Need Buying Tips for Mac Mini

Hey, guys. I'm planning on buying a Mac Mini in the near future and have some questions about what I should do and if what I have already would work with the newer Mac's. First off, I'm more than likely going to buy the base model Mini for $599, Core i5, 4GB DDR3 1600MHz, you know the rest.

I'm unfamiliar with OS X, and going into a technological field for college and possibly a career, I want to have a little of everything under my belt; so this Mac will just really be to play around with, get familiar with the OS, etc. So my first question is would a Mac Mini be a good choice (being the cheapest) to become familiar with OS X, boot camp, and so on?

Next thing; I have a stick of Kingston 4GB DDR3 1600MHz laptop RAM sitting next to me, unused. Is there any reason that this would not work if I were to upgrade the memory of the Mac as soon as I got it? I have no problem with 4GB of RAM, but if I can have 6, why not?

My last question is about the Time Capsule external hard drive. I have a 1TB WD MyBook Live and a 2TB WD MyBook that work fine for me now with my Windows and Linux installations. Would this also work as well as the Time Capsule, especially when connected with USB 3.0?

Thank you for your opinion(s) and answers.

kaleb112494 said:

So my first question is would a Mac Mini be a good choice (being the cheapest) to become familiar with OS X, boot camp, and so on?

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Yes, though I would recommend upping the memory after you buy it (cheaper that way, very easy to install.

Next thing; I have a stick of Kingston 4GB DDR3 1600MHz laptop RAM sitting next to me, unused. Is there any reason that this would not work if I were to upgrade the memory of the Mac as soon as I got it? I have no problem with 4GB of RAM, but if I can have 6, why not?

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It SHOULD work, but I'd suggest taking out BOTH the 2GB modules and replacing them with 4GB modules. You already have one, so I'd get a matching one to go with it.

My last question is about the Time Capsule external hard drive. I have a 1TB WD MyBook Live and a 2TB WD MyBook that work fine for me now with my Windows and Linux installations. Would this also work as well as the Time Capsule, especially when connected with USB 3.0?

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Those drives are probably formatted NTFS, which OSX can read, but not write to natively. Paragon NTFS will allow you to write to them. However, if you don't plan to share them with your Windows/Linux installations again, it would be better if you can reformat them to the native OSX format using Disk Utility (which comes with OSX).