Mac OS Server

I need a new backup, media and office server. Up until just now I have been considering a dedicated Synology NAS, but given I am not paying, a Mac Mini Server is a possibility. I have always desired a Mac Mini but when it came down to it, they have always been just a bit too expensive to devote post-tax, VAT-liable cash to.

£750 is a helluva lot to pay for a home office fileserver - twice the cost of the Synology system, especially considering it will probably need additional external storage.

I would need to justify the investment in terms of the additional business benefits that would accrue from introducing MacOS to our business, and the benefits that the Mac Mini would provide over the £350 alternative.

My questions to the assembled Mac Gurus are:

1. If I buy this system with a server OS, could it equally be used for general purpose computing (ie like a MacOS client) ?
2. Have you any idea what benefits, beyond basic file-serving and web-hosting the server could bring to my network which would make a convincing argument for doubling the expenditure? All the machines on our network are Vista-era PCs.

Just one correction. I believe that a Mac Mini server costs £944 not £750. I'd agree that that is a lot to pay for 1TB of non-protected storage if that is your prime requirement.

So it does - I was looking at the Ex-VAT cost. Which, I guess, will be the ultimate cost to the business.

I know that it is extremely expensive for the basic functions I require. I am also aware that I could buy three whole Linux machines for the same money, Indeed, I have enough competent last-gen components to build one for next to nothing. But I don't need any noisy, power-inefficient boxes in my house. The size and elegance of the Mac Mini is part of the appeal. It is as functional as a dedicated server, with ergonomic characteristics that are better even than an appliance.

I also think it would be a nice thing to have in the business from the POV of expanding our skills and capacity and getting some exposure to MacOS, and I'm keen to learn what else I could use it for, which is why I posted.

If I can't make it fly in terms of business benefit, I'm not even going to suggest it to my boss. However, because I have pretty much zero IT cost between my four-yearly desktop upgrade I am cheap to keep.

I'd agree that you could use this to expand skills into the OS X world, and if this is a major requirement then it might be a good choice (although personally I would go for a standard Mac Mini with a separate storage solution)..

But I would disagree that it is as functional as a dedicated server, especially if your main requirement is a storage server. My main concern would be the lack of redundancy for data protection. The best you can do is to mirror the two drives, which is not the most effective way to protect data. That gives you just 500GB of storage. And those drives don't appear to be easily upgradeable.

In a larger business I would require a server to have redundant power supplies, and possibly redundant network cards; but from your second post it looks like this is just something for you to use at home. But do you really need server functionality at home, other than for storage? I do, which is why I run a cheap-as-chips PC with FreeBSD on it. Upgrading hardware and software is a cinch and it is as near as damnit silent.

If your main requirement is storage, for a similar cost to the Mac Mini you could get a good NAS system with RAID-5 hot-pluggable disks giving 3TB storage. So I guess it depends upon what your primary need is.

You're right, for storage 500GB is not much nowadays; all my work and emails for a decade is about 100GB, while all my photos and music is about 150. which doesn't leave a whole heap of headroom when you consider the OS, but it is easy to add additional storage to the Mac. Which on the other hand makes the system even more uncompetitive.

I do do some things which makes it handy to have a nearby server, including PHP and MySQL development. But actually the Synology appliance I am considering would do that, because it's basically a low-power Linux box.

For me RAID 1 is fine. To be honest JBOD is probably OK since this isn't the only place the data exists (it's already on my laptop and the desktop itself). I don't need the system to be RAID 5 hot-pluggable because it's only serving my needs (and potentially my Boss, too, if he wants to squirt data across my awful ADSL connection. When your device starts to get big enough to accommodate 3 hard disks it's starting to become less invisible than I'd like

It would make a great deal of sense to get a standalone machine for Mac experience, but it would only be a laptop and I can't imagine ever booting it to MacOS because all my (paid for) software is in Windows.

Just to add into the mix:

I use a QNAP TS-239Pro II+ device (very similar to the Synology you're looking at) in an office environment with 10 users... Low power, low noise and has been in place for six months without issue (it's on a UPS to protect the raid).

I think we paid around £400 for the enclosure and have 2x1TB SATA drives (£60 each) in it in RAID1, backed up to an external USB drive. We only use the NAS features of it, but it does a miriad of other things besides.

Works like a charm.

In reply to a post by swirus:

I need a new backup, media and office server. Up until just now I have been considering a dedicated Synology NAS

If its any help, I have a Synology DS209+ at home (2 bay) and we have several rack mount RackStation RS409 at work (4 bay). They are great units, take the cheap SATA drives and just work.

Now is a bad time to buy a mini server, they are due to be updated and when Lion comes out the server option will be a lot cheaper than it is now. I would strongly suggest waiting for the launch of Lion before buying a mini server.

Thanks for everybody who contributed. I am leaning strongly towards the appliance option; nobody here really mentioned any tangible benefits of the Mac Mini setup over that for my purposes so I can't really in conscience argue for an Apple system myself given the cost. Once again the Mac Mini is my 'one that got away'!

I don't know if this is important to you but OSX Server is incredibly simple to setup, use and maintain with a well thought out UI typical of the Mac OS. Lion Server is set to make these features even simpler with the addition of Server app and Profile Manager to remotely manage Lion and iOS clients. The server OS looks and functions as a regular Mac OS in addition to performing server tasks so you can install and use regular Mac software without worrying about compatibility. There is one thing you should watch out for if your clients are mostly windows: Samba is rumoured to have been dropped for something new in Lion.

link

I would definitely wait for Lion and the next Mac Mini refresh. Two internal 500GB hard drives is not a lot of space especially if you're planning on using the server as a Time Machine (backup) for clients.

Peak at Lion Server
http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

Edited by deleted (Wed 29-Jun-11 09:47:02)

I would second that.

Around five years ago I needed to add servers into a couple of charity offices that I support. They are Windows shops, so the line of least resistance would have been to use MS Small Business Server on a couple of PCs. However, I was concerned about a combination of the high per-seat costs of SBS; the limited space available in one of the two offices; and the ongoing costs of maintaining MSCE professional support. MSCEs don't come cheap, so I'd have to get some training, and then the charity would be vulnerable to the proverbial bus that waits for careless IT support people.

I figured that OS X Servers would get us up and running with a minimal learning curve, and would be maintainable by the existing staff in the event of my disappearance. Using a couple of Mac Minis with external hard drives, and with Apple's discounted prices for charities - similar to education discounts - we had two servers working for well under £1,500.

I was able to script rsync to maintain offsite backups between the two servers, using SSH tunnelling between their Internet connections, and they support our WIndows users with ease using the integrated samba server. For another few hundred pounds, I have a spare Mac Mini sitting in a drawer in case of hardware failure. It's still not been used in anger. The server software is well integrated, and "just works". The user interfaces for user and access management are easy for a competent office administrator to understand.

This used PPC Mac Minis running OS X 10.4 Tiger Server. The server software has come a long way since then, and I'd love to replace the hardware with the Intel-based systems. But I have no real justification to buy replacements given the service these puppies are providing.

Lion server, at the pricing we have seen, could be a killer in a small office running on new Mac Mini hardware with external server-grade hard drives. Apple have replaced the older samba WIndows server with one they've rolled themselves and it is so well integrated that it looks to be practically invisible. I wondered where it had gone when I first looked at it, but Windows clients saw the server immediately when I tried it out using my MacBook Pro.

While I realise a larger office would want redundant everything, the service levels we get are perfectly acceptable for our activities.

These Mini Servers do fall into the gap between typical SOHO needs (low cost file/web/mail/print-servers) and enterprise needs (redundancy, rack-mounting, virtualisation). Their USP is that they are Macs which means they are particularly attractive to add to a Mac network, and I assume easier to administer than the alternatives.

Nowadays SSH tunneling and rsync scripting can be done by the of appliance I am buying for half the cost of the current Mac equivalent, albeit with a greater degree of technical fiddling because the UI is browser-based. However, at the time you did it appliances were a lot less functional and the Mac option cheaper than now.

Anyway my new idea is to get myself a second-hand Mac Mini for experimentation, with my boss's permission by selling off some of my old business kit. I think this one is the sweet spot on price v performance for second-hand models, and CEX often have one or two for sale at £265. I will probably wait till Lion comes out to make sure they will run it OK and to see if the new stratum of machines pushes the price down further.

If I want to get a server version of Lion to put on it, it's actually only likely to be £50 more expensive than the client, instead of £400 in total. I think that's a brilliant move by Apple.

Thanks bosie that is a really interesting post. I am now thinking I will get a cheap used Mac Mini for my interest but press ahead with the Synology for the boring stuff.