Using mac mini for recording and studio

The 5400 RPM drives in the latest minis are FAST. I bought one and compared read/write times versus my 2008 17" macbook pro with a 200 gig 7200 RPM drive in it. The times were faster, and in some cases much, much faster with the mini and 5400 drive. It really blew my mind. The reason i did the test is because after I loaded up the mini and started working on it, it seemed so darn fast. My 17" macbook pro is a 2.4ghz model, and the mini was 2.53 ghz, both with 4 gigs of ram. Yet the mini felt like a speed demon on some tasks.

Bottom line, unless you regularly record 24 tracks of 96K audio through a firewire port, I can't imagine one case where the speed of that internal drive will matter. Best part is, for under $100 bucks, you can upgrade the internal to a 320 or 500 gig 7200 anyway.

My plan is to use the existing drive for a year or so, and when the 7200 internals get even cheaper, take a look at that time to see if I even need to bother.

I was surprised myself. The system buss is faster in the mini, as is the ram, and the processor is a little faster, but still, the thing was awesome. Quiet? That's an understatement. I'd never know it was on, and it sat 18" from my head on my desktop. If apple just put 7200 drives in there stock, the things would be perfect.

Yes, you can upgrade the ram, harddrive and optical drive yourself. There are several websites that show how to do it. I've done it twice, it is really no big deal. Flip the mini over, use the right size putty knife(s) and carefully lift the lid off...from there it's a matter of removing some screws, and then reversing the procedure.

I returned my mini 2.53 because I decided I really wanted to stick with laptop for this year. But for the 2 weeks I had it, I had Logic on it. Used a USB interface, and had some Firewire drives hooked up to it. It was excellent. It's so small that it can sit right on the desk where you can get at everything.

I left the 5400 drive in it, and had zero problems. It's a rare day when someone maxes out their harddrive speed. If you check your meters in Logic, the cpu has always been maxed long, long before the HD I/O has been. If you are running 96K 30+ track creations, a mini isn't even going to be on your radar. Yet, many people use nothing but a Macbook Pro to do some very complicated tracks...and a mini is really just a macbook pro without screen/keyboard/trackpad and jammed in a small box.

I think they are fantastic values.