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.

Today we completed the benchmarking of the last two iMac computers that Apple introduced last month: The 2.66GHz iMac Intel Core i5 and the 2.8GHz iMac Intel Core i7.

With the ability to simultaneously run 4 cores and 8 cores respectively, these machines are quite the powerhouses of processing power.

It’s interesting to note that even with faster starting times than the other iMacs in this series, the RAM Hog II test (which simulates powerhouse usage where 80% of the machine’s resources are busy with other processes) was rendered satisfied after 12GB of memory was installed.

Not to say that 16GB didn’t show significant results in its own right. The After Effects Render Test (which spawns subprocesses for each core processor) showed steady improvement in times as more and more memory was added to the computer.

And speaking of that 16GB upgrade, to put a spotlight on the results, the i5 model was up to 44% faster in that RAM Hog II test with the maximum memory installed.

As always, what level to upgrade your Mac is a personal choice. You can check out all the Late 2009 iMac memory and hard drive upgrade options and decide if you want to go mild or wild.

Let’s face it, you love your Mac and “feeding” it with upgrades, accessories, updates, and tweaks to keep it running at optimum performance levels is one of your passions. And, as you can imagine, that’s pretty much Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) around these parts. But by maxing your Mac, you might be neglecting to take care of yourself. Our wonderful customer Robert M. from New Hyde Park, NY, shared a great recipe from his mom that can nourish you faster than perhaps how your Mac runs after one of our upgrades. And if you’re a guy, ya’ just gotta love the idea and the ingredient measurements!

Scrambled Eggs in a Mug

Ingredients:

• 1 qty “two serving cup” of Egg Beaters (or the Stop and Shop version)
• 1 or more handfuls of shredded cheese
• 1 teaspoon or so of bacon bits
• 1 cooking spray, preferably butter flavored (optional)

Preparation:

1. Spray interior of a 16 oz coffee mug with the cooking spray. (Robert prefers 16 oz Dixie PerfecTouch travel cups)
2. Shake and pour “two serving cup” of Egg Beaters into mug.
3. Drop shredded cheese to taste into mug.
4. Drop bacon bits into mug. A teaspoon or just a bit more is enough otherwise it tastes a tad salty.
5. Mix all ingredients together.

Cooking:

1. Place in microwave for about a minute.
2. Stir and then place back in microwave and cook until done which is defined as when the eggs are no longer runny.

Like all good informational sources, Robert recommends “keeping an eye on the eggs as you nuke them because they’ll fluff and possibly overflow the mug during the ‘nuking process!” He assures us that they will settle after cooking though.

Hats off to you Robert for keeping the Mac faithful fueled. About the only thing better than Robert’s recipe is an idea from a movie I still want to go into business on someday…

We just got our first 2.66GHz Quad-Core 27″ iMac i5 machine within the last hour and I really wanted to share our excitement with you.  So we took photos of our unboxing of this unit.

The box itself is sturdy and strong with a comfortable enough handle to lug this baby with it’s monster screen wherever you need:

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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.

Creating a new homepage look can either be met with cheers or yawns depending on how personally invested you are in the site. We get pretty excited here about many products and often can’t help ourselves from “getting our geek on” and wanting to tell you about all the cool stuff we carry…whether it be our own OWC branded products, the products from NewerTech for which we are an exclusive distributor, or a great deal on one of the many other leading brand names in our over 2,500 item on-line catalog.

Realizing that might be a bit much and overwhelm you like a kid in a candy store, we redesigned macsales.com homepage to have a kinder, gentler look. Adding to this fresh approach is a caricature of OWC Larry himself calling your attention to products he gives a hearty thumbs up to.

So we hope this redesign (and our ongoing efforts to come) is met with cheers from you and improves your site experience with us. As always, keep your feedback coming and thank you for your trust in us as your source for your Mac, PC, iPod, and iPhone technology needs.

During the course of a normal day here, I see/hear/read a lot of customer correspondence. The majority of it is very complimentary which is very gratifying and really pumps up the team morale here. Sometimes one comes by though that is a bit unique in nature/subject and I dive into those with much curiosity. Such was the case yesterday when I saw an exchange between a customer and none other than OWC Larry…the CEO here for you newbies. Now before you say, “well sure, probably a long time customer who has spent gazillions with OWC!”, what sealed the deal for me was that this customer was two years new to us.

It turns out Scott A. from Saint Paul, MN, was looking for a bigger Cinema Display for a legacy MacBook Pro. He had stopped by an Apple store and was told to contact us. While we didn’t have anything that Scott could purchase, OWC Larry researched it enough to refer Scott directly to another source as his best option and provided a link to the exact listings.

And while Scott summed up his appreciation for this action as:

“You guys are a great source of expert, practical,  helpful information about Mac products…you must be if the Genius Bar at the Apple Store recommends you.”

the entire interaction got me thinking that truly is one of the OWC Differences…we aren’t about selling products as really anyone can create a storefront and do that. We do, from every corner in our LEED Platinum designed building, truly exist to serve you. Is that a “Genius” approach to running a successful business? I dare say it’s surely better, and more soul fulfilling, than putting the bottom line on a pedestal. And I think the man in the poster looking over my shoulder in my office would agree.

We’ve received four configurations of the 21.5″ and four configurations of the 27″ machines so far.  The quad core i5 and i7 machines aren’t due out till later this month.  Between the advancements in Snow Leopard and adding additional memory to these computers, they sure can go fast!

In fact – we found up to a 46% performance boost by installing the OWC 16GB Memory Upgrade Kit versus the factory installed 4GB.

We’ve run the machines through a rigorous battery of benchmark tests to test not only the pure processing speed of these machines, but also show what adding OWC memory to the setup can do.  Additionally, the different video card options have also been pitted against each other, so if you haven’t purchased your iMac yet, we now offer a definitive tool for making an informed decision on which graphics card to order.  Both of the Radeon HD options prove to generate twice the gaming frame rates than the Nvidia equipped model.  Not too shabby!

Unlike the prior generation of iMacs, these models have a total of four DDR3 memory slots. You can add an additional 4GB kit and have 8GB total or an 8GB kit and have 12GB total without removing  the standard factory 4GB.

Should you want to max the memory up to 16GB, you will need to take out those original modules. While Apple officially supports up to 16GB in all the new iMac models, they only offer up to 8GB in the 21.5″ model. Not only does OWC offer you the options for up to 16GB total, but even if you just need an additional 4GB, we’ll save you 50% compared to the same installed by Apple.

The results make our company mantra ring true.  ”More Memory = Faster Mac!”

As additional machines are run through the same tests, they will appear on the same page as our overall goal is to have every Snow Leopard compatible machine tested using the same process.

Often these lists are pretty boring or cover a very narrow niche of sites. So, when I came across this “50 Kick @$$ Websites You Need To Know About” created by MaximumPC, I was pretty dubious I would find anything too captivating.

Wrong.

Being frugal and a deal hunter, the entry about Craiglook.com caught be by surprise. The lead in “Craiglist Gets Unstuck from 1995″ and a visual of what the results look like will now have me using that portal for all my buying and selling needs. For me, Craigslist is a blast…I’ve bought and sold such a variety of items that it truly is a one stop marketplace. So anything that improves that experience is a Top Site in my book.

As I only had a brief moment to check out the entire list, the other selection that caught my eye was What The Font. Now while the MaximumPC lead in was “Because Not Everyone Uses Helvetica”, any site that has something to do with fonts always catches my eye. The reason for that is because I have deemed OWC Chris here a “fontaholic” for his hobby/interest/whatever in collecting fonts. To me, that’s a pretty cerebral pursuit and really an appreciation of visual nuances that many of us just overlook on the superhighway of daily tasks.

So if those two sites are new to you or you’re interested in what you might find equally captivating, check out the list. And if all of this hasn’t been too thrilling then I suppose this might suffice for some real geek interest.

About a year ago, OWC CEO Larry O’Connor revisited a recurring topic in his Tips n’ Deals Newsletter and OWC Chris covered that in a post on how the Rules of Upgrading rarely change.

Both of them explored five different ways you can upgrade your Mac to extend its useful life. Since some time has transpired, some new machines were released by Apple, and Snow Leopard has now become a reality, it’s time we take a fresh look at some “old” rules of upgrading:

#1 – Upgrade Your Memory
I think we’ve lost count of how many times we’ve talked about how upgrading your memory gives you the best performance boost for the investment. Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 is a 64-bit (along with its applications) which allows each application to address more than 4GB of RAM at a time. OSX’s memory management now is a lot more flexible in keeping its cached instructions, lessening the need for a hard drive hit.

The bottom line is simple: Your OS and Applications can certainly run on the minimum memory, but having more memory installed makes for a whole lot more enjoyable and productive experience, all for a low investment. With upgrades ranging from $44.97 for a 2GB module for a MacBook, through 16GB of RAM for an iMac, up to a full 32GB of memory priced at $27.25 per GB to max out your Mac Pro, a memory upgrade is dollar-for-dollar the best investment you can make for your Mac.

You can find memory (and other upgrades) for nearly every Mac produced over the past two decades with our easy online upgrade guide. In addition to the instructions you’ll find in just about any Apple computer manual, we’ve got easy-to-follow free installation videos that further illustrate how easy it is for you to get that memory into your Mac. And if you need further help, it is just a click a way in our online tech center.

#2 – Upgrade Your Storage.
The big news for 2009 was the rapid pace of developments in storage capacity, speed, and overall performance. Now we’re talking up to 2.0TB for 3.5″ drives, up to 1.0TB for 2.5″ drives, and SSDs have truly emerged as a legitimate consideration. Since we promised SSD benchmarks in our last coverage of this upgrade, we’re going to focus on them here. I did a comparison of how SSDs measured up to hard drives and SSDs were the speed, reliability, and quiet running champs. Just how much faster are SSDs? Check it out: more…

As mentioned in one of my blog posts last Friday, we’ve been busy testing the limits of the 2009 Mac mini models.  In late August, Apple released Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2 which improves compatibility with the latest Apple memory kits on Mac mini computers.

It did a little more than that though.  It improved compatibility of OWC brand memory as well.  As all of our memory meets or exceeds Apple’s requirements for RAM, it’s no surprise that, yet again, OWC can support memory expansion beyond the maximum installed amount suggested by Apple.

We have fully tested all 2009 release date Mac mini computers with both Leopard and Snow Leopard and found no issues regarding which OS was used for testing a full 8.0GB of RAM installed.  Under both operating systems, the memory was fully utilized and no system detriment in speed was observed.

Keep in mind, this information is for Mac mini model identifier macmini3,1.  Intel Mac mini machines released prior to 2009 (macmini1,1 or macmini2,1) have hardware limitations that only allow those machines to max out RAM at 2.0GB and 3.0GB respectively.

Want to take your mini to the maximum? OWC has the Mac mini upgrades you need to make your machine screaming fast.

I really couldn’t wait on this… this news is just too juicy to bottle up for the whole weekend.

While we’re not completely finished with our compatibility testing, early signs are pointing to 8GB of memory supported in not only the new October 2009 Mac mini models, but prior generation mini models as well.  We believe we found the “secret ingredient” that makes exceeding Apple’s recommended 4GB maximum in these machines possible.

Previous testing revealed prior generations of the Mac mini were able to boot with 8GB of memory, but sadly either did not utilize the extra memory installed or – even worse – made the entire machine slower when accessing more than 4GB of memory at a time.  In Late August, Apple released Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2 and this allowed these generations to boot without kernel panic. However, we still found that most systems slowed to a crawl when exceeding 4GB of memory in the system.

So far, here’s what we recently found though: our OWC 8GB Upgrade Kit works in the latest Mac mini 2.26 and 2.53 machines and are consistently and completely utilized by the machines.  We then tested these same modules on the prior generation Mac mini (early 2009)… and found them to work consistently as well! All units tested were running Snow Leopard.

We do have more testing to do using the same memory modules with prior Mac mini generation models running OS X 10.5. We also need to do performance tests to make sure that the additional memory actually gives a solid performance boost when more than 4GB is installed. But at this point, we’re feeling pretty confident that our “secret ingredient”…namely the quality of OWC brand memory… delivers the reliability you desire.

Be sure to check back Monday as we’re hoping to complete our testing at that time and be able to confirm that we will support over 4GB of memory in the Mac mini, or if my excitement got the better of me.

After last month’s rather disappointing iTunes event, it’s good to see an Apple product announcement with some substance behind it.

This time around, the improvements were made to products that traditionally catered to the “consumer” end: the iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook. There were also a couple of tweaks to the AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule, though nothing really worth noting. Rounding out the bunch was the introduction of a new multi-touch mouse.

As we get these new models in for testing (and, of course, videos showing you how to upgrade them) we’ll be going over them in a little more detail. For now, though, let’s reflect on what’s been announced and what potential they hold.

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While I share OWC Larry’s disappointment in the mini not getting a built in memory expansion boost, there still is a silver lining here. I’ll be taking a closer look at the new Mac models and showing you where you can upgrade and/or get more for your technology budget with comparable high performance upgrades/accessories from OWC.

I’ll start off with the $599.00 2.26GHz mini because I’m a value hound. It comes stock with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive. OWC offers the following money saving upgrades to get the max from your mini:

4GB OWC Memory Upgrade Kit (2 x 2GB) is $87.99 versus Apple at $100.00.

You can store more for less too! A 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive starts at $65.99 versus Apple at $100 while a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive starts at $92.99 versus Apple at $200. Man, other than the faster processor, you could match the memory and HD specs of the $799.00 2.53GHz model and save $46.02.

One more thing caught my eye on the Configure your Mac mini page…the Mini DisplayPort Adapters. And once again, OWC has the options you need.

Our Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter is priced at $19.99 versus Apple’s at $29.99 while our MiniDisplay Port to VGA Adapter is $24.99 versus Apple at $29.00.

And if you’re digging the new dual 500GB hard drive Mac mini Server model, but are looking for more options to the factory external storage and SuperDrive offerings, we got ‘em!

While the External MacBook Air SuperDrive is USB bus powered, it is $99 and burns rather slowly: up to 8X DVD, 4X DVD Dual Layer, and 24X CD-R.

It’s almost not fair to compare that to the  OWC “Value Line” USB2.0/1.1 SuperDrive with up to 22X DVD, 12X DVD Dual Layer, and 40X CD-R burn speeds at just $64.99

And last but not least…that SmartStor 4 x 1TB FW800/FW400/USB external storage solution for $799 doesn’t seem like quite the smart buy when you could have the 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 for $699 and get a “Quad Interface” of FW800/FW400/USB and eSATA!

So there you have it…a pretty thorough examination of how you can max your mini with OWC. Revisit the blog to see my takes on the iMac and white MacBook models and how you can get the most from them too.

Typo in ‘new’ Mac mini page or just marketing play on words?

As our team goes full bore on the new iMac and Mac minis that just popped on the Apple site, I’m sitting back a little disappointed with the ‘new’ Mac minis.

Apple is touting with ‘up to twice as much memory’, but it still only supports up to 4GB. That’s the same as the previous Mac mini line up….

Apparently it counts that they are with up to twice as much memory as before they came with 1GB or 2GB standard, 4GB optional. Because Apple now has a configuration which comes with 4GB  standard, that’s twice as much memory Standard as had been before.

The Mac mini would be an incredible powerhouse with 8GB, that’s what twice the memory should have meant. We were excited, at first, thinking Apple taken off the Mac mini’s memory ‘restrictor plate’, but alas – just a marketing play on words.

- OWC Larry

See All of OWC’s Mac mini Upgrades and Enhancements in our dedicated Mac mini section

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.

So often we are asked in reference to our OWC Instructional Series of Videos, “How exactly am I supposed to ‘Use proper anti-static precautions when performing this upgrade’?” The real answer is…it depends.  There are actually several different ways, depending on your situation, that you can help to control static electricity in order to avoid damaging the electronically delicate components found inside your computer.

According to Wikipedia: Static electricity refers to the buildup of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remain on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge. And it’s that discharge that can ‘zap’ or ‘fry’ your computer components, rendering them inoperable.

To give you an idea of how little static electricity needs to be generated to cause harm to your computer components, it takes as little as 5 to 10 volts to cause damage inside your computer.  In order for you to even feel the presence of  static electricity, the level needs to be above 1,500 volts.   You can accumulate an average of 10,000 to 12,000 volts just walking across carpeting.  Rubbing a balloon on dry fur (or hair) generates about 20,000 volts. Did you know the average person can carry up to 25,000 volts of static energy at any given time? So discharging any built up energy before you begin is important.

So, how are we to be safe when working in our precious machines? more…

About a year ago, OWC CEO Larry O’Connor had this to say in his Tips and Deals Newsletter:

“It’s fun to talk about the ‘latest and greatest’ – but certainly not practical to buy that new top of the line each time it comes out. Fortunately, since you’ve got a Mac – it happens to have far more longevity than the average Windows PC out there and with some simple upgrades, it can be made better than new. Even if you’re buying a new Mac, for what can be a very nominal investment, it’s still well worth the while to maximize the Mac or Macs you’re still going to keep running.”

It was a very good point then, and it is still valid today.

He also went into five different ways to upgrade your Mac that can extend its useful life. Like the above paragraph, these five upgrade options remain incredibly valid today. The only difference is that we’re looking at new technology and a new Operating System. So, let’s revisit these concepts and see how they’re relevant today. more…