Now that we’ve got upgrade installation videos for the Late ‘09 MacBook and iMacs, we are turning our attention to the other upgraded model – the Mac mini. While we’re hard at work on the upgrade videos for the new Server model, those of you with the standard mini aren’t being left out in the cold. In fact, the videos for your mini are ready to go!

As it turns out, the internals of the Late ‘09 mini are identical to those of the Early ‘09 model. That means the take-apart is exactly the same, too. So whether you want to put in a larger hard drive or bump up the RAM, the free video instructions can be found both in our Tech Center and on our YouTube channel.

Of course, if you decide after watching the process, you’d rather have this upgrade professionally done, we can help you out there, too. Our Installation Service offers swift turnaround and professional results, all at a reasonable price.

Even though your Mac mini isn’t one of Apple’s “flagship” products, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a heck of a workhorse. Maximize your mini’s performance with upgrades and a little help from OWC.

If you upgrade a Mac to an SSD drive – having good management of your files is important where you use an additional drive or drives to have capacity for your photo, music, video libraries, etc.  With the relatively small sizes of SSD drives, they can fill up with data fast; but the performance benefits of SSD are undeniable.

If you’ve been following our blog since the beginning, we’ve given several tips on relocating these types of files off your internal storage on onto external storage solutions. Today’s modern operating systems make this pretty easy.

For those audiophiles out there, an iTunes library can quickly become an overwhelming size.  Back in March, we showed you how to move your iTunes library to an external hard drive such as the Mercury On-the-Go Pro.

Photography enthusiasts will also find their pictures taking up more and more hard drive space.  You can also move your iPhoto library to an external drive to keep your primary drive lean and operating at top speeds.

My basic rule of thumb to follow is to keep the Operating System and your applications themselves on the main, internal hard drive while storing the files, documents, pictures, movies, music, etc. on the separate drive.  By doing so, you can even use a 64GB SSD for boot and application performance benefits WHILE maintaining access to extensive file libraries that can’t all fit onto an SSD.

Check out OWC’s full selection of SSD Drives and External Hard Drive Solutions to find the fit that’s right for you.

NewerTech’s Guardian MAXimus® is the Plug & Play solution that keeps your data safe with real-time data redundancy via hardware RAID-1 Mirroring. Connect to any Mac or (or PC) with FireWire 800, FireWire 400, eSATA, or USB 2.0 and it does the rest. Perfect for the ultimate Time Machine backup too!

Fast, Easy to Use, Priced Right too!

The NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 FW800/400+eSATA+USB2 ‘Quad Interface’ solution provides high performance, exceptional data protection/reliability, and plug and play simplicity with its Oxford936 based bridge interface. This solution is a hardware RAID 1 ‘Redundant Mirror’ which automatically and real-time keeps your data backed up to protect against a hard disk failure. LED indicators on the front of the solution indicate the status of the two drives. Should a drive ever experience a malfunction, normal data operation continues seamlessly. If the malfunction if a recoverable ‘soft’ type, the Guardian MAXimus will rebuild the mirror (also without data interruption) automatically. If the disk failure requires a drive to be replaced, once the new drive is installed – again, the Guardian MAXimus will automatically rebuild the Mirror without loss of data to time.

Available in capacities of up to 2.0TB + 2.0TB Mirrored, the Guardian MAXimus is a sleek, compact Aluminum design of only 9.0″ Long x 2.8″ Wide x 5.8″ High. In addition to the benefits of Hardware RAID 1 Mirroring, these solutions are full certified for Audio/Video, Backup, Graphics, Music, General Data needs and more! With 2 x FW800, 1 x FW400, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1, & 1 x eSATA Ports – units are fully Bootable and provide excellent access flexibility to stored data based via whatever interface choice(s) are available on systems solution may be connected to.

NewerTech Guardian MAXimus FW800/400+USB2+eSATA RAID 1 prices:

• 320GB + 320GB Mirror 7200RPM w/32MB total Data Buffer –  now $219.99 (a $10 Price Drop)
• 500GB + 500GB Mirror 7200RPM w/32MB total Data Buffer –  now $229.99 (a $10 Price Drop)
• 750GB + 750GB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $299.99
• 1.0TB + 1.0TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $319.99
• 1.5TB + 1.5TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $399.99
• 2.0TB + 2.0TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – now $519.99 (a $30 Price Drop)

Solutions all include connecting cables for FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB, and eSATA + Intech HD Speedtools Utility Suite for Apple OS X, Prosoft DataBackup III – Full retail application for Apple OS X ($59 retail value), NovaStor NovaBackup – Full Retail Application for Windows ($49 retail value), everything you need to plug and play and go. Solutions are further backed by a full THREE YEAR NewerTech Solution Warranty.

Also Available – do it yourself GMAX RAID-1:
0GB Kit – build your own Guardian Mirror available now $139.99 (an $8 price drop) – software bundle & cables included.

Special Offer: NewerTech Guardian solutions qualify for Prosoft Drive Genius OWC Exclusive Special Offer!

Buy Drive Genius now for as low as $25 with purchase of a qualifying storage product – That’s up to 74% off retail price, up to 37% off OWC’s lowest normal selling price! Details online here: http://eshop.macsales.com/special_offer/prosoft_Drive_Genius

Since we’ve started with the price dropping blog posts around here, we’ve never before seen a product win the “Triple Crown” of price reductions.  On June 25th, we watched as the 4.0TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro RAID FireWire 800/400+USB2 storage solution triumphantly crossed the finish line with a $70 price drop.  On August 27th, we marveled as this same 4.0TB unit gave an impressive victory with an additional $100 knocked off the price.  Now, we’re pleased to report that one more $60 price drop today will have earned this product a $230 total reduction in price since Summer!

Quality, Performance, Reliability.

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro RAID FireWire 800/400+USB2 storage solutions utilize the latest high-performance, custom Oxford based bridge coupled with the latest Serial-ATA HDD technology to provide overall superior reliability and performance. These solutions are further backed with an industry leading 3 Year Full Solution Warranty.

Now available with up to 4.0TB (4000GB) of capacity, Elite-AL Pro RAID is a sleek and compact Aluminum design of only 9.3″ Long x 2.8″ Wide x 5.6″ High. These Elites are Fully A/V Certified as well as EMC Retrospect Backup Certified for all your Audio/Video, Backup(Time Machine Ready), Graphics, Music, General Data needs and more! With 2 x FW800 Ports, 1 x FW400 Port, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 Port – solutions are also fully Bootable and provide excellent data accessibility via any of the available interface ports, whichever best/desired interface is available on the system(s) it’s being connected to with complete interoperability of read/write functionality and accessibility.

Current OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FW800/400+USB2 RAID prices:

• 640GB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – remains at $179.99
• 1.0TB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer - remains at $199.99
• 1.0TB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – was $254.99, now $249.99 $5 Drop
• 2.0TB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – remains at $269.99
• 2.0TB 7200RPM with 64MB Data Buffer – $287.99, now $279.99 $8 Drop
• 2.0TB “Enterprise Class” 7200RPM w/64MB Buffer – remains at $379.99
• 3.0TB 7200RPM with 64MB of Data Buffer – was $379.99, now $349.99 (a $30 price drop!)
• 4.0TB GreenPower w/64MB of Data Buffer – was $579.99, now $519.99 (a $60 price drop!)
• OWC Elite-AL Pro RAID SATA HD x 2 enclosure kits are also available without drives as ‘Add Your Own Hard Drives Kits’ starting from $107.99, and have user configurable options for different RAID and non-RAID modes.

See the complete line up here.

Solutions all include the full retail version of Prosoft DataBackup III ($59 retail value) for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup ($49 retail value) for Windows. Also included in the complete Intech HD Speedtools performance suite and Carbon Copy Cloner. None of these applications are required to use the Elite, but excellent applications to have in your utilities library & the DataBackup can hardly be beat. FireWire 800 connecting cable, FireWire 400 connecting cable, USB connecting cable, and 3 Year Warranty also included.

As with any major sporting event, there is always a prize over and above the satisfaction of winning.  In this case, we give the extra prize to you, our customer…

Special Offer:   OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Solutions qualify for Prosoft Drive Genius OWC Exclusive Offer!

Buy Drive Genius now for s low as $25 with purchase of a qualifying storage product – That’s up to 74% off retail price, up to 37% off OWC’s lowest normal selling price! Details online here: http://eshop.macsales.com/special_offer/prosoft_Drive_Genius

We’re continuing  our diligent work here at the OWC testing lab benchmarking every machine compatible with Snow Leopard and should be ready to start posting some of the results soon.

In the meantime, however, we found some great nuggets of information that we’d like to share!

For our latest test, we took two machines in which the most memory that can be installed was 2GB, maxed out their memory, and checked the performance gains that installing a faster hard drive can provide.  The results were quite impressive!

The Contenders:

The original 2006 MacBook 13″
1.83GHz Core Duo running OS 10.6.1

The 2004 iMac G5 20″
PowerPC 1.8GHz running 10.5.8

Heres what we found:

• The Photoshop Action Test measures the time (in seconds) it takes to execute a custom action script comprising of 47 commonly-used, memory-intensive processes on a 21 megapixel image using Adobe Photoshop CS4. It is designed to represent an average photo editing session of a graphic artist. No other processes are running in the background besides those that keep the machine itself running. This is pure, linear computing where every available resource is on hand for the one test running.  Lower times are better.
• Our Stress Test is a variation on the Photoshop Action Test where the test is performed while iTunes is playing music with the visualizer running. This test adds one additional program to represent that additional light computing we do on the side in real life. With the Visualizer on, the resource draw on the machine is not limited to processor power and memory but to the video card and memory allocated for video as well. Lower times are better.
• The 16 Program Launch test simply measures the time (in seconds) it takes for 16 common programs* from OS X and iLife to open simultaneously.  Lower times are better.
• The Boot Time Test is exactly what it sounds like – the time it takes to boot the machine.  Again, lower times are better.

Considering the investment that a new Apple computer can cost, it makes sense to get all you can out of the machine you have before taking the plunge.  Installing a Solid State Drive can certainly extend the retirement date of your existing Mac for a fraction of the cost of a new computer.

Breaking it down to its simplest forms, there are two main reasons to add a RAID setup to your computer system. Performance and Redundancy.

Let’s break these down individually:

Little Johnny was acting up in class and his teacher made him sit in the hallway while all the other kids went to recess. If he could finish writing “I will not put frogs in the teacher’s desk ever again” 100 times on paper before the rest of his classmates came back to class, little Johnny would be able to join them in the playground. more…

We just received stock of Hitachi’s new 2.0TB 7200RPM DeskStar 7K2000 Serial ATA Hard Drive. We always test and qualify new products of this nature before releasing them for sale and man, these drives are fast! Rock Solid, High Performance, Quiet too. The only 7200RPM 2.0TB single drive model currently available and by far, the fastest 2.0TB Serial ATA (SATA) drive available today.

But don’t just take our word on it, see for yourself:

We benchmark all of our hard drive solutions using the QuickBench TM 4.0 Extended Test.  This test measures the drive’s ability to sustain large amounts of data (measuring between 20MB and 100MB) transferred to and from your computer.  For the purposes of this run, we used our OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Quad Interface Storage Kit and compared three of the 2.0TB hard drive mechanisms currently in our lineup: more…

Late last year, we discussed using your Mac as a DVR to record your favorite television programs using the Elgato EyeTV hardware & software. As part of that article, we briefly looked at their Turbo.264, a device that used its own processor to quickly convert videos to the popular H.264-compressed MPEG-4 videos, playable on devices like the iPod, PlayStation Portable, and the AppleTV.

The Turbo.264 was a pretty cool device when we looked at it, but Elgato raised the bar when it releasted the Turbo.264 HD a couple of months ago.

Not only does it add HD support, but it also… well… maybe you should just read the full overview.

PowerMac G5 Hard Drive Installation

We are happy to announce that the first of a four video series on Upgrading the hardware in your PowerMac G5 is now complete.  Stay tuned for the remaining videos in the series: Memory Installation, Optical Drive Installation, and PCI Card Installation.