harddrive enclosures with USB/Firewire hub for Mac mini
There are some hard drive enclosures with built in USB/Firewire hub especially designed for the Mac mini. They all sport room for an internal 3,5" hard drive, one additional Firewire and 2 additional USB2 ports. Some of them claim 4 USB ports and 3 Firewire ports, but you loose one USB/Firewire port on the Mac mini and one each on the hub to connect them, so you only gain 2 USB and 1 Firewire port. Would be interesting to know who the OEM of these devices is...BTW: the MicroNet miniMate and the MacWay minipartner are available only including hard drives, while Newer Technology miniStack is available without a hard drive, too. Also available from Other World Computing.
P.S.: I found another one called miniPal from acomdata, that features push button backup via Retrospect Express.
Thanks for the comment about the original drive enclosure from MacPower. I think they are the manufacturer of the harddrive enclosures with USB/Firewire hub for the Mac mini, that all the others are just reselling...
posted by TeddyTheBear at 3:50 AM
8 Comments:
The mini stack adds three USB ports, you lose one on the mini but add three more for a total of four. You do lose a firewire port on the mini and gain two on the mini stack. So in this case, there's a net gain of 1.
Isn´t this what I posted in the beginning?
Yes and no, the mini stack doesn't lose a USB port on the drive enclosure. It has 3 downstream ports and 1 up stream port. Or is that reversed? I just wanted to point that out. Also, the mini stack is the same thing as the M9 enclosure offered elsewhere.
You don´t loose a port on the enclosure because of the uplink port, but you loose one port on your Mac mini, so all in all this device adds 2 USB ports and 1 Firewire port.
P.S.: do you have any URL for the M9 enclosure?
Here's the MacPower M9.
http://www.macpower.com.tw/news/2005/04/25/948
It's the exact same product as the miniStack, which was apparent when my miniStack showed up in a box labeled.... M9.
who designs those enclosure, does any one know where you can buy cool mac mini stack style enclosure without circuit in it, or one who sells such custom enclosure
I am note sure about the designs of these enclosures, but my best bet would be to contact MacPower in Taiwan...
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