Hello Mug,
I'm thinking of gettting the Mac Mini soon with the following specs.:
• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM / (instead of 256 MB)
• 40GB Ultra ATA drive / (instead of 80 GB)
• Combo Drive / (instead of Super Drive)
• 56K v.92 Modem
• Mac OS X (Tiger) - U.S. English
• 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 / (instead of 1.42 GHz)
Am I fine with a Combo drive (backups up to 700 MB) or would it be better to go with a Super Drive (backups up to 5 GB)?
I don't own a digital camera and I never bothered to copy movies on DVDs.
My Mac mini will be used as a home computer.
Thanks.
Sounds like you'd be safe sticking with the Combo drive.
Sure, the SuperDrive would boost your resale value, and would give you more flexibility for future projects, but if you don't see yourself getting into either of those things, I don't think I'd bother.
And for the $130 difference in price, you could probably buy a more comprehensive burner and throw it in an external Firewire or USB 2.0 case and stack it under you mini when you want that feature later on. Might not look as compact as it was before, but you wouldn't have to leave the burner attached all of the the time either. I think I've seen some LG brand dual-layer DVD +/- RW burners for sale for about $70 CDN locally, and this model seems to be compatible with the Mac OS according to XLR8yourmac.com
specifically:
LG GSA-4163B (16X DVD+R & 16X DVD-R - DVD-RAM)
It seems to be compatible (at least installed internally) on a number of Mac tower systems. You might need to buy a piece of software to make it work, which would increase the price, whereas the Superdrive is made for the Mac.
-Mike