A few days ago I told you that I bought a Mac Mini from the USA and after a few days of buttoning, it's time to tell you some impressions about him. Coming from an i7 920 with an SSD and 6 GB of RAM, I expected the Mac to be slower because it is equipped with a 5400 RPM HDD, and my expectations were not without reason. Although the Mac has very good performance when it comes to the processor or RAM, the hard disk available in it severely limits it, and when I say severely I mean the fact that the functionality of OS X is severely limited if you start copying a file large or to install a large application in the background.
The 5400 RPM hard disks are low-end, they have low write/read times and you notice this when you have difficulty opening an application or when you copy a large file and wonder when it will finish. Unfortunately, the same experience is offered by Apple in this Mac Mini, which is basically like a horse with one leg in plaster, unable to show its true value until you install a capable SSD. The processor is powerful, the RAM is sufficient, but without an SSD you will realize that you have to wait a while when you open an application or when you install something.
My luck is that the PC has an SSD that I will mount on the Mac as soon as I find out how much Noumax and iStyle are asking for mounting, but if you intend to buy a Mac Mini, I recommend that you prepare money for an SSD as well, but not purchased from Apple where the prices are extremely inflated but purchased available here or available here at a more than decent price.
Don't get me wrong, I like Mac OS X, I don't give up the operating system, I don't regret that I bought a Mac, but the hard disk in it is not suitable for my needs. I would like Apple to arrive in 2011 with the standard options for Macs, but even though its products have inflated prices, the profit cannot be reduced for quality components.
UPDATED: It seems that at Noumax, the labor for mounting a second HDD costs €38 plus VAT, i.e. around €45 final price. Kind of expensive.
