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Use old Macbook as monitor for new Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Hi!
My 4 year old white Macbook (2.4 GHz running Leopard only) is almost full and I'm thinking of getting the new Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server. To save a bit of cash, I wonder if I could just hook the mini to my old Macbook and use this as a monitor? Sorry if this is a very noob question since I'm not so good with computers.
Thanks.
Marc
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Moderator  Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Jose, CA
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Not without additional hardware. There's no video in on a MacBook, so you'd need something on the USB for video in. Check out elgato.com.
Or you could use remote desktop to connect to the Mini.
Steve
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Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
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Moderator Join Date: Oct 2002
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Like Steve said.... Remote Desktop... that's the best option... and many people do that when connecting to servers anyway.
OR... you COULD...boot the Mac mini into target disk mode.. then connect it to the MacBook and use an option boot... that way you can book from the Mac mini hard drive.... but then you're really just using the mac mini as an external... but in theory, you can do that to set it up and prepare it for remote desktop and never have to connect a monitor to it.
My suggestion would be to buy a cheap LCD off craigslist. you can probably find a cheap 15 or 17 inch LCD for $50 or so.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Palo Alto, CA USA
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Hopefully your White MacBook has a firewire port on it, or else you cannot do the target disk boot, which is the best fastest option for you in this case. The new Mac Mini will only have Firewire 800, so you will likely need a FW400/800 cable.
You might try and connect an external drive to your Macbook, remove anything that doesn't need to be on your hard drive. Not using a computer because it's full is not the most efficient use of a computer. Clean up your Macbook and you might not need to buy the new Mac Mini.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Thank you for the nice responses here. Looks like I have to do more rethinking on which route to take. Cleaning the Macbook has been a regular practice although not a very successful one due to the fact that it only has 160 gb capacity and I am constantly nursing my photograph collection, docs, iTunes data and Parallels partition for a couple years now. Anyway, I really need to take measures of either upgrading my HD or buying a newer machine. Need to save more. Thanks once again for the kind replies.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Edmonton, AB
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Hard Drive upgrade are fairly inexpensive, that's what I would do.
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