Product Reviews

The size and shape of the Mac mini makes it perfect for stacking, and Iomega is the latest in a long line of manufacturers to have seen this potential. The MiniMax is a 160GB hard drive combined with FireWire and USB hub, and is designed to complement the Mac mini. It's about three quarters of the height of a Mac mini, and has the same white plastic top and silver-coloured edges. There's nothing to stop you using this device with any Mac that has a FireWire or USB port, but it won't

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look as well matched.

Iomega has done the decent thing and thought about the connections. Round the back of the MiniMax there are three FireWire ports, three USB 2 downstream ports and one USB 2 upstream port. It also comes with a short, white FireWire cable so you don't have a long, snaking cable to add to the clutter at the back of your mini. Such attention to detail makes all the difference.

Disk speeds were respectable, with a healthy 33.8MB/sec copied over the FireWire connection. As expected, the USB 2 connection was slower, but still fair, at an average of 14.372MB/sec. We'd recommend connecting this device through FireWire for the increased performance, but it's handy to have a USB connection there just in case you need it.

At £110 for the 160GB hard drive and the additional ports, the MiniMax represents very good value. The fact that it sits so neatly with your Mac mini makes it an almost essential hard disk for any mini owner. It's well priced and, if you like the design and need extra USB and FireWire, it's a very useful hard drive.