Has anyone tried running their Mini from a 3.5" drive?

Question

Has anyone tried running their Mini from a 3.5" drive?

Actually what I'm asking is if anyone has tried installing an internal 3.5" HD in an enclosure using an IDE adapter? I was hoping to improve the HD speed of my mini by running it off of the 3.5" HD but wanted to make sure someone else has actually done it successfully and that I'm not going to damage the HD I have in there now.
Thanks,
John

mini 1.25, imac g4 15", imac g3 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Mini: 1gb ram, 20" Dell widescreen display, NEC external DVD burner

Posted on Jan 1, 2007 3:45 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

Jan 1, 2007 4:07 PM in response to john smearman1

Just going with an external firewire drive might be less of a headache and get the results you are after. For example:

"FireWire for 75% Better Mac mini Disk Performance":

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/17/0040220

and here:

http://www.budget-ha.com/apple/mac-mini-firewire/

Macintouch.com tried something like what you are proposing with the new Intel Mini:

http://www.macintouch.com/specialreports/minimonster/phase2.html

Reply

Answer 2

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

Jan 1, 2007 4:55 PM in response to john smearman1

OK, here you go:

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/mini/

(A review of the AMUG Super-mini Enclosure for 3.5" / 5.25" PATA or SATA Drives By Arthur Whalem)

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 1, 2007 5:18 PM in response to Boece

I'll do some more research from here, but those sites are really helpful.
Thanks.

Reply

Answer 4

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

Jan 1, 2007 5:19 PM in response to john smearman1

You're welcome! That AMUG project looks really interesting, for someone who'd like to get a standard HD and standard full-height tray-loading burner connected to the mini at high speed.

Reply