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Wavering on checkout with a stock Mini Server and a trackpad... I have an MBA 11in and a gaming rig, but to be honest I've wanted to get a Mini for years and this one is on par enough with my Sandy Bridge PC that I wouldn't miss down the road. Debating over the models, though, because the 2.5GHz i5 might not be so bad despite the difference in multi-threading and L3 cache on the server. Wish there were more benches, but it's too early to tell I guess.
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Jul 21, 2011 01:12
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 20:03 |
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Welp, I finally ordered my Mac Mini Server and Magic Trackpad with Saturday delivery from MacMall. Looking forward to have a Mac for a desktop, as the last one I had was a G5 back in the mid-2000s. This is the first one since then that really had a decent set of hardware for the price, and to be honest I can't wait to have the ability to move it around or take it to work. My MBA 11in has been a great main personal and work computer, though, and I will probably never buy a non-Air laptop ever again after loving this form factor. Is the Migration Assistant able to just copy over all my poo poo/settings from my MBA without disrupting anything, or should I just do my folders manually? Kenshirou fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Jul 23, 2011 |
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Jul 23, 2011 04:32
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hotsauce posted:(I'm just asking) I've been using it as my main computer since I got it back in December and to be honest the screen is great IMO. It's incredibly clean for it's size and it doesn't feel too small. With Mission Control it's been even easier to lay out my stuff so that it's less cluttered, but even before it wasn't too bad if you use shortcuts and keep the screen somewhat organized.
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Jul 23, 2011 04:40
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So, after striping my drives and upgrading my RAM to 8GB, my Mac Mini Server is absolutely flying. I think the bump in VRAM definitely makes a difference in any light gaming I want to do (TF2 runs a lot better), too. Now I'm just trying to decide if it's worth spending the extra money for a FW800 enclosure versus a USB 2.0 one for Time Machine because it would be great if it went any faster.
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Jul 29, 2011 13:53
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flyboi posted:FW800 is much faster than USB and I'd suggest it. While the test is dated my tests on my 2011 iMac were very similar in terms of speed http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html I mean having not used FW800 (I've only owned Macbooks and a Macbook Air since my 2006 iMac) I'm assuming it will make copying files that much easier. Any recommendations for an enclosure? I usually just buy whatever's cheap and has solid material, but the Macally ones look pretty solid, if not overpriced. I have a 1TB SATA 3 drive waiting to be dropped in, but in the meantime I'm using my USB 2.0 portable drive, which is taking forever.
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Jul 29, 2011 15:36
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Ordered a 13in MBA with the 1.7GHz CPU, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. Since I have an 11in 2010 model it will be nice to have a bit more room and the SDXC slot for my camera, but I'm just glad the battery life has been improved with Haswell and looks to get even better with Mavericks. I kept thinking I'd wait and get one of the MBPr refreshes that never came, but I think I just prefer the form factor of the Airs a lot more.
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Jun 11, 2013 19:39
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fookolt posted:With the HD5000, do folks think the new MBA will be okay for low indie games and ARPGs like Diablo 3? Definitely. I'm planning to use mine for Unity and other stuff, and so far the 5000 is looking like a solid 15-20% upgrade from the 4000.
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Jun 11, 2013 20:02
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fookolt posted:^ Hah, I'm having the same issue. Go to the store and compare them side by side. Put them next to each other and compare keyboard and touchpad sizes, as well as the amount of wrist room you have. That's what I did today and decided that for me I would forsake a bit more of the portability for more room. Typing long-term on the 11in can be a bit cramped and uncomfortable, but for just taking it out for browsing or doing light stuff I never had any issues. But yes, I agonized over the choice and just ordered the 13in because it just makes more sense in the long run since it will be my primary computer for all non-gaming.
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Jun 11, 2013 20:42
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I dunno, I guess maybe look at the footprint of both and see if the slight difference between the two will really impact you. They definitely made it harder to pick between them now that there is parity between specs.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:14
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The keyboards are the same size but the wrist space and touch pad are smaller on the 11in. It's not as apparent unless you do a straight up side by side, which I did today. I actually had no idea how much bigger the touchpad was on the 13in. Anyways I used to use mine for writing a lot of stuff and I just think it's worth considering, that's all. It's by no means make or break but it could effect you if you do use it long-term.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:54
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Mine's still being processed (East Coast USA). I imagine anyone who ordered BTO will be waiting a few days. I was at the fruit stand at lunch yesterday and they were literally unpacking them upstairs and were ready for sale. Unfortunately my config isn't at retail, but it does seem like today is the day all of the stock configs are officially supposed to be on sale. My order still shows it as being delivered by next Tuesday.
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Jun 12, 2013 14:21
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 ing my order too. I really don't get the customization since it would have been much simpler to have 1.3GHz/4GB and 1.7GHz/8GB RAM for each model. I don't think too many people are going to get 1.3GHz/8GB or 1.7GHz/4GB, but maybe I'm just out of touch since I feel like you're either going entry-level or top of the line with the Air. Also is anyone even getting the 512GB upgrade?
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Jun 12, 2013 15:31
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I said come in! posted:That and all of the new ones are coming with just Windows 8 now. I'm a long time Windows user, since win3.1 even, but Win8 is repulsive and the last thing i'm doing with a $1000 computer, is change operating systems the second I take it out of the box, and then have to gently caress with finding new drivers. I don't know what computer you bought but Windows 8 does a pretty good job of auto-updating drivers, including GPU drivers from AMD/nVidia, so really all you have to do is open up Windows Update and it show you anything without having to hunt anything down. Despite a lot of the negative feedback they still did manage to do a lot of good changes under the hood you don't really notice unless you deal with fixing computers all day I guess. Unfortunately that all goes out the window when a major UI change that doesn't align with any of those improvements is kinda just there for no reason. I got an Asus N56VZ that is really well-spec'd for the price, but yeah, the reason I'm back on Mac notebooks is precisely the reason most folks are posting about. The build quality and experience is just a thousand times better, and yeah it sucks sometimes you can't get exactly what you want in the hardware but ultimately using an Air is the most comfortable I've been using a mobile device outside of tablets/phones.
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Jun 12, 2013 16:11
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When I use Macs I don't use mice unless I absolutely need one. Everything feels natural and my hands never feel uncomfortable doing lots of different gestures. Anyone else order an Airport Extreme? Since the Air has ac I decided I HAD to get one. Can't wait to not have lovely wifi at home (still using stock Actiontec that came with my FIOS.
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Jun 12, 2013 16:36
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We'll see more solid benches later this week but I would expect a very minimal loss of battery life due to the larger battery and the advances in the ULT Haswell. Most of the time you won't be using Turbo Boost anyways, so unless you're doing stuff constantly for like 6 hours I suspect Apple's claims should align very close with the i7 as well.
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Jun 12, 2013 17:37
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Quine Connoisseur posted:
Sooooo jealous. Still just processing here. I've survived off 128GB before so 256GB is more than enough. This will be the first computer in a while that I've locally stored my music on.
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Jun 12, 2013 20:34
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I'm curious if the 512GB will outperform the others similarly to other SSDs, or if they all hit roughly the same iops. Can't wait for Barefeats and some other sites to do some benching.
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Jun 12, 2013 20:41
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Maggot Monster posted:I am so grumpy about the lack of rMBP refresh! I'm about to start a new job on the 1st and I was hoping for a haswell laptop. I do development and I ideally need a few virtual machines running at once so it's probably unfun trying to squeeze that onto the air with only 8G of ram. Just curious but what guest OSes are you running, and how many instances?
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Jun 13, 2013 03:12
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Maggot Monster posted:Mostly different distributions of Linux. I had Debian, Ubuntu (annoyingly they are just different enough to need testing at times), Centos 5 and Centos 6 running while testing. If I had things setup properly it would probably be between about 20 different distributions/OS, including FreeBSD and Solaris. I can rework my workflow to run a lot of the vagrant stuff on a remote server if I really wanted to and just run one or two at a time locally which wouldn't be so bad. Gotcha. I myself do virtualization for work but not on a huge level, just a few dozen servers I manage as well as stuff I do at home and was just curious what your plans were. What sort of development is it anyways? I regret buying my powerhouse laptop for virtualization (was running wheezy and xen) and will just switch to managing my home stuff on a server. edit: jealous of your shipping notices in this thread. My Airport Extreme is ready but my guess it won't ship until the Air is ready too.
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Jun 13, 2013 14:01
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Bob Morales posted:Why's that? I'm so used to having something thin and light that it feels like a step backwards to have a 7lb laptop when I could pretty much do all of the same poo poo but faster on my desktop and remote in. I guess in my mind I was thinking it would be rad to have a mobile lab for messing around but in reality it would have been better to build a cheap/small whitebox for 1/2 the cost. I also miss the Apple trackpad and the better battery life, among other things. Having to be tethered to power while you're just trying to do stuff on the couch watching Netflix with this thing pushing a ton of heat out of one exhaust on the left side just makes me never want to use it unless it's on a table.
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Jun 13, 2013 14:34
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Mine's still chillin' and hasn't moved past preparing for shipment for the last 2 days. I almost got the TC but I figure 2TB is overkill for me and I already have a USB3 enclosure with a spare 256GB SSD I can use for backups. I'm just excited to have a new router because gently caress my lovely Actiontec's wifi range.
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Jun 13, 2013 14:37
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Order shipped and should be here Tues, with my Airport coming on Mon. Ended up just deciding to get AppleCare on Amazon so I'll be ready for when it gets here. Now I just wish Mavericks was out sooner...
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Jun 14, 2013 15:12
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There's a solid chance that the next MBPr models will have TB2 since it would align with the release of the Mac Pros, but nobody can really say for sure. Either way for those enclosures I think they just run on normal TB so it shouldn't matter.
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Jun 15, 2013 00:40
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So my Airport Extreme tracking information now shows this: "Clearance instructions from the importer are required." Does that mean I personally have to call them, or will it be resolved by Apple since they shipped it to me? I'm unsure why this is having issues with FedEx and yet my MBA13in is coming Tuesday with no such notice.
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Jun 17, 2013 01:42
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Yeah I dunno, it was just strange after having ordered from Apple's site for years that this is the first time I've had this, but like you said I'll just wait it out. I'm just goddamn anxious for this stuff to get here already  .
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Jun 17, 2013 03:08
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Ran home to throw my Macbook Air and Airport Express inside on my lunch break. Barely had time to open it but goddamn I'm excited to get home and play with it. As for 128GB regret: having that much space sort of influenced how quickly I migrated to cloud storage and using more online services. For example, I haven't had local music on a computer since Google Music started beta and Spotify came out here in the US. That said, when I was trying to get into development Xcode took a decent amount of space and that coupled with Adobe Creative Suite made it really annoying to store stuff I was working on locally. That's pretty much why I got a 256GB this time around, which is just enough to keep audio/video stuff locally with all of my applications and whatnot. If you're just using it for general poo poo I don't see why 128GB wouldn't be enough for almost everyone. I assume the bulk of everyone's files are their music collections, and using a digital locker can make a big difference there if you're okay with that stuff.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:28
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So after having my 13in MBA with the i7 upgrade for a few days, based on my usage patterns (Photoshop CC, Spotify, Safari, Mail all running/being used) I would say I've gotten about 9ish hours on a single charge. I'm not sure how much this differs from the i5, but just wanted to give my results in case anyone was interested. Can't wait for Mavericks to come out so I can use my Apple TV has a second display while I work on stuff in Adobe CC, especially for Premiere/After Effects. I'm also really curious about how much better my battery life could be with all the new changes.
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Jun 21, 2013 21:18
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