If you had a DroboPro, wouldn't it be cheaper to just add a DroboShare and forgo the Mini altogether? (Edit: Just noticed that the DroboShare doesn't work with the DroboPro)
What I'm talking about is using the Mini as the all-in-one solution (both storage and server). Which is I assume what Apple is also intending...
Yeah I see what you mean but I'm still enthused that you can get a TB of space and all the software you need to manage a small office.
Success for this product will really give Apple some flexibility in delivering some nice software features. This is an ideal server for remote office or end to end solutions over a WAN (with appropriate software). Makes me wonder what goodies 10.7 server is gonna have.
It appears some here are thinking Apple was out to built an xServe Light and failed. I truly doubt that was their intent at all.
Instead, it appears Apple tackled the question "How do we outfit the current mini so it can be used as a credible server like some are already doing?" You don't start deviating far from the existing mini by making new cases and connectors otherwise you end up with a computer that's not going to cost $999 anymore. I think Apple did the right things to create an under $1000 server that budget-conscience and low-needs server customers are going to find uses for.
Sure, buffering takes care of smoothing out slower data transfers while playing video.
However copying 10+GB video files on a regular basis over an 800Mbit/s connection just feels like wasted time to me now that I'm used to 3000Mbit/s.
Buffering? Why? You can play 1080p off a FW800 drive no problem without buffering. And just where are you pulling that 10+GB file from? If it's transferring to/from the mini's slow internal 2.5" drive, the bottleneck is going to be the internal drive, not the connection. And even if you had a faster internal drive, unless your external drive is a RAID I don't think you'd see a huge difference between FW800 and eSATA. On a Mac Pro with fast internal drives and busses, it makes sense. Not so much for the mini.
Yes, eSATA can be faster than FW, but considering the rest of the mini's architecture and limitations, and what 99% of the people would use it for, it wouldn't be worth adding eSATA to the mini. And if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick FW in a heartbeat. I can (and do) diasy chain 4 FW hard drives off the single FW 800 port of my mini and can still add a 5th bus-powered portable drive to the end of the chain when I need to. I would never try that with either USB or eSATA.
My mini is my HTPC, TM backup disk host, and file sever. And the mini can pull data off any of these drives and pretty much saturate the network connection. So I just don't see how any other than a very small number of users would benefit from an eSATA connection.
The new top-end version of the Mini is quite a decent machine. Having recently purchased a firewire 800-enabled 1TB external hard drive, I can hardly wait to get my hands on one of the new Minis.
Right now I'm running a 1.87 Ghz model (Core 2 Duo) with only a gig of RAM onboard with Intel's weak integrated graphics. I have to think the top model with the 9400M, 4 gigs of RAM and a 2.53 Ghz processor, combined with the external drive hooked up via Firewire 800 would represent a very dramatic step up in performance. Am I ever glad I resisted the urge to upgrade the Mini a couple of months ago.
That requires 2 ethernet ports on your server (which the Mini doesn't have).
They show that diagram for optimum performance but it's ridiculous. No one wants to separate their network storage on a new switch. I believe the DroboPro will work fine sharing the same switch though it may not perform as well.
Since DroboPro is such a high-performance device, it can fully consume all bandwidth on a Gigabit Ethernet connection, resulting in performance compared to directly attaching DroboPro. Please see www.drobo.com/resources/iscsi for more information on supported configurations for DroboPro connected to a switch.
That makes sense. I'd still go into one switch however for a small network because I doubt that I'm gonnna need to constantly shuttle 70MBps worth of large data around harming the network performance.
It appears some here are thinking Apple was out to built an xServe Light and failed. I truly doubt that was their intent at all.
Instead, it appears Apple tackled the question "How do we outfit the current mini so it can be used as a credible server like some are already doing?" You don't start deviating far from the existing mini by making new cases and connectors otherwise you end up with a computer that's not going to cost $999 anymore. I think Apple did the right things to create an under $1000 server that budget-conscience and low-needs server customers are going to find uses for.
I agree. But personally I'd still just go for a standard mini and use the savings to buy a fast 3.5" external FW800 drive. It'd be cheaper, faster, and more capacity. And much easier to recover from HD failure. I recently had an external drive fail. Simple matter to swap it out for a new drive, restore it from the TM backup, and back to operation without having to crack open the mini's case or anything.
Edit: Ok, I take back the "cheaper" part if you need Snow Leopard Server. If you need the server OS the mini server is a good deal (although you still may need an external drive for you data). But if you are just looking for a home media server, I'd get the regular mini and supplement it with an external drive.
Sure, but then you only get 400Mb/s ethernet (minus all of the USB overhead, so closer to 250Mb/s). A far cry from a true gigabit ethernet port.
True. But again, if you require a high performance networking then you are looking at the wrong machine. The USB ethernet adapter is a solution if you need more than one ethernet port.
Buffering? Why? You can play 1080p off a FW800 drive no problem without buffering.
When you're also copying a large file across to that same drive (as you mentioned). Highly doubtful that it doesn't have to buffer the video so that you don't end up with hiccups on playback.
Quote:
And just where are you pulling that 10+GB file from?
I'm pulling it off of the local hard drive on my Mac Pro (where I encoded it) over a dual gigabit (load balanced) ethernet connection. So yes, FW800 is the weak link in the chain here.
Quote:
And if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick FW in a heartbeat. I can (and do) diasy chain 4 FW hard drives off the single FW 800 port of my mini and can still add a 5th bus-powered portable drive to the end of the chain when I need to. I would never try that with either USB or eSATA.
I'm talking about a server system where you have hard drives which are permanently connected (not drives which come and go).
Think using the eSATA drive in combination with the internal drives to create a 3-drive RAID. In that situation, throughput makes a big difference.
True. But again, if you require a high performance networking then you are looking at the wrong machine. The USB ethernet adapter is a solution if you need more than one ethernet port.
I'm just looking for options to replace what I already have in my Linux PC (which cost about the same as a Mini to build). Unfortunately, the Mini server option isn't quite there yet for me.
This is really going to be Apple's first foray into high volume server sales.
I expect he Mac mini server (Mss) to exclipse pretty much ever xserve sold to date within 2 years. It's a good product coming at the right time. It may also finally signal that Apple's ready to take things like iTunes and more and eventually offer centralized storage/access.
With an Xserve you really couldn't do that because of cost.
This is really going to be Apple's first foray into high volume server sales.
I expect he Mac mini server (Mss) to exclipse pretty much ever xserve sold to date within 2 years. It's a good product coming at the right time. It may also finally signal that Apple's ready to take things like iTunes and more and eventually offer centralized storage/access.
With an Xserve you really couldn't do that because of cost.
This model is a stroke of marketing genius. It's $200 more than the nonserver equivalent for 180GB extra disk plus another 500GB disk plus an unlimited client edition of OS X server. They took out the SuperDrive to cut costs and to fit in the extra drive (you will need an external one for installs, but if you have a room full of servers, you only need one). To get a somewhat equivalent model from Dell (I couldn't find anything on their cheap desktops line you could spec up to equivalent, so I went to entry-level servers) you might just match the hardware price (I costed a vaguely similar model at $999 with no OS) even if you can do your own Linux install. If you are in the market for a WIndows server, forget it.
Another potential big win over most rivals: low power. Unless you need a really high throughput solution, a roomful of these could be pretty cheap to run: low capital cost, no per user license, low power budget, low aircon budget.
Here's a question. AppleCare apparently doesn't apply to OS X server. Is any other support included? For a less technical user setting up their own server for the first time this may be a critical issue.
They show that diagram for optimum performance but it's ridiculous. No one wants to separate their network storage on a new switch. I believe the DroboPro will work fine sharing the same switch though it may not perform as well.
You want to keep iSCSI and LAN on separate networks, not just for performance, but for flexibility.
Imagine you add a second MacMini to your network, and want to use the same storage pools (primary and backup devices as an example). With a single LAN and iSCSI port each, your only single point of failure is the storage switch, which can easily be replaced.
The DroboPro can survive via FireWire, but you lose the SAN benefits.
While not all businesses need huge data stores, archival snapshots, photos, videos, and drawings can easily push a "small business" to needing 4-12 TB of data. Since the data store is just big, and not really high sensitivity, minis and prosumer storage systems are great.
As for the comment by someone else on why not use a drobo share type device, they work ok until they break. They are harder to manage and don't seep to scale beyond 10 people. Our Buffalo Terrastation served us well for 370 days, and then almost cost us the business. Drobo+share fixes part of the problem, but is no substitute for a real server.
This model is a stroke of marketing genius. It's $200 more than the nonserver equivalent for 180GB extra disk plus another 500GB disk plus an unlimited client edition of OS X server. They took out the SuperDrive to cut costs and to fit in the extra drive (you will need an external one for installs, but if you have a room full of servers, you only need one). To get a somewhat equivalent model from Dell (I couldn't find anything on their cheap desktops line you could spec up to equivalent, so I went to entry-level servers) you might just match the hardware price (I costed a vaguely similar model at $999 with no OS) even if you can do your own Linux install. If you are in the market for a WIndows server, forget it.
Another potential big win over most rivals: low power. Unless you need a really high throughput solution, a roomful of these could be pretty cheap to run: low capital cost, no per user license, low power budget, low aircon budget.
Here's a question. AppleCare apparently doesn't apply to OS X server. Is any other support included? For a less technical user setting up their own server for the first time this may be a critical issue.
I don't see where the value is, it's an overpriced Mac Mini with a dual HD hack that people have been modding the Minis to do before this thing for much less.
Why would anyone use this for a Linux install when there are thousands of Mini-ITX barebones for much less. You can even build out a cheap AMD Athlon X4 for 1/4 of this cost.
I don't see where the value is, it's an overpriced Mac Mini with a dual HD hack that people have been modding the Minis to do before this thing for much less.
Why would anyone use this for a Linux install when there are thousands of Mini-ITX barebones for much less. You can even build out a cheap AMD Athlon X4 for 1/4 of this cost.
This isn't Linuxinsider it's Apple insider. The people that buy this are those with Mac centric networks that need a server that supports their clients well. Building lower cost servers has always been an option whether it be Linux, Wintel or other but there's little umbrella support for doing so.
I was very excited when I read "mac mini server": I was thinking for some time to buy a mac mini as a server at home. However it was not really feasible since the mini does only feature one ethernet port and I need two of them to connect:
- my modem
- my home network
But the new "server" one has the same limitation. And on the top of that, no DVD drive.
I wonder if Apple would swap out the optical drive for another HDD. I would use the Optical only for upgrading, but could use the second HDD for backup. When and if I ever needed an optical drive, I'd buy an external - shades of the MB Air.
Comments
That requires 2 ethernet ports on your server (which the Mini doesn't have).
If you had a DroboPro, wouldn't it be cheaper to just add a DroboShare and forgo the Mini altogether? (Edit: Just noticed that the DroboShare doesn't work with the DroboPro)
What I'm talking about is using the Mini as the all-in-one solution (both storage and server). Which is I assume what Apple is also intending...
Yeah I see what you mean but I'm still enthused that you can get a TB of space and all the software you need to manage a small office.
Success for this product will really give Apple some flexibility in delivering some nice software features. This is an ideal server for remote office or end to end solutions over a WAN (with appropriate software). Makes me wonder what goodies 10.7 server is gonna have.
Instead, it appears Apple tackled the question "How do we outfit the current mini so it can be used as a credible server like some are already doing?" You don't start deviating far from the existing mini by making new cases and connectors otherwise you end up with a computer that's not going to cost $999 anymore. I think Apple did the right things to create an under $1000 server that budget-conscience and low-needs server customers are going to find uses for.
Sure, buffering takes care of smoothing out slower data transfers while playing video.
However copying 10+GB video files on a regular basis over an 800Mbit/s connection just feels like wasted time to me now that I'm used to 3000Mbit/s.
Buffering? Why? You can play 1080p off a FW800 drive no problem without buffering. And just where are you pulling that 10+GB file from? If it's transferring to/from the mini's slow internal 2.5" drive, the bottleneck is going to be the internal drive, not the connection. And even if you had a faster internal drive, unless your external drive is a RAID I don't think you'd see a huge difference between FW800 and eSATA. On a Mac Pro with fast internal drives and busses, it makes sense. Not so much for the mini.
Yes, eSATA can be faster than FW, but considering the rest of the mini's architecture and limitations, and what 99% of the people would use it for, it wouldn't be worth adding eSATA to the mini. And if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick FW in a heartbeat. I can (and do) diasy chain 4 FW hard drives off the single FW 800 port of my mini and can still add a 5th bus-powered portable drive to the end of the chain when I need to. I would never try that with either USB or eSATA.
My mini is my HTPC, TM backup disk host, and file sever. And the mini can pull data off any of these drives and pretty much saturate the network connection. So I just don't see how any other than a very small number of users would benefit from an eSATA connection.
That requires 2 ethernet ports on your server (which the Mini doesn't have).
The Mac Mini can have up to 6 ethernet ports (theoretically). You can use Apple's USB ethernet adapters and connect them to the Mini's USB ports.
Right now I'm running a 1.87 Ghz model (Core 2 Duo) with only a gig of RAM onboard with Intel's weak integrated graphics. I have to think the top model with the 9400M, 4 gigs of RAM and a 2.53 Ghz processor, combined with the external drive hooked up via Firewire 800 would represent a very dramatic step up in performance. Am I ever glad I resisted the urge to upgrade the Mini a couple of months ago.
That requires 2 ethernet ports on your server (which the Mini doesn't have).
They show that diagram for optimum performance but it's ridiculous. No one wants to separate their network storage on a new switch. I believe the DroboPro will work fine sharing the same switch though it may not perform as well.
Ahh here we go.
http://support.datarobotics.com/app/...etail/a_id/127
Since DroboPro is such a high-performance device, it can fully consume all bandwidth on a Gigabit Ethernet connection, resulting in performance compared to directly attaching DroboPro. Please see www.drobo.com/resources/iscsi for more information on supported configurations for DroboPro connected to a switch.
That makes sense. I'd still go into one switch however for a small network because I doubt that I'm gonnna need to constantly shuttle 70MBps worth of large data around harming the network performance.
It appears some here are thinking Apple was out to built an xServe Light and failed. I truly doubt that was their intent at all.
Instead, it appears Apple tackled the question "How do we outfit the current mini so it can be used as a credible server like some are already doing?" You don't start deviating far from the existing mini by making new cases and connectors otherwise you end up with a computer that's not going to cost $999 anymore. I think Apple did the right things to create an under $1000 server that budget-conscience and low-needs server customers are going to find uses for.
I agree. But personally I'd still just go for a standard mini and use the savings to buy a fast 3.5" external FW800 drive. It'd be cheaper, faster, and more capacity. And much easier to recover from HD failure. I recently had an external drive fail. Simple matter to swap it out for a new drive, restore it from the TM backup, and back to operation without having to crack open the mini's case or anything.
Edit: Ok, I take back the "cheaper" part if you need Snow Leopard Server. If you need the server OS the mini server is a good deal (although you still may need an external drive for you data). But if you are just looking for a home media server, I'd get the regular mini and supplement it with an external drive.
The Mac Mini can have up to 6 ethernet ports (theoretically). You can use Apple's USB ethernet adapters and connect them to the Mini's USB ports.
Sure, but then you only get 400Mb/s ethernet (minus all of the USB overhead, so closer to 250Mb/s). A far cry from a true gigabit ethernet port.
Sure, but then you only get 400Mb/s ethernet (minus all of the USB overhead, so closer to 250Mb/s). A far cry from a true gigabit ethernet port.
True. But again, if you require a high performance networking then you are looking at the wrong machine. The USB ethernet adapter is a solution if you need more than one ethernet port.
Buffering? Why? You can play 1080p off a FW800 drive no problem without buffering.
When you're also copying a large file across to that same drive (as you mentioned). Highly doubtful that it doesn't have to buffer the video so that you don't end up with hiccups on playback.
And just where are you pulling that 10+GB file from?
I'm pulling it off of the local hard drive on my Mac Pro (where I encoded it) over a dual gigabit (load balanced) ethernet connection. So yes, FW800 is the weak link in the chain here.
And if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick FW in a heartbeat. I can (and do) diasy chain 4 FW hard drives off the single FW 800 port of my mini and can still add a 5th bus-powered portable drive to the end of the chain when I need to. I would never try that with either USB or eSATA.
I'm talking about a server system where you have hard drives which are permanently connected (not drives which come and go).
Think using the eSATA drive in combination with the internal drives to create a 3-drive RAID. In that situation, throughput makes a big difference.
True. But again, if you require a high performance networking then you are looking at the wrong machine. The USB ethernet adapter is a solution if you need more than one ethernet port.
I'm just looking for options to replace what I already have in my Linux PC (which cost about the same as a Mini to build). Unfortunately, the Mini server option isn't quite there yet for me.
I expect he Mac mini server (Mss) to exclipse pretty much ever xserve sold to date within 2 years. It's a good product coming at the right time. It may also finally signal that Apple's ready to take things like iTunes and more and eventually offer centralized storage/access.
With an Xserve you really couldn't do that because of cost.
This is really going to be Apple's first foray into high volume server sales.
I expect he Mac mini server (Mss) to exclipse pretty much ever xserve sold to date within 2 years. It's a good product coming at the right time. It may also finally signal that Apple's ready to take things like iTunes and more and eventually offer centralized storage/access.
With an Xserve you really couldn't do that because of cost.
This model is a stroke of marketing genius. It's $200 more than the nonserver equivalent for 180GB extra disk plus another 500GB disk plus an unlimited client edition of OS X server. They took out the SuperDrive to cut costs and to fit in the extra drive (you will need an external one for installs, but if you have a room full of servers, you only need one). To get a somewhat equivalent model from Dell (I couldn't find anything on their cheap desktops line you could spec up to equivalent, so I went to entry-level servers) you might just match the hardware price (I costed a vaguely similar model at $999 with no OS) even if you can do your own Linux install. If you are in the market for a WIndows server, forget it.
Another potential big win over most rivals: low power. Unless you need a really high throughput solution, a roomful of these could be pretty cheap to run: low capital cost, no per user license, low power budget, low aircon budget.
Here's a question. AppleCare apparently doesn't apply to OS X server. Is any other support included? For a less technical user setting up their own server for the first time this may be a critical issue.
They show that diagram for optimum performance but it's ridiculous. No one wants to separate their network storage on a new switch. I believe the DroboPro will work fine sharing the same switch though it may not perform as well.
You want to keep iSCSI and LAN on separate networks, not just for performance, but for flexibility.
Imagine you add a second MacMini to your network, and want to use the same storage pools (primary and backup devices as an example). With a single LAN and iSCSI port each, your only single point of failure is the storage switch, which can easily be replaced.
The DroboPro can survive via FireWire, but you lose the SAN benefits.
While not all businesses need huge data stores, archival snapshots, photos, videos, and drawings can easily push a "small business" to needing 4-12 TB of data. Since the data store is just big, and not really high sensitivity, minis and prosumer storage systems are great.
As for the comment by someone else on why not use a drobo share type device, they work ok until they break. They are harder to manage and don't seep to scale beyond 10 people. Our Buffalo Terrastation served us well for 370 days, and then almost cost us the business. Drobo+share fixes part of the problem, but is no substitute for a real server.
This model is a stroke of marketing genius. It's $200 more than the nonserver equivalent for 180GB extra disk plus another 500GB disk plus an unlimited client edition of OS X server. They took out the SuperDrive to cut costs and to fit in the extra drive (you will need an external one for installs, but if you have a room full of servers, you only need one). To get a somewhat equivalent model from Dell (I couldn't find anything on their cheap desktops line you could spec up to equivalent, so I went to entry-level servers) you might just match the hardware price (I costed a vaguely similar model at $999 with no OS) even if you can do your own Linux install. If you are in the market for a WIndows server, forget it.
Another potential big win over most rivals: low power. Unless you need a really high throughput solution, a roomful of these could be pretty cheap to run: low capital cost, no per user license, low power budget, low aircon budget.
Here's a question. AppleCare apparently doesn't apply to OS X server. Is any other support included? For a less technical user setting up their own server for the first time this may be a critical issue.
I don't see where the value is, it's an overpriced Mac Mini with a dual HD hack that people have been modding the Minis to do before this thing for much less.
Why would anyone use this for a Linux install when there are thousands of Mini-ITX barebones for much less. You can even build out a cheap AMD Athlon X4 for 1/4 of this cost.
I don't see where the value is, it's an overpriced Mac Mini with a dual HD hack that people have been modding the Minis to do before this thing for much less.
Why would anyone use this for a Linux install when there are thousands of Mini-ITX barebones for much less. You can even build out a cheap AMD Athlon X4 for 1/4 of this cost.
This isn't Linuxinsider it's Apple insider. The people that buy this are those with Mac centric networks that need a server that supports their clients well. Building lower cost servers has always been an option whether it be Linux, Wintel or other but there's little umbrella support for doing so.
- my modem
- my home network
But the new "server" one has the same limitation. And on the top of that, no DVD drive.
Ho boy