Which Mac Mini?

[StratMan04]

I will be purchasing Pro Tools 10 for home recording. I will be making simple guitar recordings using EZ Drummer and virtual instruments to make tracks to practice and jam with so I will not be doing anything complicated or too involved. I will also be purchasing a Mac Mini to run PT on but am trying to decide between the 2.5 GHz Dual Core or the 2.3 GHz Quad core. Either way I will be upgrading the stock 4 GB RAM to 8 GB. Can anyone give me insight as to wheter the Quad core will be worth the extra $$ for the type recording that I will be doing? I appreciate any comments/suggestions anyone can offer. Thanks!

[albee1952]

Quad...absolutely.

[tribedescribe]

The quad is almost 40% more powerful. PT and VI instrument will benefit from this extra power. Plus you will not have to upgrade your computer as fast and may gain a few more years over the i5. I own the 2.3 quad mini and it rocks for PT.

[CME]

Mid level quad (the $800 one) and get the 2.6 for $100 more. Do NOT buy ram from apple. It's terribly overpriced. Check out places like owc and crucial. Get 16gb for about what apple charges for 8GB. Then buy a second internal hard drive kit and add an SSD. I'd recommend 128gb or bigger. Install osx an apps on this drive. Looks like the stock drive is 5400 rpm with no 7200 rpm option. You'll want a second drive for audio anyways, and it needs to be a 7200 rpm version. So you can either swap out the stock one while you're adding an SSD (and put the stock one in an external enclosure for backups, which would be my choice), or plan on buying an external FireWire or thunderbolt drive.

Man it's easy to spend someone else's money. but if not for my hackintosh that is exactly what I'd have. If you have any questions or need links to stuff let me know.

[StratMan04]

Wow! Thanks for the replys! It has really helped me. I was unsure of which way to go because I did not want to invest $ I did not have to if I would never use the extra power. But you guys helped me make up my mind. CME - how hard is it to add a second internal hard drive and swap out the stock hard drive? I have done this before on desktop PC's but this will be my first Mac. Also, could you post a link to owc and crucial? I have noticed how expensive Apple is with their parts. Thanks!

[himynameisdustin]

I bought this same exact one a couple months ago and its amazing and still comes with apples 1 year warranty . Als this server version comes with 2 internal hard drives already and I upgraded the ram my self . It is a sweet machine :)

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC...-intel-core-i7

[Phil Ogden]

I think that the current Mini Server models ship with 2 x 5400RPM HD's as standard so I recommend budgeting for upgrading these.

[himynameisdustin]

You are correct but the on I posted comes with 7200 :)

[CME]

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DIYIMM11D2/

Owc data doubler kit. Has a video that shows how it's done.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...=Apple&cat=RAM

Crucial memory upgrades. And they have SSD's also.

Hope that helps.

[drumzalicious]

The Quad would give you more room to grow. In the event you start doing heavier tracking/production the Quad will be able to handle it. Although I have the i5 and I've been running pretty large sessions myself. Granted my VI's are generally from Reason which isn't as much of a processor hog as things like Kontakt, East West, etc.