Inside Apple's new Mac mini Server - Page 3

No ZFS + No (affordable) PCIe-speed expansion for RAID-5 = dead to me.
If they had those two things I'd be quite willing to take the plunge, but I guess i'll continue sticking with Solaris.

Where I work we run Windows Server 2003 for most of our needs, and although Mac OS X has several issues, I came to discover that Windows has even more serious issues!! For example, on Windows Server if I setup a Folder and call it "Client_Jobs" then I set its Permissions to Read-Only, but allow all its contents full control i.e. read/write/del, THEN if someone on the network mistakingly deleted the "Client_Jobs" folder, Windows will actually DELETE ALL the contents of the folder first, then it will error!!!! What is the EFFFIN use of that? This is the STUPIDEST problem on any OS I have EVER seen.
On Mac OS X Server and other non-Windows servers, the computer will immediately return an error without deleting the contents. Furthermore, Windows Server charges for everything!! It does not include IM, a proper FTP, you'll need Exchange to do emails or calendars, license keys... but thank God it includes a decent backup solution!!

How much did the 6 Terabytes of storage cost?

That alone is close to $700, so how much did it cost again?


One of the main reasons I bought a MacBook was iTunes integration for syncing my iPhone.

Before that I was running a Linux box and had to install XP so I could install iTunes.

That's the main issue with Linux and iPhones.

You mean like a . .. I dunno . . . a cube?

I agree with you about SBS 2003 because it included Outlook 2003 CALs. Once that was dropped in SBS 2008, the cost equation changed significantly. In the very small businesses (VSB) I serve, SBS no longer gets any traction.

Mac mini Server thus provides an extremely interesting, low-cost alternative that I think I can sell as long as I can mirror the two drives. I think there are two very attractive price points:

• MMS by itself at $1,000 with pretty much everything a VSB needs.
• MMS with a $1,000, 3TB, RAID5 NAS, total $2,000.

I'm sure there are some issues but I have to say that MMS looks like a very interesting small business option.

Funny. Our IT dept. gets these "roadmaps" from HP/Compaq. We order PCs and servers with specific SKUs listing specific parts so that we'll be able to apply our standard corporate image. The reality is that the roadmaps are a joke, they are constantly changing out this component or that (laptops are esp. bad at this). So we have someone who is constantly creating one-off images to blast down to our PCs.

So, yeah, businesses want roadmaps, but the PC manufacturers do a really crap job at following the ones they publish.

As my family's consumption of digital media is exponentially growing I think Apple has missed the boat with this server. I don't think that they will make much of a dent in the small business market with this product. Windows was there first, is cheaper and is "good enough". What I really wanted was a Mac Mini server that would serve up all of the digital media for my family... Movies, TV Shows, Music, Photos etc.

We need a simple way to serve up all the media to our iTunes, Apple TV, iPhones and iPods. My MBP keeps getting over loaded with stuff and I keep moving media off of it manually... not so much fun. If anyone has a good way of doing this, please post.

Thanks!

Which of course is fine. But your average, everyday small business person is not going to be able manage a Solaris box unless they were already UNIX geeks (and those are probably <0.0001%).

So by not being useful to you, it actually validates that it will be useful in the market they are targeting.

It's also rather pointless to talk about a product without being objective (at least within the context of your readership) and pointing out the shortcomings.

eSATA is absent, even Macperformanceguide.com (http://macperformanceguide.com/Stora...-Firewire.html) acknowledges the advantages, and in a server situation you really don't want your Firewire interface to get choked (backups need to be quick and not bring down the system).

Speaking of choking, 5400rpm drives? Why? 7200rpm drives are much faster in real workd scenarios (I was pretty surprised at how much faster my MacBook became when I upgraded the HDD). People are overstating the important of the CPU on a server as well. Unless you're running large databases, it's really not going to make a difference if it's a 2.5ghz or 2.0ghz CPU, meaning the money spent there could have been spent providing faster storage or better external interfaces.

All of my media is sitting on a 1TB external drive, that now only has about 120GBs free. Within a few months it will be full, so I am in the process of migrating all my media to a Windows tower (running Win7) which will have 6TBs of storage allowing a 3 fold increase in space with backup. There isn't a viable Mac solution without spending thousands of dollars, or have 6 or so external drives each needing their own power supply.

I think the product is interesting, and can see why Apple is pushing it, but to suggest it's perfect and show how great it is by comparing it to other mediocre products (and ignore other stronger products) is somewhat dishonest, not to mention it doesn't really address home server needs.

Obviously you are totally uninformed as to the capabilities of Windows Home Server vs. Snow Leopard Server. Windows Home Server does 2 thiungs... backup and media serving. Not much more. No mail server, DNS server, LDAP server, web server, etc., et., etc. In short, if you put a Windows Home Server into a business environment, your friends in IT would laugh hysterically and call you either an idiot or cheap.

The article fairly compares Snow Leopard Server (SLS) to Windows Small Business Server (SBS). Neither SLS nor SBS is intended to serve as a media server, and they do far more than backus and media services. To claim that SLS (which includes the hardware) is comparable to Windows Home Server is absolutely ridiculous. Sounds more like Windows-Bigot-Apple-Bashing than a true technology assessment.

And can you really say a dual core 2.53 gHz 64-bit processor can be outperformed by a 2.0 gHz single core Celeron? Duh.

Yeah they should have called it Apple iPhone Server.

Sort of like back in the 90's if you wanted to sound intelligent, you always added the phrase .com to the end of every sentence.

OMG... after reading some of these posts, it's pretty obvious that many come from people who will stop at nothing to simply bash Apple.

No ZFS+? Because Sun wouldn't grant App;e a license to open source it. Simple. Do you NEED ZFS+ in a server? Not really. The standard journalling file system is safe and reliable.

RAID-5? Buy an XServe! This is a SMALL BUSINESS server, not something a Fortune 500 company will run its data center on.

I'm surprised that someone didn't mention the fact that the Mac Mini Server doesn't have an interface for a Liebert computer room power conditoner and UPS! That is just as ridiculous as some of the other "Mac Mini Server doesn't have XYZ".

Still trying to find out if the MBA SuperDrive will work for the "regular" (Early 2009) mini. Does anyone know? Does anyone have both that could test it out?

There are a lot of differences between permissions on Windows verses UNIX. UNIX is more secure by default, but since files are owned by the owner of the enclosing directory, other users could not write to the directory anyway in the configuration you describe.

The real issue in my mind is why you let average office workers have any modify privileges at all. The only way to make sure people don't do stupid things like delete important folders is to control everything with an application or an app that provides access through a browser. Allowing non IT people to overwrite/delete important files completely unrestricted over the network is just asking for trouble.

Ron Paul sounds good on paper.

It is a myth that they are important or even useful. About the only thing they do is make the IT management team feel useful. It is more of a hang over from the days of the mainframe when the costs demanded budgetting. Now a days businesses spend more money every year keeping their laser printers running than they do on computing hardware. You don't see your CIO asking for toner or paper roadmaps do you?

In any event I think business is wiseing up in this regard. They are beginning to realize that road maps mean no innovation. Companies like Apple couldn't possibly out something like iPhone on a road map and expect the cushion of surprise to hold them over until they grab market share.

That is iPhone but here we are talking about the Mini server. While maybe not universallly attractive to business it is a refactoring of what a server should be. Like wise it would have been silly for Apple to have put it on a roadmap, while under development, as it would prompt parallel development from the competition.

Apples big problem isn't about how it develops and launches a product, it is about how it drops a product. In this case we are talking about XRaid which was not handled well at all. They would have been better off simply taking a lost on the current model XRaid and keeping customers happy. At least until they had something better to offer even if third party.




Dave

Oh.

My.

God.

You can't be serious, can you? You don't want "average office workers" to be able to delete files and folders? And this data is probably stored on a SAN in a datacenter? Exactly how much did you want to spend on infrastructure costs so that every file and folder can be kept online in perpetuity?

Oh, yeah, let's web-ify the infrastructure, like SharePoint, and put the files in a database where they are eight times more expensive to store (infrastructure, licensing, maintenance, administration, etc.) than on a file server. Great call, if you happen to sell database licenses or manufacture SANs...

Oh, you want the files to be available across the internet from a database? Get out your checkbook, the one with two signature lines (one for your CFO)...

We should *celebrate* users who take the time to clean up the file systems they use, not penalize them for it!

Wow. An actual AI thread that is informative. And, it hasn't got hijacked (yet)!

Fingers crossed....

I think the mac mini server offers a better overall value even if its hardware and energy efficiency alone is considered against competing lines. As a longtime Apple enthusiast I would much rather buy an Apple product and am willing to pay a small premium for it.

I run a small retail business that uses a small and simple DOS program to run certain operations - inventory, service orders, customer lists etc. It is solid, and I do not want to upgrade to a windows version. Not more than 5 or 6 computers are run on the network, and I currently use Novell. The overall data and program size is under 1gb. Can I configure the mac mini server to run the DOS program, network to client PC's running XP pro and 98se and print? I think this can be done by running Parallels and XP PRO or Windows 2000 server on a mac mini. I would really appreciate the input of the many experts and techies that frequent this site.

If I can make this work it would also show that the mac mini can replace other windows servers, and businesses will have another rock solid hardware and support option at their disposal.

I think this will be an interesting and fun project. On a side note I am currently trying to install Windows XP pro on my old G5 imac using Qemu to work on my business network just for fun. It is almost done installing in its current 30th hour.

Thank you all very much in advance.

Dan

Average may be the wrong word to use but that is what shared and public folders are for. Trying to get 20 people to clean up after themselves in an important folder is just not going to happen especially when they are CLUELESS! And no I don't sell SAN or database I program applications so it is a natural solution for me.

BTW our org happens to be ISO 9001 certified so I have to protect everything anyway.

If all you're looking to do is have a Mac to serve up media, why can't you do that now using iTunes and a dedicated Mac mini, an Airport Extreme and a big external FireWire 800 hard drive (RAID)? Then plug the same Mac into your HDTV and stereo, get a Blu-ray player and you're golden.

If you want to share iCal and Address Book items, you could get a MobileMe account.
There are even little shareware apps that allow for Address Book and iCal syncing.
fruux is donationware and now does Address Book, Calendars, Tasks & Bookmarks.
http://fruux.com/

BusySync is $25 for one user or $20 each for multiples. I've set up a couple of small offices with these. it's easy to setup and they work fine.
http://www.busymac.com/busysync/

BTW, I keep all my iTunes stuff on an external RAID to keep my MacBook Pro free for work files and applications.

There are fairly simple ways to do these things without running a server with a server OS.

Shame the Apple TV can't do this, by allowing it to connect to an external drive!

Thanks for the reply and am doing that, but I have other machines with the same problem of overflowing digital media and want to centralize it in a client server type of way... maybe it's just not in the cards... I don't want to hook anything up to the TV other than an Apple TV / Blue Ray / DVR...

That's where the Mac mini and iTunes come in. You can do SO much more for about twice the price.

You can even setup a Mac mini as an Airport base station, so you can buy a 5-port Ethernet switch for $50 and skip the Airport Extreme altogether.

I connect my MacBook Pro to my HDTV occasionally to show photos and It's great to be able to jump to Google Earth to see that cool little cove on the Sithonian Peninsula in Greece where I took that photo of an octopus hiding under a rock.

My next Mac purchase will be a Mac mini and big RAID to permanently connect to my HDTV!

While I have to agree that the article is a little to focused on Windows, at least it is not as bad as some from the past. Combined with the fact that it ignores or dismisses Linux and one comes to the conclusion it is not balanced.

About Linux of FreeBSD for that matter, these are in effect server operating systems. You can't simply dismiss them when maybe half the servers on the planet are running variants. Just as Mac OS server has improved over time to make it more acceptable or easier to setup so has Linux improved. For some tasks it is simple to setup and get excellent results.

I'm also wondering why the focus on E-Mail servers? E-Mail is something that is done better for just about everybody in the cloud. Google, yahoo, dot.mac and a host of others allow for cheap and easy E-Mail. Further modern clients make using multiple services a snap. While I suppose there are good reasons to have your own E-Mail system it is hardly something that needs excessive focus.

Since I was looking for a media server the Mini Server isn't for me. It just doesn't have the capacity I'm looking for. Before anyone replys NO external drives are not acceptable. Even as a time machine server it is a little wanting and would have trouble keeping my MBP backed up. To that end I have to agree with everybody that has pointed out that the drives are too small and could be faster.

Given all of the above it is a nice machine for a number of applications. One of those that I've been considering is a repository for code. That is a GIT or SVN server or similar. Combined with file serving the machine could do very nicely.

If you look at this as Apples first shot at a micro server it really isn't that bad of a machine. What I would like to see down the road is actually rather simple to implement. The machine needs either a Light Peak or Ethernet connection to dedicate to a disk array. Let's face it FireWire and USB3 are already dead. A separate SSD boot drive/module with the two spinners dedicated to data storage. Dual power supply inputs. An easy open case but retaining the physical size. And maybe an SD slot. Arrandale should make all of this possible.

Apple still needs a midrange machine that can handle several storage modules. One use would be for a home media center where capacity is the number one issue.

In any event I see the Mini server as a winner as a concept. It isn't perfect but what machine is. Will apple sell lots of them? Well that is a good question, I'm going middle of the road here and say Apple will sell enough to keep the unit around and to offer improved models. As mentioned above something like Arrandale could make such a platform dramatically better by running cooler and freeing up more internal space. Space for Light Peak hardware for example, RAM soldered to the motherboard, or a boot SSD soldered to the motherboard. Arrandale might even provide for room for 3.5" disks or an array of 2.5" disks. The important thing is that the same box could potentially scale very well into the future. Hopefully Apple shares the same vision.


Dave

Not sure if this has been answered... Lights out MGMT, already built into the OS. In fact Turn on the Mini and then use Server Mgmt software to connect to it and install OS X Server.

Software RAID is built into the OS as well. Any and every Mac running OS X 10.3 and newer can do it.

Snow Leopard server in a small business is IDEAL on every level. From mail, to file and print sharing, to DNS/DHCP/Airport Acess point. All the way to the Wiki server pages. IDEAL. Even if your running all Windows PC's, it's IDEAL. I've done it and I as well as the client was thrilled with it... However I haven't been back since... Remote mgmt at it's best.

If you have a desktop Mac that stays in one place and has FireWire 800, get a big RAID and dump all your media onto and set it up for sharing via iTunes.

I have 2 of these. One for Time Machine, one for everything else.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140

I'm not sure how it would do with multiple machines accessing the iTunes library simultaneously.

Same here probably, assuming I decide to stick with the Apple eco-system. I have some doubts about the longevity of iTunes video.

1. This is not intended to compete with Microsoft Home Server. If anything, iTunes itself (which can share its media libraries), running on any Mac on your home network, with media backed up to a USB drive hosted on an Airport device, is most of the way there. The Mini Server is intended to compete with other small business servers that want a small backup, email, vpn, webserver, etc.

2. There are several reasons why the Mini Server has two internal hard drives, and one is that they can mirror eachother for data redoundancy/backup.

3. No eSATA, but you can use the FireWire800 for directly attached storage, or do what many folks do and go with a NAS (Network Attached Storage) instead. Done. I would also be patient - I'll bet someone like LaCie will come out with a stylish FireWire800 RAID array that looks like 2-3 little Mac Minis stacked on each other, with a tidy little FW800 cable that lets you build a shiny little snowman out of your Mini Server and the RAID array.

4. ALL OF YOU: Think carefully about a product's intended audience before you say you love/hate it. Many posts in this thread have been the equivalent of "But how fast does it play games." This is a small business or classroom server.

5. I'll bet someone makes a blade-style rack mount to fit what, 8 of these on-end in a rack? You know it'll happen.

Yes, but with cables in the back, not all that wasted space at the bottom. Still, seems unlikely that Apple would be willing to resurrect the Cube, but they’ve given us more desktop-class components in the iMac, so maybe they will start doing with a new Cube-like device.

I think there's still room for a Home Server but this isn't the product. A home server would be best centered around 3.5" drives for mass storage. A server like the Mac mini is best suited around 2.5" drives (as these drives are more robust on the avg and consume less power).

I agree with Solipsism. We don't really need an HDMI Mac mini. We need a stronger featured Apple TV.


This surely isn't a product aimed at home users. Snow Leopard server offers way too many services for the typical home user who just wants things setup quickly and easily. The case really isn't that much of a deal. A mini with a NAS on the network creates safety in the fact that your mass data storage isn't in the same box as the mini.

This product is not aimed at home users. I too would recommend a WHS box for a consumer that just wants to put their music in one place and backup their Macs and PCs.



DominoXML welcome to the boards. A most excellent first post and one that is dripping with actual experience. I'll eventually get around to getting certified in OS X server and quite honestly the barrier to buying a preconfigured system just went from $3000 or more to $999. What this tells me is that Apple's server strategy has changed somewhat and they are ready for higher volume sales for this product category. In ways the real fun starts with 10.7 server because if we take the same "no new feature" approach with 10.6 server then we will likely see a more feature laden 10.7 server. If Apple is shipping many more copies of OS X server then more advancement in development pays off more quickly.

A 3.5” HDD (or more) is certainly the most important, single piece of HW missing missing from a Mac Home Server (MHS), but what about from the OS, SW and services?

A remote client interface that shows up in Shared in FInder that is simple to use and doesn’t have the normal GUI, yet you can still access the folders/files in Terminal and use the Terminal for more intricate controls?

A ZeroConfig BackToMyMac-like connection that is even easier than WHS free domain access? Perhaps requiring a MobileMe account so that various users with MobileMe can see there particular folders with no hassle?

The server having secure HTTP Streaming of content from the server to your machine via a web browser or Finder. Even streaming of multiple codecs if MHS and your Mac both have the codecs installed for QuickTime.(Hate to have to transcode everything MPEG-4)

That doesn’t seem too hard for Apple to create. It even seems easy enough that one might be able to use AppleScripts, MobileMe and a web page setup to make this happen now.

Did I miss needed features?

I agree with the 3.5 drive scenario, but small footprint low-power consuming machine has many merits.
I guess we could all start calling for Apple to release a mid-sized Half-MacPro right about now.


We already have a full-featured TV.
That's the Mac mini!

I know people like to say that, and power-wise its more than adequate, but the OS and GUI are not designed for being connected to a Home Theater. If you cant control the entire experience from turning it on fresh out of the box, to setting it up, to using every aspect of it with a remote then its not a good fit for the average person who just wants a simple, easy-to-use appliance in their living room.

Technically savvy people will certainly be able to switch between a keyboard/mouse and remote easily and wont mind (actually enjoy) scouring the internet for ways to automate and code the device to make it more AppleTV-like, but that is not the average person, especially Apples consumers who are looking for a just works solution.

ss
skip

you stole my 

I am a mac guy who owns a small business with about 9 Macs. Right now we are using an old eMac as a "server" and I have been really wanting to upgrade it for a while! The previous server was an early G4 tower.

This Mac Mini setup seems perfect! I think they are definitely on the right track. I am not a techie, and the SL server seems to be a much improvement over the server version we used on the G4 - which I could not figure out and had to hire a couple of Mac techs to set up for me.

As I said - I am not a tech - in fact, the current eMac is just running regular OS X, and it "serves" up our shared network drives (synched with DropBox using a SL), and runs all of our printers. I wouldn't mind having a "real" server again, but avoided it due to the cost and tech headache. This Mini bundle looks close to perfect from my perspective.

We are a small business, we do all of our own tech, and largely use macs because we spend VERY little time fiddling and fixing. It looks like as long as I didn't need to do anything complex, this server bundle would be a nice fit - and I can see other small businesses loving it too.

jb

I know this will never happen, but I'd love to see Apple offer some machines, such as the Mac Pro and the Mini server without memory or hard drives, perhaps at a slightly reduced price. They're never sufficient enough, and upon upgrading they've been basically throwaways on my last few machines (not that I throw them away, rather they sit in a drawer, but I can't even give them away).

These guys have basically already done that their a co-locating facility: http://www.macminicolo.net:



With the advent of the MMS, I hope they have plans in place for expansion.