gregh

I currently have a PC running Vista as a home server, it serves up video, music and pictures to two Xboxes around the house.

I have a around 200gb+ of stuff stored on it.

I also use it to edit video, pictures and do some website work.

I'm wondering if there is a refurb/second hand route where I could get a cheap MAC to try out that wouldn't be a dog performance wise? I'm hoping I can re-use the SATA drives, LCD, keyboard and mouse etc??

Is there anywhere I can look for refurbs etc?

I'm also out in Tokyo in a few works for work, would Apple stuff over there be much cheaper and work when I got it back???

Regards,

Greg

RichB

You could look at a Mac Mini although they are being discontinued. They do not come with TFT, keyboard or mouse. Fitting new internal disk (singular) can be done but (may) invalidate warranty, better off with USB drives I would say.

Apple have a refurb store but its rare to find a Mini I think: Apple Store - U.K. - Refurbished iPod


If you are doing web and/or video work you might considering getting a G5 (not intel), prices should be lower and they are very expandable. I have one.

mattbeef

There is nothing official confirming that the mini is being discontinued and fitting a new internal drive will invalidate the warranty as there is nothing you can add yourself to them

Failing that get yourself a PowerMac G5 pleny of bargins on ebay at the moment and will do everything you need

gregh

What's a good price for a G5 on ebay??

Markus

What type of G5 are you looking at? One assumes a tower, rather than an iMac. The later 2005 models which include the Quad PowerMac G5 with four CPU execution cores will probabably still fetch a good price.

As for reusing the hard drive, I think very late G4's might have had the ability to use SATA drives and pretty sure the G5's can use them. Intel machines certainly use them but you'd need to open the case and invalidate the warranty. As for the KB and Mouse, if they are USB based, you'll be able to use them. LCD monitor should be ok as well.

One thing about the drive though. What format is it? If it's FAT32 then Mac OS X will have read/write access to it, if it's NTFS Mac OS X will have read-only access to it.

Iain Young

I didn't know you could serve video, music etc to an xbox from a Mac. Are you sure it's possible?

Markus

If it's modified and you're running something like XMBC then you can serve audio (not AAC Protected files, for obvious reasons) and video to the xbox from a mac. Bascially you just get the xbox to connect via SMB to the Mac. You cannot use the iTunes sharing system, unless you're still on iTunes 6, as Apple changed the encryption being used, but accessing music via SMB works fine. I am doing exactly this with my modified xbox (Team Xecuter v3 chip and T3CH's build of XMBC) and my Intel iMac.

Iain Young

Cool

JackClark

I use connect 360 works great for music, movies and pictures.

gregh

I found this 3rd party app to stream stuff to my 360....

http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360

looking at dual G5s upwards I reckon........

mattbeef

G4 towers are all ATA/IDE
Early G5's have been going for around £500

As for the intel machines (MacPro) you cant stick your own RAM and HHD's in there and keep the warranty as it tells you how to do this on the back of the cover

marklemac

Connect360 works a treat