Couldn't help myself...

[Brett B.]

I ended up ordering a 10.6 retail DVD from ebay - was $15.  I also installed a 500GB 7200RPM drive in the Mini - that was a nice performance boost.  The old 5400 drives are just so slow.

As a side note, Windows 10 runs fairly well on this thing.  Way better than I would have expected.  I downloaded the Netflix and Hulu apps from the Windows store and have been using it as a media PC... it replaced a very loud Gateway tower.  Works great although video playback skips occasionally, worth the tradeoff just because of the lack of noise, though.

I also ordered 8x 16MB 30 pin SIMMs for my SE/30.  Totally unnecessary but it's gonna be cool.  

 

[Unknown_K]

Do the Intel minis have enough GPU to stream HD Netflix content? I use an old quad core PC with a ATI video card for my Netflix box and it can stream 1080p .x264 and .x265 content fine with no noise.

 

[Brett B.]

I think so?  I was looking around in the Netflix settings the other night for that and couldn't find anything that would let me limit content to SD.  I have the HD subscription, seems like there was an option but maybe they removed it.

Anyway the Netflix app on Windows 10 does not work well.  I keep getting this "USB device not recognized" and the plugged in/unplugged alert sound happens constantly but only when the app is open, and never anywhere else.  The Hulu app works great.  I have just been streaming Netflix through Chrome instead, works fine there apart from the occasional lag.  The Core 2 Quad Gateway box it replaced worked perfect but it also had a lot more memory, 2 more cores and a nice-for-it's-age graphics card.

 

[Brett B.]

Oh yeah, I forgot, I also found 2x 64MB 72 pin SIMMs a while back.  I finally got around to installing one of them in my LC475.  So I have a total of 68MB now.  I think that is my record for most memory in a 68k at this point although the SE/30 will have it beat.  I need to see if the other 64MB stick will work correctly in my LC630 but it will take some serious effort on my part to take my desk apart so I can unplug everything.

 

[Brett B.]

I now also have a mid 2012 13" MacBook Pro.  I haven't "daily driven" a Mac since OS9 was new software so this is more or less new territory for me.  My main laptop for quite a while has been a Dell Latitude E6420... love the thing, it's just about as old as the MacBook and they have about the same specs but the Mac just seems kinda doggy.  Takes well over a minute to boot into Mac OS (Mohave.)  May do an SSD upgrade - the Dell has one and it is at the Windows login screen in 12 seconds.

 

[just.in.time]

the Mac just seems kinda doggy.  Takes well over a minute to boot into Mac OS (Mohave.)  May do an SSD upgrade - the Dell has one and it is at the Windows login screen in 12 seconds.

Lol that’s not surprising at all. Literally the late 2009 Core2Duo original 13” MBP with a solid state drive, 4GB of ram and a hack to force Mojave to run on it would kick the crap out of ANY spinning disk MacBook Pro’s boot time (dual or quad core i3 to i7, doesn’t matter) assuming they still had their factory drives, which scuttled along at a leisurely 5400rpm. If you are trying to daily drive a Mac for the first time in 15 years at least stock it with hardware that will make it enjoyable and not migraine inducing. We’re over half a decade into the SSD age.

Amazon has a Samsung 860 Evo 500GB SATA SSD for only $80. We’ve definitely hit affordable SSD storage prices.

 

[Cory5412]

Mac OS X is criminally bad at handling itself without an SSD. I put a 2TB hard disk in my Mac mini, because I had a need to have that much space and didn't want to use or buy another external, and it's making the particular task I wanted to do (torrenting) much worse than it would be, even if I was just torrenting to a spinning disk and booting to an SSD.

One more issue that may or may not be hurting, the SATA Cables inside some of the MacBook Pros is known to bed. If the SSD itself doesn't help, replacing the SATA cable should.

 

[LaPorta]

It's pretty amazing what even a Fusion drive can do. My 2010 iMac was sans SSD with only it's HD in it. Once I waited a few years for prices to come down, installed an SSD and made a Fusion drive out of both of them...the startup time boost is just incredible.

Oh, and a few months after getting a new 2014 Mac Mini for a file server with a 5400 RPM drive, I got an OWC SSD instead because I couldn't tolerate how long it took to even open an application any more.

 

[Brett B.]

I have used a couple Crucial SSD drives that are $35 shipped (240GB.) Cheap and seem to be good quality. I ordered another one for this MacBook, I'm sure it will help quite a bit.  My stash of SATA hard drives is really growing... I hope I'll be able to use them someday. Kind of a shame to have large, low mileage drives that are uselessly slow.

I really find it odd that this MacBook maxes out at 8GB memory. Will it actually see more? Even the mid 2010 mini I have at work has a much higher ceiling, I have 12GB in it at the moment and it cost 1/10 what the MacBook did.

 

[CC_333]

I'm not sure about the 2010 MBP, but starting I think somewhere in 2011 they can unofficially support 16 GB.

c

 

[Brett B.]

I installed the SSD today and it indeed is a huge improvement.  The ~2 minute startup time is down to 22 seconds.  

 

[just.in.time]

That’s more like it! 8gb RAM as well?

As for all the old drives, raid in a NAS system.

 

[Gorgonops]

The ~2 minute startup time is down to 22 seconds.  

For some reason it amuses me that that's almost exactly the same as my SSD-equipped PB G4 with Tiger and 512mb.

 

[Brett B.]

That’s more like it! 8gb RAM as well?

As for all the old drives, raid in a NAS system.

Yeah, 8GB RAM.  Doing a 16GB upgrade has crossed my mind but I really don't think I need it - this thing rips with the SSD and I'm not going to use it for anything other than basic web browsing.

I will probably do some sort of network storage eventually - right now I have a 1.5TB USB drive hooked up to my Windows server.  A redundant RAID array would be cool.  I have an old Pentium III, Win2k Server box with 4x 250GB IDE drives and a PCI RAID controller - pretty handy for backups and it supports AppleShare.

 

[Brett B.]

All this talk of PowerBooks lately made me start looking and I ended up impulse buying a 190cs.  No hard drive, caddy, or power supply but it was cheap-ish and looks to be in good shape and allegedly tested and working.  Pretty sure I have a power supply for it, might need leads on a hard drive caddy once it comes in though!

eBay auction link

 

[CC_333]

I have a 190cs with destroyed hinges and plastics, from which you could have the hard drive caddy and cable (and maybe the drive itself) if you like?

To add to the various other things I've been meaning to dig out from the depths of my storage unit(s)....

c

 

[Brett B.]

That'd be awesome, once I get it in my hands and see what all I need, we should talk about that.  Pretty sure I have a drive or six but the caddy I do not have.

 

[Brett B.]

Well, I have it in my hands, and it's a PowerBook G3 of some flavor, and totally beat up.  CLEARLY not what I won.  Hopefully they just sent the wrong one and still have my 190 - we will see, I would be bummed to just get a refund and someone else has my 190.

 

[Brett B.]

Now it appears that maven_technologies does not have the PowerBook that I was supposed to get.  What a rip off.  I would almost bet money that they just weren't happy with the auction end price... it would not surprise me to see it relisted.  

 

[PB145B]

Now it appears that maven_technologies does not have the PowerBook that I was supposed to get.  What a rip off.  I would almost bet money that they just weren't happy with the auction end price... it would not surprise me to see it relisted.  

I really doubt that. They deal in a pretty large volume of vintage Apple stuff, so I’d say it was just an honest mix-up. Doesn’t make sense that they would send you the wrong item intentionally, knowing that you’re more than likely not going to be happy.