The firewire port is basically for transferring files if you have a supported device, as well as if you have a monitor that uses that kind of plug. Thunderbolt is Apple's way of either plugging in a monitor, which you would need a special adapter if you have a VGA monitor and it can also be used to transfer data if you have the proper drive for this.
-----Original Message----- From: Pc-audio [mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org] On Behalf Of Fanus Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 8:31 AM To: PC Audio Discussion List Subject: Re: Mac Mini Update Hello Thanks for the info but what is a firewire port and a thunderbolt port? For what are they used? Regards Fanus ----- Original Message ----- From: "Armando Maldonado" <armando.maldonado0...@gmail.com> To: "'PC Audio Discussion List'" <pc-audio@pc-audio.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 6:27 PM Subject: RE: Mac Mini Update Hello, the Mac Mini is indeed as you described. In addition to the 4 USB 3.0 ports, you also have a firewire port, HDMI, Thunderbolt port, one input line-in, one speaker jack and a memory card reader. Hope this helps. -----Original Message----- From: Pc-audio [mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org] On Behalf Of Fanus Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 8:24 AM To: PC Audio Discussion List Subject: Re: Mac Mini Update Hello Dane It sounds very interesting but forgive my lack of knowledge. Am I correct that the Mac Mini is a fairly small box with no built-in keyboard or screen, in other words, one plugs in a keyboard and a screen if one needs one. What other ports does the mini have? Regards Fanus ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dane Trethowan" <grtd...@internode.on.net> To: "PC Audio Discussion List" <pc-audio@pc-audio.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 6:18 PM Subject: Mac Mini Update Hi! I’ve had my new Mac Mini for about a month now and thought I’d share some observations with you. The Mac Mini is fast turning into my main computer of choice because of its speed and power, here’s an example which I think illustrates the point rather well. I’m testing a Mp3 player, I deleted all my Mp3 collection a few weeks back so I needed to create or download some more, given I have a good FLAC collection it made sense I guess to convert some of those, I started with the Beatles Singles collection 4 CD set from 1962-1970 which contains more than 40 tracks. Conversion was over in around 30 seconds and I was using the highest settings with the LAME MP3 encoder to get the best I could out of it, on my Windows desktop and other machines such a conversion task would have taken around 20 minutes or even longer. I spoke to someone about this and he reckoned it would have only taken 5 seconds or so with his Mac Pro machine and so it ought to given that his machine contains 8 quad core i7 processors <smile>, mine only contains one but I think the major contributing factor here is the Fusion Drive that my Mac Mini uses, put simply a fusion drive is a 1TB standard hard drive with a 128GB SSD drive incorporated into the design, when idle the operating system decides what resides on the SSD and what doesn’t based on the most accessed files, most run applications and so on. Now I’m not writing this post as an advertisement for Mac Mini machines as I’m sure similar can be accomplished with Windows PC’s, I’m writing this because I’m amazed at just how far we’ve come, encoding and creating of MP3 files used to take hours if not many minutes not all that long ago. ********** Dane Trethowan grtd...@internode.on.net Skype: grtdane12 Phone US (213) 438-9741 Phone U.K. 01245 79 0598 Phone Australia (03) 9005 8589 Mobile: +61400494862 faceTime +61400494862 Fax +61397437954 Twitter: @grtdane
