Just a small update (in case you thought this had ground to a halt!).
I am using the Nuc Mini every day now for TV viewing and as media store. It is not finished yet, as I am still awaiting a thin backplate piece that I hope will fit and bond to the Mac Mini plastic plate I have as a nice finishing piece.
I am also building my little companion mini which has a genuine Mac Mini PSU onboard, a pair of hardware 500GB Raid0 2.5" drives and will soon also include a USB 3.0 4 port hub. This module will sit under the NUC mini most of the time and act as Time Machine Volume and extra Hub for periperals. It'll also be the power supply for the NUC mini itself so that there is only one mains power connection and no external brick.
Here are the components I selected to do the stuff inside my NUC companion box:
This is an Orico USB 3.0 hard drive adapter and the important thing for me is the sideways USB 3 connection allows enough space so that the PCB on which it is mounted can plug into the double raid PCB from this:
This is an
IcyDock MB982SPR-2S and a pair of 2.5 drives plugged into it and then into the PCB from the Orico adapter will just fit sideways inside the Mac Mini enclosure pushed up against the Mac Mini 85W PSU.
Before dismantling I have tested the Orico and it works well with OS X and is recognised and I have also tried the Icy Dock with it - and speed tested the combination over USB. Even with a pair of mechanical hard drives it shifts along pretty speedily.
The little USB 3 Hub I am going to be putting into the case is
this one:
The cheap surround of this hub won't be seen and I like that it has one port that will face inside the case and three ports to the rear - I hope that I'll be able to hook up the USB 3 connection from the Orico board to the inward facing connection so that then I can just use a single USB 3.0 cable to the companion box which will be then a single connection for USB external drive and 3 port hub...I'll need to do some testing though to see if speed of the drive connection would be acceptable for me. I think it should be okay as long as I only plug USB 3 devices into the 3 port hub. It'll then give everything a much cleaner cabling.
The hub is unpowered, but does have the possibility for powering via a 5v connection. The Orico is of course powered and only needs 12v and so will get that direct from the Mac Mini PSU. I'll try the hub as a basic unpowered config first, but (if needs be) I do have room in the Mac Min case for a small 12v-5v buck converter.
What I will have when this companion box is finished is my own take on something that is a half way cross between the
NewerTech Ministack (which is a aluminium hd enclosure having the footprint of a Mac Mini) and the
Ministack Max (which is taller and uglier than the Mac Mini - it has a plastic "aluminium finish" body - but includes a USB hub and an Optical drive).