Mini facts:
* remote is IR
* no fan and a quiet hard drive but can be a bit noisy playing a CD, but not a problem if they're on a hard drive.
* you have to have a mouse and keyboard hooked up whether you use them or not or it won't past self test
* the Front Row is pretty slick but you will have to have the display on to navigate it. Once you make a selection you can put it in the background and use the display for other stuff, surf the net, display pictures, whatever.
* if you use the internal drive to rip your CDs the Mini gets pretty hot after a little while but runs pretty cool otherwise. I am using an external Plextor drive to rip.
I am using mine with a USB DAC so I don't know anything about the optical output.
I'm using a series of external firewire hard drives right now but I think I'm going with something like this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1338702&CatId=0
* remote is IR
* no fan and a quiet hard drive but can be a bit noisy playing a CD, but not a problem if they're on a hard drive.
* you have to have a mouse and keyboard hooked up whether you use them or not or it won't past self test
* the Front Row is pretty slick but you will have to have the display on to navigate it. Once you make a selection you can put it in the background and use the display for other stuff, surf the net, display pictures, whatever.
* if you use the internal drive to rip your CDs the Mini gets pretty hot after a little while but runs pretty cool otherwise. I am using an external Plextor drive to rip.
I am using mine with a USB DAC so I don't know anything about the optical output.
I'm using a series of external firewire hard drives right now but I think I'm going with something like this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1338702&CatId=0