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Mac Mini Core Duo External Serial ATA Port


RichardFanning
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I've barely had my Mini a week and I'm already thinking of improvements I can make. Of course upgrading the ram from 512mb to 2gb is on the list but my main focus right now is on storage. I have an external USB hard drive enclosure with a 80gb 3.5" drive which was easy and cheap to do. My biggest gripe with the mini is the stock hard drive. I don't understand why apple didn't make it easy on themselves and just make the mini a little bigger to accomidate a 3.5" drive which would offer more storage, better performance, and would be cheaper both for them and us. That being said. After reading this guys mod to his mini http://www.artmac.info/MacMiniSATAMod.html where he attached a SATA cable to the host adapter inside his Mini (located on the card bus for the hard drive and cd drive) and routed it through a cooling slot on the bottom into an external enclosure, I thought to myself I could do this guy one better. Why not get a male to female connector like so:

sata.jpg

cut out a hole for the female end on the rear panel of the mini between the last cooling fin and the audio out where the security slot is.

miniback.jpg

And voila an external SATA port on the rear of the Mini without sloppily snaking the cable through an exhaust vent and without having to worry about pulling the sata connector out of the inside during movement.

I will not get started on this mod for awhile, and only if there is enough room to mount the female connector, because I just spent upwards of $1k for this system the external enclosure, and the 19" LCD.

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you can just make it quick and dirty mod by just using the security hole. (how many of us actually use it anyway?) you may have to expand the hole a bit and add a couple screw holes.

but there you have it the quick and dirty method, thats what i would do.

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