[X4U] FireWire and low end Macs

[Joe Sporleder]

How big of a deal is FireWire to the folks on this list? We are a  
small publishing company that utilizes Mac minis for a lot of our  
stuff, mainly light color photo processing in Photoshop, and using  
Creator to design and paginate our printed products. For most of our  
stuff, Mac minis, a couple of MacBooks and MacBook Pros for the sales  
staff, is the total of our computing power. When we buy a new machine  
for the office to replace an older computer, and FireWire target disk  
mode and the Migration app come in handy to move workstations around.  
We do have one G4 tower still in use, and a couple of  PowerMac G5's -  
one is an OS X Server and the other a work station. I would like to  
retire the PowerMacs from production (but keep the G5's as servers),  
and move to all Intel Macs so that we can take full advantage of Snow  
Leopard when it comes out. Mac Pros are way overkill for our basic  
needs.

I'm wondering if/when the Mac mini is updated, if it'll lose the  
FireWire port, like the MacBook Aluminum - to differentiate it from  
the Pro models. I'm also looking to move my minimum standard  
workstation from the current 2GB to 4GB. That's one of the drawbacks  
of the mini. We had used iMacs in our past, back during the CRT days.  
My boss has always been uncomfortable with all in ones, because if the  
computer dies, you are also stuck with a monitor that can't be used on  
anything else.

My idea of a dream mini workstation is an updated Mac mini that can  
support up to 4GB of RAM and be able to support 2 screens, and also  
has a firewire port plus a few USB ports. Basically, give me a Mac  
mini (even if it needs to be a little larger), with similar specs to  
the current iMacs, but let me chose my own monitor. I realize that  
might not happen, and I suppose I need to reconsider iMacs in my  
computing arsenal, as it appears Apple thinks this would be the best  
matchup for my situation.

Joe