[Voorburg]

I own a 1st generation Mac Mini and was wondering if it's cabable of handling a Firewire hub.
I just need one extra Firewire port to launch iChat. The current Firewire port is being used by my a pair of Mac Pro Speakers.
Is it safe to hook up a Firewire hub to the small Mac Mini ? Are the hubs sold at Mac retail stores ? If so, how much do they cost ?
Thanks a lot.
Bill

[macnuke]

FW hubs are sold even at WalMart.
get a POWERED hub.. not just one that plugs in without it's own powercord.
you can save some bucks buying from 3rd party instead of Apple.
I use OWC (macsales) myself.. good pices, good customer care.

[moose_n_squirrel]

Just about any FireWire computer can handle a hub. Even the first mini is a good, modern computer.
Check this out, some companies even make hard drives for the mini that stack and act as FireWire and USB hubs.

[mdawson]

The miniStack, suggested by moosensquirrel, is an excellent hub for the Mac mini. I was in fact designed to compliment the Mac mini when they were first introduced in 2005. The dearth of ports on the first generation Mac mini made devices such as the miniStack a must for any Mac mini owner with more than a couple of periphery devices.
The key advantage of the miniStack is that it is a USB 2.0/FireWire 400 hub that is also an external hard drive enclosure. That last feature was an important addition as the miniStack can use faster 7200 rpm 3.5-inch hard drives that outpace the 4200 rpm 2.5-inch drives in early Mac minis. The fact that OS X permits booting from an external FireWire drive further enhances the feature. Also, as the miniStack uses standard 3.5-inch (P)ATA drives you can get drive capacities up to 750 GB.
There have been a number of other similar Mac mini-based external hard drive/hubs designed to compliment the Mac mininote these devices can typically be used with any USB/FireWire-capable Mac or Wintel PC, they are simply are designed to match the aesthetic of and stack under the Mac minibut the miniStack was declared the best buy by both Macworld and MacAddict. I have a first generation miniStack attached to my Power Mac G5 and it works perfectly as a backup drive/hub.

[Philbert]

If all you need is additional FW ports (as opposed to swiss-army-knife aspect of the mini-stack), Firewire hubs are available but they're not nearly as prevalent as USB hubs. I doubt you'll find them at Walmart - even a couple of CompUSAs I've been in didn't carry any or had a very limited selection (as in 1 to choose from).
The best selection and least expensive route is through somewhere like ZipZoomFly or NewEgg.com. While OWC is great for many things they're often more expensive when it comes to non-Mac-specific items.

For instance, this Iogear FW hub from newegg is $42, while the same one is $57 from OWC.
I would avoid the generic, no-name variety and stick with the tried and true brands like Belkin or Iogear. Also be aware that many times the number of available ports listed INCLUDES the port needed to connect to the computer - effectively eliminating one port. (With some brands like the above Iogear I mentioned, if it lists six ports but one of them is needed for the computer, you're really only gaining four ports over the single computer connection - not five.) One other thing to mention is to make sure the computer connection port is the 6 pin variety and not 4 pin. Four pin connectors carry no power - and you need it to be powered. And yes, make sure you get a powered hub that plugs into the wall.

[Voorburg]

I bought Belkin's "Firewire 6 Port Hub" and it's working very well.
However, my iSight camera sits on top of my 20" Cinema Display and it stays warm all the time, even when my Macintosh is off. Any idea why ? Could there be a problem ?

Thanks.