Small 10.4 Server - eMac, Mac mini, or PowerMac G4?

[mkuron]

I am going to be setting up a Mac OS X Server on a small network (about five clients) soon. It will need to provide DHCP/DNS, OpenDirectory authentication, AFP (for the users' home folders), and iChat to the local network. Maybe VPN. Possibly FTP to the internet.

They haven't decided yet what hardware they want for the server - an Xserve would be overdimensioned for this network and the budget also does not allow for it.
The ideas we had are:

• eMac
• Mac mini (with a firewire hard drive for the boot and data volumes (as the internal hard disk is probably be too slow))
• PowerMac G4 (from eBay)

Anybody here set up a server on one of these "lesser" machines before?

Michael

[Captain Code]

Any of those machines should be able to handle only 5 clients. The Mini may be bottlenecked by the hard drive so you should consider an external Firewire drive if it's going to act as a file server.

The thing that really taxes a server is a database so if you're not doing that then those computers should be able to handle the load quite well.

[nixgeek]

Go for a previously owned G5 tower if you need. Or you could get one of the original Xserve machines based on the G4. Those should be significantly cheaper and fast enough to run as a server. The mini is too underpowered for such use (slow hard drive) and no expandability internally. Same with the eMac. Both of these are meant to be consumer machines. A Power Mac G4 might do it, but if you must I would probably recommend a dual processor system.

Regardless, consider that you'll have a faster bus and a 64-bit processor if you go for the Power Mac G5. I believe there were some dual 1.8 GHz systems.

Low End Mac has a list of vendors that sell older Macs. Check them out at http://www.lowendmac.com.

[mkuron]

Originally Posted by Captain Code

Any of those machines should be able to handle only 5 clients. The Mini may be bottlenecked by the hard drive so you should consider an external Firewire drive if it's going to act as a file server.

Will there be any problem because these consumer Macs are not intended to run 24/7 like a server would (processor dying eary, etc.).

Originally Posted by Captain Code

The thing that really taxes a server is a database so if you're not doing that then those computers should be able to handle the load quite well.

Other than the OpenDirectory database, no.

Michael

[Captain Code]

Originally Posted by mkuron

Will there be any problem because these consumer Macs are not intended to run 24/7 like a server would (processor dying eary, etc.).

No, it doesn't matter if it runs all the time. I've had my G4 Sawtooth running non stop at 100% CPU either running SETI@home or RC5 and it's still going strong.

The only thing that will happen is that the HD will probably die earlier BUT the drives in the XServes are the same ATA-133 or now SATA(I think) that are in the towers.

[mkuron]

Originally Posted by nixgeek

Go for a previously owned G5 tower if you need. Or you could get one of the original Xserve machines based on the G4. Those should be significantly cheaper and fast enough to run as a server. The mini is too underpowered for such use (slow hard drive) and no expandability internally. Same with the eMac. Both of these are meant to be consumer machines. A Power Mac G4 might do it, but if you must I would probably recommend a dual processor system.

The used Xserve G4s and PowerMac G5s are still pretty expensive.
But the PowerMac G4s are available at eBay for less than $700 (This one is a dual 1GHz with 1.5GB RAM, it even includes a display, and sold for less than $650).

Originally Posted by nixgeek

Low End Mac has a list of vendors that sell older Macs. Check them out at http://www.lowendmac.com.

Thanks for the link!

Michael

[mkuron]

Originally Posted by Captain Code

The only thing that will happen is that the HD will probably die earlier BUT the drives in the XServes are the same ATA-133 or now SATA(I think) that are in the towers.

Should I get a hard drive that is suitable for 24/7 use / servers? I think I'll be going with a used PowerMac G4.

Michael

[Captain Code]

Originally Posted by mkuron

Should I get a hard drive that is suitable for 24/7 use / servers? I think I'll be going with a used PowerMac G4.

Michael

I wouldn't worry about it. The drives do last a long time typically. Since you are probably going with a Powermac tower you could consider a RAID card which will give you redundancy in case a drive does fail. Also consider that you will want to have a backup plan in place for any important data if there is any.