Is it worth it to buy a mac mini? or imac instead?

Does the slower, 5400 rpm HDD on the Mini make a big difference? I am thinking of a Mini as well and plan to use an external FW800 drive for recording, but Logic still has to load plugins / sample etc. from the onboard HDD.

if you're talking about the difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM, then you can see that the 7200 is 33% faster than the 5400. Of course, this won't translate into 33% better performance across the board, but one is definitely better performing than the other. I can't speak to how that looks in Logic, and like I tell everyone that asks, unless you have the two side-by-side, you won't notice the difference.

I would think that if the recording is going to FW, the plug-ins can't be that large as to impact performance when loading from the local hard drive. If you're buying from the Apple store, I'd suggest taking advantage of the two-week return policy.

I ended up getting a Mac Mini server (i7 2.0 Ghz, quad-core). This Mini has 7200 rpm dual hard drives. I read a many reviews where this setup was used very successfully, and turned out better than iMac configurations. I will be testing my setup over the next several days and will post back.

I'm also trying to decide between Mini and iMac.

Another good point for the server Mini is two hard drives may be better for video edit work because you may be able to put the video input and output files on different drives. That would reduce the drive head movements for faster rendering. That was a standard trick the last time I did video edits a few years ago with Sony Vegas (originally made by Sonic Foundry). Possibly the same thing can be done with music work.

I suppose the two-drive advantage may not be as important these days with more RAM available to buffer the disk files.

Another point for the Mini in my situation is I have the computer in the same room as my TV which is usually on for monitoring news etc,even though I'm usually looking at the computer screen. Some monitors have several types of video and TV inputs so you can connect a set-top-box or cable feed, and use PIP or other monitor features, and leave the stand-alone TV turned off, to save power.

I think it was wise not settling for a 5400 RPM drive. For surfing the web, no problem. For recording digital audio, forget about it.

For video editing as with audio editing, the most important configuration option (in my opinion) is to have a separate system drive (boot drive) where all the program files are stored and another hard drive (internal or external) where the digital audio/video files are located. It's nice to know that both the iMac and the Mac Mini offer this two-HD set-up as an optional customized enhancement. The (SSD's) Solid State Drives have no moving parts so they are quieter and cooler and faster and generally more reliable from what I've heard (ideal for a system/boot drive). Of course, it's probably worth mentioning they are priced higher than their louder hotter slower less-reliable counterparts. But despite the extra cost, the personalized Mac Mini hard drive option at The Apple Store that appeals to me the most is the one offering a primary 256 GB Solid State Drive + a secondary 750 GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 RPM.

As an interested observer of all Mac models, I've been watching the Mac Mini's evolve over the years and it is truly amazing to see how far they have advanced from a technological perspective from what they were years ago to what they are now. Heck, they even have something today that the 12-core Mac Pro's don't have yet namely a Thunderbolt port. This is particularly interesting since they are on opposite sides of the cost spectrum. And with a Thunderbolt Pegasus RAID system, you could achieve data transfer speeds that would make any HD video editor's head spin fast enough to require image stabilization. However, keep in mind that the Mac Mini server edition does NOT have a discrete graphics card even though the other Mac Mini models do. I'm sure it was just an overheating thing that was flagged by someone on Apple's team of enlightened engineers and there might even be a workaround for this apparent deficiency down the road when someone starts selling a Thunderbolt interface that turns the external addition of popular graphics cards via Thunderbolt from a wild dream into an even wilder reality! I predict that within a year (if not sooner), you'll be able to use PCI-slots with a Mac Mini because they will be part of these not-yet-invented Thunderbolt peripherals I'm talking about and that could open up a whole new world of Mac Mini possibilities.

Well, it looks like "it" has already been invented by Magma (with a pre-2012 projected release date) although I will admit that the pre-order price of US $979 is a bit higher than I had envisioned:

http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp

apple mac mini is the best desktop computer in the world 😁

p.s.

I wonder if this ridiculous statement will be removed too...

I second that buddy! Apple and ALL of their CIA-forum agents alike are all my favorite people!

"...Ive got two nice slim 22" LG MONITORS..."

That tipped the scales toward the Mini. That and mesa3077's excellent setup info...

Referring to my earlier post listed above of running Protools on the the 2011 mini server. That post is months old now. Protools 9.0.5 and 9.0.6 as well as any version of Protools 10 are all now compatible with lion 10.7.x. Protools IS compatible with lion server as well but will run smoother if you can get your lion server 5.3 (i7 quad) to run regular lion versus lion server. Protools is NOT compatible with Snow Leopard Sever 10.6.X as server application and utilities were integrated with the OS. Lion server 10.7.X is NOT integrated meaning that the server utilities and applications are treated like apps rather than integrated in the OS, meaning that they should theroetically not interfere with operation unless you install them or actiave them. However its been my experience that regular lion (non server) works better with protools.

Also the method I described for installing Snow Leopard on the 2011 mac mini preloaded with lion server does NOT work. The listed method only works on the 2010 mac mini snow leopard and converting it to client snow leopard.