Filed under: Accessories, Desktops, Hardware, Peripherals
Maxcelerate bootable dock and hub for mac Mini
People seem compelled to hack up the Mac mini. It's the little box that just begs to be souped up. To that end, Wiebetch introduces the Maxcelerate. It's an external drive enclosure and hub that sits beneath your mini and seriously beefs it up. Weibetech states you'll get a 30% increase in read/write times when you use the Macxelerate as your boot drive (vs. the standard mini drive), and that it stores up to 500GB of your stuff. Sounds like a digital video station waiting to happen.Other features include: three USB 2.0 ports, three FireWire 400 ports, support for 3.5" IDE drives and daisy-chaining of USB 1.1/2.0 and/or FireWire 400 devices. The website says it requires Mac OS 9.x or better, which is odd, as the Mini won't boot into OS 9. Perhaps they meant classic? The Maxcelelrate cost ranges from $119.95US to $689.95, depending on how you have it configured.
[Via MacNN]

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jakke said 6:17PM on 8-31-2005
You don't have to use it for the Mac mini, this hub is also interesting for your OS 9 Mac...
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sam said 6:28PM on 8-31-2005
right. it also says compatible with 'Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP'
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David C. said 6:48PM on 8-31-2005
doesn't the mini loose its mininess when you put stuff under it like that?
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Ahmed said 7:03PM on 8-31-2005
Just wondering about:
"Weibetech states you'll get a 30% increase in read/write times when you use the Macxelerate as your boot drive (vs. the standard mini drive), and that it stores up to..."
Is it an increase/decrease in read/write time?? because if I get a 30% increase in read/write time that's a performance penalty of 30%, which is not something one would like to claim about his product causing!
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Mike said 7:34PM on 8-31-2005
Clever marketing, since on a modern Mac you can boot off of almost any external FireWire (and probably USB) drive that the system can see, is properly formatted, and has a valid OS X install (using the Startup Disk prefpane).
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Justin France said 10:40PM on 8-31-2005
The Mac Mini "begs" to be souped up - don't you mean "is in dire need of a reasonably-spec'd harddrive"?
So painfully slow. Hinders the OS.
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brian said 11:27AM on 9-01-2005
Put ports on the front! Put ports on the front! Put ports on the front! Put ports on the front! ARRGH!!!!!!
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yuwing said 1:15PM on 9-01-2005
looks ugly ....
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