Frankly the idea to buy Ministack came shortly after the acquisition of PowerPC version of Mac mini: for normal operation lacked USB ports, the situation did not save even the presence of hub in Apple Keyboard: its connectors quickly occupied a USB adapter (I know, I know, it is not needed in the new Minicom) and dongle already described logitekovskogo "Bat". Question with a choice of models also arose: after the next upgrade a Windows machine stayed a couple of hard drives, which it was decided to start up in business, ie was chosen configuration without HDD. «Troika"I am at a higher cost to me personally is not carrying any advantages.
Now, after months of operation already quite possible to share impressions, leaving aside the original emotions of shopping.
-The first thing that many users say it Ministack emitted noise. The fact is that in a rather compact body is placed not in notebooks, and a full-sized 3.5-inch hard drive, separate fan cooled. After a silent "Minicom" listen to the fan noise is not desirable. Rather than completely switch off the fan (that practice some users), it was decided to move the thermal sensor away from the basking parts of the hard drive, which has a positive impact on the level of noise (fan stopped buzzing), but also made it possible, if necessary, cool device. Incidentally, the temperature of the disc these manipulations are hardly affected ...
—The size. Just look at fotogratsii to understand that Ministack is almost perfect Stand under the Mac mini: they look very similar, developer ministack give only small joints On the sides. The only external indicator - blue LED indicating faykt disk access.
—connection to the computer, USB conductors and FireWire, after which construction will operate as a USB (port 3) / FireWire (port 2) a hub. By the way, one port is on the left side Ministack, so you can quickly connect devices such as flash drives or digital cameras. By default, data will be transmitted via the FireWire interface, though you can switch and to USB. Power is supplied by a separate unit, looking like a standard power supply "neyablochnyh" laptops, but provided with pyatishtyrkovy connector.
—mounted drive appears as an external disk mounted in the system, so that the press on the eject icon not advise: have to disable the "stack" and reminded of its existence the system. drive power is adjusted automatically, virtually eliminating the need to use a switch on / off: during long idle drive "sleep" becomes available in case of appeal. For the user, this whole process is completely transparent, except that the typical hard drive can be heard crackling and the delay when accessing data.
—data access speed I am personally satisfied completely. Immediately I say, that not a supporter of the hi-tech fallometrii I did not make any objective, we note therefore describes only the subjective feelings. Viewing of DVD, storage iMovie projects (15 gigabytes each), daily work with documents. Except for minor delays spillage disc, I have complaints about the speed there.
What can we say in conclusion? As an external drive and a combination hub, taking into account the type vneshnegoo Ministack competitors simply do not, and most of the flaws are minor (Not too pretty sight "stern" part, some assembly flaws like not too neat-looking connectors) or easy to handle (noise). However, during the operation slightly blabbed side USB port, though less demanding users, this change is unlikely to be noticed.
Of the entire series of devices, which are now part Ministack V2, Ministack V3 and Ministack NAS in Russia can only buy first. At least, on the sellers other drives I know nothing.