V external enclosure.

Works no problems.


The StarTech box is SATA II to USB 2.0 with no fan. It uses a SunPlus SPIF215A chip. The activity light stays on when the mini sleeps so I doubt it spins the drive down. The WD drive is far quieter than whatever is in my DVR so I can't tell.