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Written by Chris Tangora
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
Nothing mini about it!
I've recently acquired some Intel Mac minis and I am impressed with their performance relative to their size and price. I also was excited to get my hands on the miniStack V2 from NewerTech ; I knew it would be an excellent compliment to one of my minis with lots of ports, an enclosure that fit perfectly and plenty of backup space. For $199 ("Add your own HD" available for $79.95, 750 GB available for $559.99), it was perfect for my needs.
I opened the box and examined the device. The V2 looks sleek, holds the
same lines as the Mac Mini, has lots of ports, a tranquil blue light
showing power and plenty of possible disk configurations. When placed on top of
each other they look great together, however closer examination shows a
slight color difference between the Mac mini and the miniStack V2.
The miniStack V2 is composed of a 7200 RPM 3.5" hard drive (optional),
the enclosure, ports and circuit board. It can be used as either a
storage device or as a boot volume. There are a total of three
Firewire 400 ports and four USB ports on the left (facing the unit) and
back side. Left side ports are one Firewire 400 and one USB (A Type)
and on the backside, two more Firewire 400 ports, two USB (A Type)
ports and one USB (B Type) port. All USB ports are USB 2.0 compliant.
You can connect to the miniStack V2 either by Firewire or by USB. Using
a switch on the back, you can dictate either a firewire connection or
an "Auto" connection (USB or FW). According to their documentation,
the optimal connection would be through a Firewire 400 port. I have
the 320GB model to review (actual drive space: 297.97 GB) but you can
also purchase the case by itself or with a larger (or smaller) hard
drive. A 2GB software package containing shareware, Apple updates, OWC
self-promotions and old Apple ads comes pre-installed with the hard
drive models. A CD with EMC's Retrospect Express and Intech's
SpeedTools Utilities (OEM) is also included in the hard drive models.
Both EMC and Intech's apps worked fine in backing up my files and
checking / optimizing the Mac's system respectively (though a handful
of reboots had to be done to get all the software installed and
updated). I didn't get a chance to go through all of the shareware,
but did enjoy the variety offered.
The miniStack V2 performed well in XBench
(ran on a Digital Audio 733 MHz PPC, 1 GB RAM and Mac Mini Core Duo,
1GB RAM). All tests were on a 7200 RPM 3.5" disk except for the Mac
Mini itself. The Digital Audio's SATA connection outpaced the Mini
Stack's performance, and lost in the sequential read/writes, but the
miniStack V2 tied an ATA connection and beat out the Mac mini in random
read/writes. This was an expected difference in the Mac mini /
miniStack V2 comparison because of the difference in hard drive speeds.
The miniStack V2's 3.5" hard drive is cooled by both a heat sink
situated on the bottom of the device (screwed into the drive) and by a
fan. Because the heatsink is connected to the drive and sticks out the
bottom of the device, I would be cautious about putting this on top of
any other device. However, I tested the Mac mini on top the miniStack
V2 and found that the temperature of the V2 had a minimal, but positive
effect on the CPU temperatures of the Mac mini. The temperature test
was ran while the miniStack was idle and the Mac mini was running 100%
on BOINC.
There were more noticeable temperature fluctuations when the V2 on
bottom, but the overall temperature was a few degrees cooler. This was
not a controlled environment and the A/C fluctuations could have caused
this.
The biggest problem I had with the miniStack V2 is the second part of
the cooling system, the fan. The fan kicks on after about 5 minutes of
use and had an annoying ticking sound. The sound is not reproducible
100% of the time, and would probably go unnoticed if it weren't sitting
directly in front of me on the desk. To me it sounds like something is
caught in the fan. This sound goes away either when you stop the fan by
applying pressure and allowing it to restart again, or when you place a
Mac mini on top of it (Mac mini's weight applys pressure on it). The
more I used the miniStack V2, the more erratic and less noticeable the
noise became. Perhaps it has something to do with burning off
something from the factory. A search on some forums and I was able
to find out that it was not isolated to my test, but it was also not an
issue on all MiniStacks. I would have liked to see a fan control,
similar to the one on the miniStack USB,
that allows for high / low and automatic / manual control.
Creative cooling, sleek design, extra ports, OS X bootable and a fast hard drive make this a welcomed addition to any Mac mini. The included software from EMC and Intech were a nice bonus and really allows you to maximize the miniStack V2's performance. Fan noise issues need to be addressed and the added feature of a fan control would have been nice, but it certainly doesn't deter from the overall effectiveness of the machine. There's nothing mini about it!
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The Good: Fast hard drive, lots of ports, sleek design and a nice software package
The Bad: Light erratic fan noise, no fan control
The Skinny: The most versatile external hard drive solution for the Mac mini. If you have a Mac mini, this would be a great storage or backup solution for you
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