Five places to do a better disk upgrade than inside

Mac accessory supplier iFixIt is selling a solution to add two bigger drives inside the well-sealed-up Mac Mini. The concept means cracking the case on this half-shoebox sized computer and replacing the Superdrive with a faster and bigger disk. No more CD/DVD option after this.

Any plan to crack a Mini for this is crackers. The Mini runs without a fan and manages to keep itself cool enough to keep operating. But the back of that little miracle is warm-plus with just one drive running inside. With a Firewire 800 port on the back, putting another heater of a drive inside asks for trouble that Apple won’t fix.

Upgrading the memory inside is a different, better reason to use a putty knife to get that case open. Apparently once you get 2GB of memory inside, the Mini can recognize 256MB of it for better graphics performance.

But adding that memory happens one of two ways: You buy the $799 unit from Apple in the sealed and warranteed case, or you get inside to beef up the $599 model to 2GB. Just because you or your geeky pal can do something like update memory for you doesn’t mean you should. Saving $200 on the cheaper unit (well, about $175 after you buy the extra memory) could cost you later in warranty. The smaller the Mac, the more chance it will need Apple’s service if something goes awry. It’s close quarters inside there.Or get that geek-pal’s number and a backup system for when the Mini gets to be hot stuff. Cooling is an overlooked part of keeping computers happy. You could crank up your air conditioning to Stun, but that would spend the same $175 in the power bill. Seems safer to leave the insides to the Apple on this Mac.

Adding those bigger replacement disks also seems like a lot of work for not much boost to the computer. Agreed: The Mini’s built-in disk is a slowpoke at 4200 RPM. But the replacement disks only run about 30 percent faster while they add that heat. It’s a plastic case, friends. Leave the extra storage outside, attached to one of the five, count ‘em, five ports, USB 2.0 or Firewire 800.