A few years ago, I would have never imagined saying this, but as of yesterday evening I now own a Mac. Nothing fancy, it's the baseline Mac Mini - 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo, 1G, 80G SATA.

Yes, the Mac Mini... I'd have loved nothing more to get a MacBook Pro or a 24" iMac (both of which I want). But right now I need a new roof, and until I get that fixed, I'm on a tight budget! Hope to be getting a more powerful Mac system in the next 6-ish months. Once I do that, I'll be turning my Mini in what amounts to an "iTunes server" for the home network...

But before I can use it with iTunes, I'm going to need a bigger HDD... so, in the next day or so, I'm going to be doing what any self respecting geek would do... I'm going to take the darn thing apart! Going to install a larger HDD and throw in some more memory.

Congratulations on your purchase, I'm sure that you will enjoy it. What size hard drive are you going to be installing in it?

NewEgg has a HITACHI 320G 7200RPM notebook SATA drive for $160, so most likely that's what I'll go with. Still looking around at the moment, but it looks like it is the biggest internal drive I'll be able to use.

Congrats on the purchase My Mini is still going strong as my media server

Congratulations.

I understand how exciting it is. I just got my first Mac, a couple of weeks ago--a shiny 24" iMac.

Good luck with yours

Once you go Mac, you'll never go back.

Congrats! May I recommend a WD HDD, they kick ass!

That's really true, once I moved to my current iMac, I will never going back to Windows, Mac rocks!!!!

+1

Saving up for my own Mac Mini and hoping that Apple refreshes the product line soon.

Just make sure it's a regular desktop HDD because I don't think mac mini uses laptop hdd's. And congratulation on getting a mac, i love mine.

Congratulation
Mac mini is so cheap and you can keep your big LCD screen, no need to buy an apple cinema screen

It uses a 2.5" hard drive, so I think its a laptop one.

It really is a true statement though. My MacBook Pro still feels as fast as it did the day I bought it and I don't see myself replacing it for years, at least.

^ the statement is true, but in my case its an understatement. I literally couldn't go back to Windows. Not as it is now anyway. Since using a mac, the way I use a computer has drastically changed, it has revolutionized the way I use a computer completely. For example, to explain what I mean - I will never close an app, or anything thats open for that app until im done with it. Say I got spaces setup for the different tasks I perform eg. development, design, uni, general usage etc. So on each space I have certain things open for that spaces purpose, that I will never close. This way seeing as I never really restart or anything either (unless theres an update or something), my computer is always ready to do what I need to do, if you know what I mean. No need to get to the computer and open up everything etc. Its just all their ready to use.

The main reason I do it like this is not only to eliminate the time it takes to get setup before doing work (which can take a while). But leaving everything open, seeing as my memory sucks ass right now, its like a reminder. Otherwise I would forget wtf im doing, up to etc.

Systems still instant to load apps I havent used for days and I notice no speed hit. OSXs' resource management is a god-send. Impossible for me to use anything else at this time.

Now I need to use windows every now and then, using XP because its supposably more stable then Vista? But even then.. if I have a couple of Visual Studio windows open and some other things I still experience crashes..

Just thought like sharing that lol.