Inside Apple's new Mac mini Server - Page 4

That's why I sold my AppleTV and bought a mini. Esp. with the Early 2009 minis that have better on-board graphics than earlier minis and both mini-DVI and mini-DP outputs. For now I have one of these on order from monoprice.com.

If Apple would put HDMI *and* mini-DP outputs on the mini, and beef up Front Row with some of the AppleTV mojo I'd bet mini sales would triple overnight.


Exactly what I was referring to above. The mini either needs a native OS X Apple TV application or Front Row needs to get a lot more of the "it just works" functionality that the Apple TV already has. Add in an HDMI jack that will natively output 5.1 sound and the sky is the limit...

Plus, imagine what this could do for the iTunes movie franchise.

Steve, are you listening?

For an iphone owner, does a MacMini server replace the need to subscribe to MobileMe completely? What is the feature gap? If I could save $69-99/yr on MobileMe, it might influence my decision.

Does MacMiniServer also replace the need for a TimeCapsule? Seems like it, but wasn't sure.

I'm not sure what your problem is to be honest. Hook up your ATV and pull the media off of your server. I have an old G5 tower for a server; swapping it out for a Mini wouldn't really change a thing. All of our 5 home computers/ ATV's have access to Itunes music and movies from a central source. piece of cake.

I think the dilemma is a full featured Apple TV vs a fairly dumbed down device that plugs into the TV via HDMI. Apple TV is $229 and ROKU is $99. I want to be able to watch my media at any TV in the house. Some TV's I'd like to have an Apple TV as it exists today where I could have "cached" 100 G of content to not keep killing the wireless network every time I'm watching something. In fact, I'd like the genius feature to cache this content for me.. like which Disney Movies the kids are watching the most would be local to that TV, but everything would be available.

So I guess that opens up the debate on can iTunes handle it? My guess is not. You'd need an iTunes Server product to ship with SL Server. Again, as I stated earlier, I'd want it to handle Movies, TV, Music and Photos, so it's going to need integration with iLife too. Working in iPhoto and iMovie, I'd want the last 12 months or so of media stored locally if I so choose. The work flow is I handle all the media after my wife is done taking pics/video. I handle the post processing, so then it resides on my laptop. So when she is doing any kind of post work, like ordering prints etc. She needs access to my MBP.

Maybe I'm asking for too much, or am just too lazy to build and maintain something... but hey... you can always wish for it!

Apple TV does all of that and yes it can handle it all including synching your media (music, movies and photos). just learn how to change the settings to match you needs in Itunes. Poke around in the preferences. It's very easy and getting better all of the time.

While I agree with you on the fact that once I'm here I'm already sold on the MAC platform. I believe the author of this article was simply try to build a case for Apple that a lot of us appreciate. it's a war out there, us against them. We like Apple computers however we are constantly told they are "toys" or only consumer grade products. Most people in the PC world don't believe that apple is making a comeback and can offer products for businesses.

I think this changes EVERYTHING.

And to the guy who wants a roadmap. This isn't a "New" product, OS X server has been around for years, XServer hardware has been around for years. People are already using it. There are case studies to reference. This product is a GREAT solution for small business and highly connected home users.

And FYI, I'm a windows server guy who Manages a 500+ distributed software installation platform. I'm not claiming that I'm the King of knowledge here, but I know what I'm talking about.

-LanPhantom

So just set up iTunes on the Mac Mini Servers as the defacto iTunes? And share libraries between other macs and have the Apple TVs pull content off of it?

What I really like to see is what this server does for my home. I see all these terminology thrown around and I have know idea how this helps me out. I'm not saying that terminology is bad. However I do encourage AppleInsider to do a tutorial on how the average mac consumer can benefit from this system at home.

All the questions below come to mind. And I don't mean solutions with 3rd party software but are these native solutions build-in in SL server and XServe.

Can I now centrally manage my documents, music, movies and pictures?
Can I now centrally manage all updates os x updates?
Can I setup user groups where I can assign a desktop and a laptop user group. So I can setup that on my desktops I want always have set of programs installed and on my laptop another set of programs. And where I can block certain files form certain users?
Can I setup an automatic sync for my laptop to my home network folders?
Can I have the same thing as a terminal server. Maybe in combination with a thin client?
Can I set up chat possibilities where I chat with other computers in the network?

What are the benefits of a home based email server? Can I then create my own email addresses?
Can I setup a VPN server is such a way that I can have always access to my home directory over the internet?
Oh yeah what happens to future updates. Do I need to buy all the licenses again for over $3000 euro's?

If I can do all these things how do I set this up, starting from easy to advanced. Thanks.

I can't tell you how many "roadmaps" I've seen and most never live up to there promises/direction. I've heard of new features and promises major fixes and or redesigns of the platform. It never came. Hell I've even been stuck in the middle of a company that has a great enterprise platform and was bought out by another company that subsequently buried the product.

RoadMap smoadmap, they are what Tier 1 execs want to hear to they'll buy the product. Blah!

--LanPhantom

If you look at FrontRow on SL you see that it’s still 32-bit, along with DVD Player. Apple looks to have pretty much left these to rot, like it did with Sherlock. I’d say that FrontRow was it’s "10-foot user interface” testing ground for the AppleTV.

I think a better AppleTV is what is needed, not a overpowered, overpriced media appliance that starts at nearly 3x the cost of the current AppleTV. I think they have to do this because they don’t want these other appliances to beat them to streaming media in the living room. No one has done ti right yet, but it looks to be getting close. Even Xbox 360 has FB and Twitter coming.



Save $30/year buy buying online. Perhaps even more on eBay. Buy them whenever, you put the code in it adds the extra year to your account. Old .Mac boxs work, too, regardless of the versioning on the box.


The MMS can mimic some of the stuff TimeCapsuel does, but it does not replace it. They are very different items. For $299 you get a 1TB 7200RPM HDD with dual wireless networks and 4 port 1000BASE-T switch. The MMS is $999 gets you 2x500GB 5400RPM HDDs with a single wireless network and no Ethernet switch, after having to set it all up manually.

Why are people thinking this replaces a router or is designed as a Home Server? Makes no sense!

yeah pretty much.

Can someone who (unlike me) is actually involved in corporate IT purchasing tell me how a roadmap works? Does biz get word of what's coming up before consumers? 'Cause if so, why can't I?

Sorry of this is a naive question: I do remember that Apple corporate sales reps in the nineties would drop hints as to what was coming down the pipe.. Bad old days, them.

Wow, thanks for the facts, AI. Nice choices of systems to compare to the Apple product - is there anyone that didn't find this article insulting?

Try Touchpad from the App store. Brilliant little product that turns your iphone into a trackpad, and virtual keyboard. Love it, made my appreciate my mac mini htpc even more.

Corporations buy in blocks, you and I do not. They buy support contracts to get patches to OS X that will never become public. They need a custom kernel, they pay for it.

We did it at NeXT and Apple.

Agreed.

When I worked for IBM in the 1970s, roadmaps were all the rage...

We helped our customers develop long term (10 year) plans for OSes, Database/Data Communication systems: CICS, DL/I, IMS, MVS, SNA (anybody remember any of these... probably not!).

There was this little thing called an Apple ][ that ran a $79 program called VisiCalc-- it just sucked all the air out of the room.

The point-- we live in an era of disruptive technology and today's roadmap is obsolete before it can be committed to paper.

Call it a planning mechanism or a placebo (whatever)... just don't commit your business' survival to a roadmap... bridges are known to wash out and the YellowBrick Road has an Interstate Bypass!

*

Kind of pointless to compare the Mac mini server to Windows Home Server. WHS is more or less competing with dedicated NAS units which run embedded Linux, such as the Netgear ReadyNAS and Synology DiskStation. While those HP MediaSmart boxes look pretty nice, I don't see much that they do that a four-bay ReadyNAS couldn't do.

It's a pretty crowded market. The margins can't be that high. No wonder Apple is not going directly after it, but trying to take their own approach with the AEBS/Time Capsule which might work better in some situations.

And yeah, I would not say the Mac mini server is a true like-for-like replacement for TC, either. TC does have a gigabit ethernet switch and wireless router built-in. Mac OS X Server can do routing and firewall and all of that stuff, though that really requires dual ethernet ports to work. Thankfully the USB/Ethernet adapter for the MBA is supposed to work for this purpose on the Mac mini.

No, the Mac mini Server is not going to take over data centers everywhere (except for MacMiniColo!). Nor is it aimed at the home user by any stretch of the imagination. I think it'll be a nice solution for a small office of 10-30 users if their file sharing needs are relatively simple, and if they need to run some of the extra services that Mac OS X Server provides. It would make a good secondary service if you just want to host, say, FileMaker or Retrospect Server on a central server for your network (not that you need full-blown Mac OS X Server to run either of those example apps). If you don't need to run native Mac OS X apps server-side, then perhaps a good multi-drive NAS would do you better.

I'm running Kerio Mail Server at one of my client sites on a MDD G4 with internal mirrored SATA drives holding the data store. A Mac mini would destroy the MDD from a raw CPU performance standpoint; I just need to determine whether an external RAID 5 box running over Firewire 800 will provide me with enough disk throughput compared to internal SATA, even on the older system. If only the Mac mini had eSATA, it would be nigh close to perfect.

La Tableta will fill this void!

To be expected from any of the articles written by Daniel Eran Dilger, Apple spin-meister extraordinaire. If the slant of this article offended your delicate sensibilities then by-all-means don't go to his website.

In many IT shops these days, it cost more to put out cheap servers than a one big server that can virtualize many many servers.

I don't see Apple get into the virtualization business at all. The virtualization solution is exploding in the IT world, who cares about these small servers.

Even for ISPs, they are selling virtual server hosting and making a killing.

Windows & Linux solutions make up the entire virtualization world.

It has Remote Desktop Connect, which blows Apple's Screen Share App (which they deleted most of the hacks to). So, given just that, I think most would be happy. Shame Apple can not make Screen Share do what RDC can do. Real shame. That is one nifty, nice, awesome, slick, sweet, it can do all of that, thank you very much kind of apps. Why Apple can not get it together (give they have all the pieces, just need to add some thread) is beyond me.

I'd make a sales pitch for it, but really just want Apple to duplicate it and then some for a mac version. Do I ask too much for Apple to out do Microsoft on this?

[for those who do not know and do not want to look it up, some things RDC does securely that Screen Share does not do at all:
Full Screen mode
share a folder on your mac/ pc with the remote machine
print from the remote machine to your local printer
actually hear the audio of the remote machine. Brilliant I tell you .
]

On the second, YES. As for MobileMe.. Unsure I don't use that service. We use an OS X server to handle all of that.

Parallels Server edition. I've used it and replaced two Vmware ESI setups with it. It's MUCH better for most situations. However if your in IT and want to keep your job then it's probably the worst thing you could do.

It's flexible enough to do both, and more, and more and more. OS X server is the cat's meow (pun intended). It's more than Windows Server, a hell of a lot more. It's flexible, configurable.

I can setup a roaming account, I can setup guest accounts, I can setup netboot accounts, I can setup a mail server, wiki server, NAT, NAS, I can do it all... And I don't have to be in the same state that it is in or even have a PHD.

It can backup certain machines at certain times of the day. I can capture and configure all aspects of the network, I can monitor my kids at home or I can setup filters for the web at work all without taking an ITT Class.

And that's not even scratching the surface. It can handle over 1000 users locally or internationally. It can handle a multipoint VPN connection or a single unit. It can run Desktop apps as well as server apps and never gets tired or needs restarted on a weekly basis.

It can be my wireless access point, my router and even a bridge, all at the same time as being a server for Mail, Wiki, Web, Filemaker Databases for internal and external use... And a whole LOT more.

Those who know OS X server, those who use is and those who are certified in it were blown away with the announcement.

It's everything to everyone. And it sips power so I can use it at home too without spinning my meter (probably the second most important point of the MacMini Server). Some people won't get it, some will and they will appreciate it.

Mac OS X Server can be virtualized. This server is obviously geared toward a very select clientele.



Of course not, nor is it meant to. Its designed to be overly simple for the average user to use with no prior experience or training, at all. Apple Remote Desktop is their feature rich app. It would be nice to have something included with Macs that is somewhere between the two, but until then there are plenty of VNCs to choose from.

Citrix Xen Desktop.

I've made the case too. NetBoot the client, it works. You create 1 image (OS X with the apps) then the account (user folder for Home). Mac turns on and they netboot the image and then are connected to the home folder over the network. Done. You'll need OS X server for this (it's included and it's UNLIMITED)... Can't think of a better reason for the MacMini Server in a school environment than this... Works over Ethernet, WiFi, even the web.

Yeah, I understand your problem. One of the downfalls of X Server. On windows, you end up with too many search results for your problem. On OS X, you are luck to end up with a few.

Do not be discouraged, I have set it up for several people. It can be done, though not always the way Apple says to do it. You have to pay one way or the other, time, money...

To help a bit, I highly recommend the discussion boards and mailing lists. read the archives and ask questions. http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/

You can let others remote manage the machine too, allowing them to help you set things up.

Easiest way to get things up and running is to make your list, and just start punching through the list, one section at a time.

Make sure you have certificate installed, as the seems to create issues with many of the secure services. Apple tends to move where you go to create those things from version to version. Familiarize yourself with every setting/screen in Server Admin before changing anything. Then do the same with Workgroup Manager. Once you have done all of that, you should be 80% of the way and you haven't made a change yet.

Key is to know what you are doing when you turn things on and add users etc. You may not realize what the defaults are if you have not looked through the different settings.

Finally, there is no replacing understanding a bit about the underlying software (mostly open source). Look up what it is (mostly listed here http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html on Apple's website) on wikipedia and follow some links from there. You can not set up a secure web server if you do not know what that means. You also can not set up a VPN for Windows Users if you do not know differences between how Windows and Unix handle VPN, NAT, etc.

Good luck and buzz me if you have any questions.

Any word on how compatible is the mail service with outlook?

Features i'm looking at are

* global address list
* shared calendering
* scheduling / calendering

I'm trying to move away from exchange/outlook setup to an OSX mail/outlook setup with around 150 users and would like to know what features i could still use and if any missing features are there work around for it.

I haven't been able to find meaningful real-world data, but the few articles I've read indicate that FW800 with 7200rpm disks is just about an even match with Gig Ethernet for most file-sharing. (It certainly wouldn't compare to local disks for heavy video editing.) I'd love to see more testing in this area though.

The RAID5 box I'm investigating is this: Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 - $329 empty. The Drobo looks nice on paper, but seems to suffer some serious reliability problems (to the point of data loss). Others, including the Promise unit advertised at the Apple Store, seem to require extra software to configure them, which in my book is cause for concern. It's a shame and a real problem for the Mac world that setting up a cheap RAID system beyond software levels 0, 1, or 10 is still out of reach.

How conveniently you overlook the FireWire 800 interface it has... I'd rather have FireWire than eSATA... a one way only bus compared to simultaneous read/write? You're welcome to it.

FW800 certainly has some plusses, like power, but isnt eSATA at 3Gbps still going trounce FW800 in real world sustained read/writes?

In my office we don't deny privileges in general. Pretty much every computer is shared in one way or another and most everyone has admin privileges. I have a multi-terabyte RAID that is shared off an Xserve and yes people can and do delete things. That is why I run Time Machine to another multi terabyte RAID for those "oops" problems on a daily basis, The whole RAID is backed up via Retrospect to LTO4. Individual project folders are also put to permanent archive on LTO4 when they are fully completed and billed. Our people need easy, quick access to the materials in play and can't be slowed down by complicated access control procedures.

Now conversely, many of the Windows systems (servers mostly) are locked down and no one but me or the IT director can access them.

And speaking of the MMS I would consider it for certain applications in our facility. And I certainly am looking at it for a home server.

So that part makes perfect sense, of course.


Wow! Really? I didn't know that. Obviously, I knew that Sun and IBM and so forth do. But Apple provide custom patches, and even kernels? How far will they go in cutomization?

I don't have a problem with that either, although I'd probably be annoyed if they weren't fixing my work and life-impacting bug because they were prioritizing a bigger customer. However, neither example is anything to do with a roadmap. Tell me again, why shouldn't I get advance word of when the next MacBook is coming out? 'Cause, don't Apple make computers ... you know ... 'for the rest of us?'

Most of what you are talking about are redundant features already part of the OS including sharing folders and printing. as far as audio and full screen... pfffft whatever. Those are nice touches but not a must to control a remote desktop. Screen sharing is built into the OS; a much nicer touch I believe than RDC; and it works wonderfully smooth. You're splitting hairs.

Mac Mini server = $999
Lenovo IdeaCenter server/with Linux server software = $499

Linux FTW.

The Mini Server is an interesting experiment for Apple. In many ways, it's not something that will cost them a lot of money. It's a new SKU with slightly different plastics and a different hard drive container. Everything else is the same. The big difference for users is that they are giving away Snow Leopard Server as part of the deal. For some customers who rely on the Mini for server duty, that just dropped the price of entry by $500...a lot when you consider the price of the hardware is $1000.

One of the reasons why I run Leopard Server in my home office now is because I found that trying to get Sun's Java Communications Server up (on Solaris 10), configured and running was a royal pain in the butt. And I'm a guy who ran the grandfather of that software, Netscape Server on an Apple Network Server 700 in my home office for years before its RAID array died five years ago. I was tinkering around for weeks (literally) trying to get the Sun software going on my old Ultra 60 with everything I wanted to do having a long amount of experience with Unix and Sun. On the other hand, once I got the gist of Leopard Server, I had most of the main services up in an afternoon. If anyone asks, can server management be that easy with this product, I can emphatically say "YES!".

When Apple announced the Mac Mini server, I said to myself, "I've found my new server." As a home office machine, my current Leopard Server handles file service to my Drobo and other Firewire drives (AFP, SMB and NFS), runs iTunes for service to my Airport Expresses, pyTivo for archiving Tivo shows from my two Tivo Series 3s, DNS, Transmission for Bittorents and other nicknacks. I have a working web server, could do VPN if I chose and I can manage the kids' web surfing when they get older. Finally, it operates a Time Machine service for all the Macs in the house (three right now). My problem right now is that my server is an ancient Powermac G4 Dual-450 Mhz (1.5 GB of RAM, 30 gig ATA boot hard drive) that has been hacked to run Leopard. I couldn't afford Leopard Server and get a new machine. So the old workhorse was pressed into service and got a cheap Firewire 800 card to service my peripherals (another USB 2.0/FW400 card handles all the older Firewire devices). An upgraded video card I already had allows Leopard's CoreAnimation to run smoothly.

But the old server just can't keep up with the everything I'd like it to be doing. It's very slow and sucks power like nobody's business. I had already thought a Mac Mini would be a good replacement for it...I already own a 2009 Mac Mini that I use for a desktop machine elsewhere in the house. The new firmware upgrade allows it to handle 8 gigs of RAM, which is cool for future use but cost prohibitive right now (Other World Computing sells a 8 gig kit for the Mini at $475 right now....talk to me when it dips below $150). When money gets better, I'll be doing a server upgrade but I'll have to choose whether to get a totally new server for $1000 or buy a copy of SL Server at $499 and repurposing the existing Mini for server duty.

One more detail...someone mentioned that the 2009 Mac Mini can run the 64 bit kernel. As far as I know, this is NOT the case. I've tried it and the machine always returns to 32 bit kernel. The 32-64 bit utility that you can download from versiontracker.com now correctly states that the Mini has a 64-bit EFI but won't run the new kernel right now. Maybe the new Mini Server is different, but I doubt it.

Hmmm, OK.


What? There's no reason in OS X that you have to give everyone admin privileges! Hell, I'm the sole user on my home desktop machine, and I still use a non-admin account.

Let everyone (whom you can trust) share all their files, but don't give them admin access to the machine at all times. Or at the very least, create a separate admin account upon first install and put its password in an envelope so people can use it in an emergency. But keep all the other user accounts in a sandbox. It's really not hard to configure it this way, and on the few occasions when anyone truly needs admin access they can authenticate right then for that one task, and then return to user status for everything else. That's one of the really good points of a well-designed UNIX-based setup, and OS X makes it fairly easy to do so.

As long as we're promoting fantasy solutions:

Sun Fire X4240 server/with Solaris server software = $0 (stolen)

I think you missed the entire point of the discussion thus far, in terms of overall cost to deploy.

1) You get FireWire 800 with the Mac Mini and you can hook up to 63 FireWire devices on that. Let's see. You can get 1.5 TB hard drives and 1.5 * 63 = 94.5 TB in addition to the 1 TB that you get internally for a total of 95.5 TB of disk space. Is that not enough for you?

2) For the HP computer you are missing some things that the Mini has. Like also have 5 USB 2 ports on it and a FULL version of Mac OS X Server. Windows Home Server is a joke. A bad joke.