[WizOSX]

Am planning to pick up mini in a few days. My first plan was to BTO the 2.6/4gb/SSD and add memory myself to get the most bang for the buck. The downsides of this are:
1) Having to wait an indefinite length of time before it arrives.
2) BTO is not returnable
3) 256gb limit on SSD size when 512s are just starting to really drop in price.

So I was thinking instead of picking up the off the shelf 2.3/4/1TB. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the following:

1) If I use an external SSD on USB 3.0 how would the boot time compare to an internal? What if the external SSD is on Thunderbolt?
2) Does the type of RAM matter. In Canada, Crucial and OWC are both awkward to use so I would buy 16gb locally. For example, Kingston 8gb 1600 mhz SODIMMs (KVR16S11/8 8GB Laptop Memory Module - DDR3, 1600MHz, SODIMM, CL11) are $45 locally. Does it matter if they are CL9 or CL11? Does height matter at all in the mini?

It seems that this way I'll get more bang for the buck but I do give up the 2.6 ghz CPU.

Also, does anyone know it Ivy Bridge will carve out more than 512mb for video if you have 16gb of RAM?

[P]

1) SSD over Thunderbolt should be equivalent to putting it internal. SSD over USB 3.0 is a waste of money - in the tests I've seen you give up some 90% of the random read performance because USB doesn't support queueing by default. There is an optional feature that replaces the storage protocol with something that is basically Firewire, which improves things immensely, but I don't think OS X supports it even if you can find a chassie that does.
2) CL9 is faster, but usually anything with the correct timings should work.

Have you considered the Fusion Drive option? 1 TB with speeds approaching SSD speeds sounds like a good idea to me.

The amount of RAM that the integrated graphics will use seems to be set by the driver based on your total RAM. Don't know if it scales over 512 MB, but it seems likely.

[jmiddel]

Why not just add an ssd to a Mini, which has space for an extra internal drive. You'll get more storage for your buck and everything will be inside the box.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by jmiddel 

Why not just add an ssd to a Mini, which has space for an extra internal drive. You'll get more storage for your buck and everything will be inside the box.

Thats what a Fusion Drive is essentially, it just combines the two drives into a single logical volume.

[WizOSX]

When you buy a single SSD mini server does the bracket (sled?) come already installed in the second bay? Or do you have to buy it separately from Apple (about $50 for the kit)?

[Kinetic250]

Or.....you could buy a refurb quad core i7 directly from apple with the two 500gb drives (only 759 cdn at the moment), purchase a ssd, ditch one of the 500 gb drives and install the ssd inside. This way you have all the brackets & drive cables for the two drives. If you get the single drive mini it won't have the drive cable

Waaaaay more capable device than the 2.3 i5

Mine arrives today...I purchased the Cruicial m4 and also did a 16gb memory upgrade for about $70 bux

oh..and mine was ordered on 11/11/12 so all goods arriving in 3-4 days..hardly a long wait. I went for the corsair memory from neweggs canadian site (CMSA16GX3M2A1333C9)

total build price 1030+tax

2.0 i7 quad core
256gb SSD
500 Gb hdd
16 GB

[WizOSX]

I went with the 2.3/4/1TB as I said in the first post. I've had it about a week. Excellent machine for $743 (business discount). I just put 16gb of RAM in it ($59!!) and it sets aside 768MB for HD4000 graphics.