Looks like I have to make another upgrade to my Mac-Mini. In case you are not familiar this is a tiny introductory Mac system built primarily from laptop components. Anyway I am doing a VHS to DVD conversion for someone and for some reason my JVC editing Deck is not installing (or working properly) on my Vista Ultimate Desktop (If I recall it worked fine on my Vista Ultimate laptop). I used fire wire to digitize the tape into my Mac and then started to edit it in iMovie. Well this machine had 44 GB of space to start (80 GB hard drive) and I only have one previous DVD project stored on it (2.7 GB). It captured the 1 hour of video fine and used about 12 GB of space (about right for 1 hour). Then I started to edit the project in iMovie HD. Because of the overscan from the VHS deck I am trying to put a small letterbox over the video and mask out the bottom video garbage that appears. I figure 12 GB clip render it to another final clip (use another 12 – 15 GB) and I should be fine.
Nope! Mac can’t finish the job because it eats up all of the space on the hard drive before completing! Arggg. With the mini you can boot from external Firewire drives but that leaves another problem. If I use a firewire drive I lose my input port for future use. I found a great little solution. LaCie makes a line of external hard drives for the mini. The form factor is great because it is designed so that your mini fits right on top of it. It also features additional Firewire and USB ports for the mini. I have ordered one (250 GB) and hope to have it in later today.
I plan on using Carbon Copy Clone to move the image off of the 80 GB drive on the Mini onto the new 250 GB external drive, then format the Mini Drive for additional storage. I will post on the upgrade process.
Stephen
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