[Rob661]

For those who are thinking of buying a Mac mini, but are somewhat hesistant to do so because of slow harddisk speed (4200rpm) and hoping Apple will upgrade the HD to 5400rpm in the near future to make their purchase decision like me, can you check your harddrive speed and post the result?

For statistical tracking purpose, it would be great if you could post the information below;

Type: 1.25G or 1.42G?
Order Date:
Delivery Date:
HardDisk Capacity:
Harddisk Speed: 4200 or 5200?

[liquidtrance123]

1.25GHz
Feb 25th
Feb 25th
40GB
5400rpm

I heard the 40GB are 5400rpm 2MB cache and the 80GB are 4200rpm with 8MB of cache.

http://www.ehmac.ca/archive/index.php/t-23100.html
*SNIPPED FROM ANOTHER FORUM*
There's been discussion on the MacRumors forums regarding the 5400 model... I came across this: http://www.applelegal.com/other_comm...id=205_0_7_0_C

There are many speculations circulating on this topic, going from "an Apple person at MacWorld told me ...", "I read somewhere ...", to more authoritative sources relying on, more or less, hearsay, since the drive itself is inaccessible to view even when you open Mac mini case. Eventually, most people settled with the idea that a 4200 RPM drive is inside, but there's no official word from Apple on this matter either. It appears that the drives used in 80GB model and 40GB model may be from different manufacturers (supposedly 80GB is from Toshiba, but I can't verify that since I have here the 40GB model only; it also may be that there is no single manufacturer supplying all the drives for Mac mini). However, I can examine what I have in front of me. Since the drive is inaccessible visually, I relied on the info supplied by the system reporting, identifying the hard disk as ST940110A. Quite frankly, I expected to see something like Fujitsu or Toshiba, but ST usually stands for Seagate. So we have:
- ST = manufacturer - Seagate
- 9 = form factor - 2.5" drive (as used in notebooks)
- 40110 = capacity in megabytes (drive size) - 40GB
- A = interface - ATA, Ultra ATA
The problem is that ST940110A is not in Seagate database, but obviously this corresponds almost perfectly to Seagate ST94011A (a zero is missing in between 1 and A for a perfect match), and it leads me to believe that this is essentially the same drive customized (OEM) for Mac mini -- which means that the drive should be a 5400 RPM notebook drive. One thing is certain though, the drive is manufactured by Seagate since when I enter the drive serial number and model number in the warranty page, there is a positive database ID of Seagate product:

"The product you identified was sold as a system component. Please contact your place of purchase for service. Seagate sells many drives to direct OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) customers. These products are usually configured for the OEMs only, as components for their systems."

[Goatbert]

Model: 1.42GHz
Date Purchased: February 15th (Apple Retail Store)
80GB
4200RPM Seagate ST9808210A

Now, this is just personal opinion and nothing else, but I am perfectly happy with the speed of the Mini, even when compared to my PowerBook with a 5400 RPM drive, but all I use it for is Web, IM, e-mail, and ssh.

-Jeff

[liquidtrance123]

i would say for the most part the speed difference between a 5400rpm 2mb cache drive and a 4200rpm 8mb cache drive would be minimal. Especially when dealing with large file transfers. But thats just my opinion.

[nyarlaho]

5400 rpm, 1.25 Ghz

[anthonyvthc]

1.42
4200 rpm
received 3/22/05

[nickw311]

Does it say in the System Profiler or do you have to take the computer apart to see it?

[liquidtrance123]

it'll give you a serial number in the profiler however to make 100% sure you'd probably have to open it all up.

[zenatek]

1.25Ghz 5,200rpm

[liquidtrance123]

Originally posted by zenatek:
1.25Ghz 5,400rpm

FiXt

[nickw311]

where can you look up the speed for the 40gig hard drive after you have gotten the serial number? Is it a seagate also?

[liquidtrance123]

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/...81,593,00.html

exact same serial number besides a '0' near the end.

[issandr]

Fastmac is offering upgrade packages for the Mini Mac that includes speeds up to 7200 rpm. Basically you can get either:

8x Dual-Layer Superdrive
1 GB RAM
60GB 7200 rpm
all for an extra $589

or:

8x Dual Layer Superdrive
1 GB RAM
100GB 5400rpm
all for $619

(Maybe you can get these separately too, but you have to enquire with them.)

My question: a) is it worth it; b) would you do it to the 1.25GHz or 1.4 GHz model; c) which HDD would you choose?

[liquidtrance123]

if your gonna spend that much i'd start looking into an imac

i got my stock 1.25 and put a 1gb chip in it from newegg for an extra $140. Its perfect for any normal usage. i've been using it for my main machine for about a month or so now. Could use alittle more CPU power but other than that i'm ecstatic about it.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by nickw311:
where can you look up the speed for the 40gig hard drive after you have gotten the serial number? Is it a seagate also?

Copy and paste the serial # into a Google search. A million results will pop up ... almost any of the results will have the HD specs.

For example, here's what a google search on the HD from my eMac's Seagate ST3160023A results in. Very simple to find the answer.

[funkboy]

Originally posted by liquidtrance123:
if your gonna spend that much i'd start looking into an imac

In my case, I would have done the imac if its screen would allow me to use a PC with it. I want to use a PC and a Mac on the same DVI monitor, though, so the Mini was perfect for me.
Does that company give any rebate if one already has an 80GB hard drive, an Apple SuperDrive, and 512MB in the Mac Mini? As in, they could have it, I'd take the faster stuff.

(and do they install it, too? I'm scared of replacing the HD in it)

[Luca Rescigno]

1.25 GHz
Purchased... hmm... about two weeks ago, in the Apple store.
40 GB hard drive
Model number ST940110A
5400 RPM

Also, Seagate's actual model number for my hard drive is ST94011A. I did a Google search for ST940110A and found a few pages where some people got the same model hard drive in their mini and weren't able to find it on Seagate's website. I suppose the extra 0 is to denote an Apple OEM version, perhaps. But the ST94011A is a 5400 RPM drive so that's almost certainly what I have.

EDIT: Someone already mentioned this.

[Rob661]

Macmini 1.4 with Airport/BT BTO installed on 4-14. The expected delivery date is May 2nd and will report what the HD spec will be once arrived.

By the way, I didn't order BTO superdive as I want to upgrade to Dual Layer Pioneer DVD Drive(I'm thinking of installing it myself as well as 1G chip replacing 256MB chip).

So, the original combo drive would be a waste and I started wondering if I could put the drive into a drive kit so I can use it as an external CD-RW/DVD drive for Mac and PC(preferably both USB2 and FW).

Does anyone know such a solution exsists?

[Krusty]

Not sure about the external slot-loading optical drive case but the swap out should be easy enough. The optical drive looks to be much easier to switch out than the hard drive. Check out the disassembly videos here (scroll down to "installation videos" and pick your favorite size.