Mac Mini as a server ?

[Viro]

The kernel's VM performance is poor, and its networking stack is flaky. There's a race condition or something like that which Azureus, a popular bittorrent client, happened to tweak when opening a lot of connections, hence the kernel panics that plagued azureus users for the last several releases. This, of course, should be impossible. But, the kernel is still immature, and hasn't had the benefit of years of tuning the way the mainstream server kernels have.

VM performance isn't really an issue when you're talking about a home server. Besides, apart from the theoretical issues surrounding the old micro kernel vs monolithic kernel debates, there aren't any real benchmarks that demonstrate the OS X suffers from slow VM performance.

Kernel panics happen on every OS. Just do a Google on it. Something along the lines of "your-os-here kernel panic[/i]". Saying that because a kernel panic occurred with the Azureus bit torrent client and therefore OS X can't be used as a server OS is an oversimplification.

Kernel panics aren't impossible (whatever gave you that idea?). If there's a bug in the kernel, and you make a system call that relies on that part of the kernel, your kernel will panic. That's why they exist for every known OS.

Of course NFS is separate from the kernel... my point was, OS X is not ready for primetime. And, Pengu, just because you "played with" the NFS server does not mean it works the way it should.

How do you know what Pengu did? He could have stress tested it. You're just jumping to conclusions there.

OS X will serve files. I never said it wouldn't. It just probably won't be as reliable or as fast as a true server OS. It very likely will be easier to administer, though, as long as you're not doing anything too far off of the beaten path, so if ease of use is a high priority, then OS X will fill the bill. All this is irrelevant to the original discussion of whether the Mac Mini is an appropriate server.

Irrelevant? How is the ease of use in configuring a server irrelevant? How many servers actually wander "far off the beaten path"? What do you consider the "beaten path"? Is setting up a home network included? Pretty vague definition there.

You can run a web server out of a matchbox, but that doesn't mean you should. I think you (plural) may be letting your Mac zealotry get in the way of reality here. I use my mac every day as my primary work machine, but that doesn't blind me to the benefits of other hardware and software platforms in certain situations.

So everyone is a zealot for disagreeing with you?

 

[Viro]

cfleck, you seem to be ignoring the fact that for less money, you can get more machine, and run a better OS (given the tasks that will be required of it) by not going with the Mini. Thanks for proving my point about your overlooking other platforms.

Sorry, I'm gonna sound like I'm picking on you, but I'm not. Honest. Apologies in advance if you take this the wrong way.

For less money you may be able to get a typical white box x86 machine. But it will normally be in an ATX form factor, have loud fans and will draw a lot more current than the Mac mini.

If you're after a small server (decent server, not that postage sized prototype), low power consumption, whisper quiet operation, the Mac mini is a good choice.

 

[wyvern]

VM performance isn't really an issue when you're talking about a home server. Besides, apart from the theoretical issues surrounding the old micro kernel vs monolithic kernel debates, there aren't any real benchmarks that demonstrate the OS X suffers from slow VM performance.

VM performance is ALWAYS an issue, and even more so when you're running on 256 MB. I'm afraid I've lost the link in a reformat, but there are comparisons out on the web if you search hard enough.

Kernel panics happen on every OS. Just do a Google on it. Something along the lines of "your-os-here kernel panic[/i]". Saying that because a kernel panic occurred with the Azureus bit torrent client and therefore OS X can't be used as a server OS is an oversimplification.

Kernel panics aren't impossible (whatever gave you that idea?). If there's a bug in the kernel, and you make a system call that relies on that part of the kernel, your kernel will panic. That's why they exist for every known OS.

Of course they're not impossible. But they should be a hell of a lot rarer than they are in OS X... which is why I like FreeBSD. It certainly is possible to panic fbsd, but it's generally only when you have weird hardware combinations or some strange kernel config file. The fact that the network stack, a pretty fundamental part of the kernel, is buggy does not bode well for its server performance. My implication was that no application should be able to cause a kernel panic simply by opening network connections.

How do you know what Pengu did? He could have stress tested it. You're just jumping to conclusions there.

... And I quote:

i played with NFS on the server in my sig. it worked.

That should speak for itself.

Irrelevant? How is the ease of use in configuring a server irrelevant? How many servers actually wander "far off the beaten path"? What do you consider the "beaten path"? Is setting up a home network included? Pretty vague definition there.

I was pointing out that the topic under discussion was the hardware in question. I consider freebsd a fairly easy to administer OS, but for basic things (getting Apache up), OS X is easier. Many more sophisticated setups are easier to accomplish on mainstream OS's, partly due to the fact that the documentation exists.

So everyone is a zealot for disagreeing with you?

No. That's not what I said. I said that zealots were blind to the advantages of other platforms. Which they are.

 

[wyvern]

Sorry, I'm gonna sound like I'm picking on you, but I'm not. Honest. Apologies in advance if you take this the wrong way.

For less money you may be able to get a typical white box x86 machine. But it will normally be in an ATX form factor, have loud fans and will draw a lot more current than the Mac mini.

If you're after a small server (decent server, not that postage sized prototype), low power consumption, whisper quiet operation, the Mac mini is a good choice.

Loud fans? Not if you know what you're doing.
Sure, it will draw more power. But since when has low power usage been a priority in this choice? Power is cheap.
Size was also not listed as a priority. Why don't you go read the original post again? He simply asked if it was an appropriate server. He didn't say "It must be small, quiet, and not use much power."

Take a deep breath and step out of the RDF.

 

[chevy]

The Mac mini is a very nice small and quiet mini home server. Good choice.

 

[wyvern]

*sigh* You people aren't worth educating.

 

[cfleck]

*sigh* You people aren't worth educating.

more likely you aren't worth listening to.

the general question was "would a mini make a for a decent home server?". answer: yes.

your answer: everyone needs the very best server machine to run a server no exceptions. in fact, os x is terrible. oh, and everyone that isn't me is stupid.

the popular consensus: go away.

 

[wyvern]

big imagination you've got there.

 

[lurk]

My home server has been a 200 MHZ PentiumPro for going on 8 years now. The mac mini would whomp that thing. I might just get one...

 

[mdnky]

It'll work fine for a sever, but then again so would an old beige G3 that you can pickup cheap on ebay now. I just bought 2 G3 233's for $60 shipped. If you have some RAM and a larger HD (came with 4 or 6gb ones) lying around, they would make a great cheap server.

You don't need the latest spec equipment even for the most demanding of sites. Some of the best known and largest companies out there are still running on stuff that would blow your mind. UPS is one example...my younger brother works in one of their facilities in IT...you'd be amazed at the specs of some of the equipment they're using.

I'm using my old beige G3 desktop in that manner at our office, absolutely no problems what so ever. It's only running 10.1.5 at that. Meanwhile, the Sun Ultra 10 I have is sitting by my closet waiting for me to find it a new home. It actually was too much of a pain in the u know what to keep up and running (Solaris 9). Used it for a week, had nothing but problems. Replaced it with the old beige DT, not a problem since (only 2 reboots in the past year and a half...one due to someone accidentally unplugging the surge strip and another due to a power outage). We all know how stable Puma is when compared to Jaguar or Panther.

 

[Viro]

Loud fans? Not if you know what you're doing.

Compared with no fans? That's something. What's your solution? Ear plugs?

Sure, it will draw more power. But since when has low power usage been a priority in this choice? Power is cheap.
Size was also not listed as a priority. Why don't you go read the original post again? He simply asked if it was an appropriate server. He didn't say "It must be small, quiet, and not use much power."

It's a home server. Not everyone is going to have space to place a server. Size can be an issue, unless you're a geek who doesn't care how many cases you have lying around (like me).

Power is going to be an issue too. You are paying for the bills, after all. Why waste more than you need to? This may not be an issue for you, it may be an issue for others.

Take a deep breath and step out of the RDF.

Dude, you need to chill. No one is standing in an RDF. No one is being a zealot. If anything, you've been misreading and misrepresenting stuff.

Pengu said he played with an NFS server. How do you know what he meant by that? He could have stress tested it. He could have tried to break it. But no, you must automatically dismiss what he's said and conclude that NFS is horribly broken and is unusable.

You've claimed that it is impossible for a user space app to crash the kernel.

The kernel's VM performance is poor, and its networking stack is flaky. There's a race condition or something like that which Azureus, a popular bittorrent client, happened to tweak when opening a lot of connections, hence the kernel panics that plagued azureus users for the last several releases. This, of course, should be impossible. But, the kernel is still immature, and hasn't had the benefit of years of tuning the way the mainstream server kernels have.

This has been demonstrated to be false. Kernel panics are quite possible. And they are as common on other OSes as they are on the Mac. Macs are not immune to kernel panics, nor are they more susceptible to them as you are trying to imply.

I won't even go into your claims about OS X VM performance. This has been something that I've been interested in, especially in relation to Linux since I this is my background. Know what? I've not found any benchmarks (real world or theoretical) that show OS X's VM performance to be abysmal compared to the competition. The onus is on you to prove your sources. And VM performance isn't important on a home server. Unless of course your VM implementation is completely and utterly broken to the extent of being absolutely useless.

The Mac Mini is a nice server. A server is more than the hardware, it's also the software. If the software is ridiculously powerful but is a pain to set up, you're up the creek without a paddle especially if you're a user who isn't very technically inclined (i.e. the average computer user) and has better things to do than go around hacking config files. OS X is fine for a home server. As such, the Mac Mini is nice for a home server.

 

[scruffy]

Depending on what you're doing, there is a very good chance that network will be your bottleneck for webserving, not disk, CPU, system bus, or anything else. If you're not running complex database action behind the scenes (and presumably he wouldn't be - you can't even dual-home the things after all...).

Even on much lesser hardware, you can easily saturate a T1 with very low-end hardware, and the server won't break a sweat.

Mac minis might be an interesting choice for failover/load balancing cluster servers as well - they're so cheap, it's not a big deal to add a few more to your cluster.

One more thought - why the heck are we arguing about the OS here?

For one - who says he want to run Mac OS on them? NetBSD, any one of a half dozen Linux distros - he could run anything he wants. The only interesting OS they won't run, is Windows or maybe Solaris.

Either he's asking whether the Mac mini is a good choice as a server compared to other Macs in which case any OS that will run on one recent Mac, will run on another; or he's asking whether it's a good choice as a server compared to comparable non-Mac hardware in which case he's presumably not going to run Mac OS or Windows, since either of those choices would have already dictated what hardware he'd be using.

 

[symphonix]

On the question of would you bother getting a second one to use as a server:
While I agree this would make an ideal light-weight server for your home network and maybe a low traffic website, I'd simply put the money into getting one Mac mini, an external drive bay and a 160-250gb hard drive. Whatever cash is left over you can spend on goodies, like BlueTooth keyboard and mouse, Superdrive, and so on.

On the other hand, if you do decide to setup a second Mac mini as a server, then I wouldn't bother "just putting Darwin" on it, I'd just leave the copy of Mac OS X that it ships with installed, enable remote logon and serving features in the system prefs, install a VNC server so you can take it over remotely, and leave it at that.

 

[contoursvt]

I'm more a PC guy than a MAC guy but this is my take on things. The Mini may make a good server if speed is not an issue. Afterall its probably going to be serving files and that hard disc is going to be slow so clock speed is not an issue. A 200Mhz computer could be a faster fileserver than a 2Ghz one if set up correctly. I also think the MAC mini might be quite reliable but I doubt the drive would survive constant use. I dont think laptop drives are that durable at least not for server duty.

I'm a geek at heart so when it came time to build a server, I decided to go oldschool. I setup a full tower case Inwin Q500 case with an Enermax 430W power supply. The board is an ancient Intel PR-FX440 dual Pentium pro motherboard with two 200Mhz PPRO 1meg cache CPUs. The board came with UW SCSI onboard already. I paid next to nothing for the board and CPUs. The case was used from a friend who didnt want a huge case anymore. I also purchased 1 Gig of EDO DIMM memory for $50 for the above setup. Finally added an ATA-100 controller and a pair of 200gig drives for data storage. A used 9gig 10K SCSI drive boots the system. Its incredibly stable and is a fast fileserver. Its also handling email, ftp, HTTP, DNS and Active Directory

The above system although used (except for the IDE drives) probably cost no more than a base model mini and has 400gigs of storage and I'm sure it will out serve it too. Its very quiet as the CPUs have large passive heatsinks on them. The system has huge upgrade capabilities. I still have room for 3 more hard drives in the 3.5" bays and can fill the 5.25" bays with hard drives as well if needed. This is way beyond the needs of any non geek person but Its nice to know that if I need to add more space, I dont have to mess with the server. I dont need to pull any drives..etc.

Two big downfalls are 1. Size and 2. Power consumption. About the size thing. Its huge and heavy! Moving this thing is not a good idea if you have not done your stretches in the morning Also with it plugged into my UPS, I can see that its drawing 150W. That is a lot but I guess there can be a price for absolute bulletproofness (I kow there is no such word).

The server has been for about 1 1/2 years running win2k server with no hiccups. It gets restarted from time to time if I've done some security update which needs a restart and thats about it.

As for the mini. I dont know how it will fare in terms of being on all the time. I dont know if laptop drives are tested in the same way. Will it be as reliable as a full sized 3.5" drive? I doubt it but it will certainly take up less space and make less heat and use less power.

 

[Arden]

Why would it being a laptop hard drive make a difference? A hard drive is a hard drive is a hard drive.

Imagine having a Mac mini server: you could stick it anywhere. You could hang it from the ceiling, string up a power and Ethernet cord, and be done with it.

Someone should add a poll to this.

 

[contoursvt]

If a hard drive was a hard drive, then 1u rackmound servers could easily be populated with tons of 2.5" laptop drives and then configure them as raid 5..etc. Just think how cool that would be. The fact that 2.5" laptop drives are not used in servers or at least of any kind that I know of, probably says that maybe they are not as reliable in the long run. . Even assuming that reliability is the same, a 4200rpm drive which is what comes in the mini is not going to be fast. Even though transfer rates are faster than that of a 100mbit ethernet connection, accessing multiple small files will be kinda slow on a drive with high access times.

I mean anything can be used as a 'server'. A laptop can be used as a server. That doesnt make it a great server or ideal for the job. The mini is not a very ideal server for its price. Time will tell how reliable it will be for that task.

 

[Sogni]

Um... excuse me, but...
Laptop hard drives are EXPENSIVE, and SMALL capacity!
Especially compared to ATA/SATA drives!

 

[contoursvt]

Laptop drives come in sizes up to 80gigs. Maybe even larger who knows...which is not that bad for a webserver for example. I'm also sure that there are uses for having a a raid 5 setup in a 1u chassis. If it was available, then people would buy it even if it cost 2x more than other 1u. Price never stopped anyone. If price was the only factor stopping people from spending $$, then apple would be out of business but obviously there are things worth spending $$ on.

 

[Arden]

Watch the thread hit a penny and derail...

Laptop hard drives use the exact same mechanisms to read and write data as every other hard drive out there. The difference is the size of the platter, and the connection type. You're not going to wear out a laptop drive from constant use anymore than you will a normal hard drive.

 

[Viro]

Laptop hard drives are also slower than standard SATA/ATA drives. A 7.2K RPM 3.5" drive is fairly common while a 7.2K RPM 2.5" drive is quite rare. Most laptop drives spin at 4.2K RPM. That makes them very slow, and the larger drives tend to max out at 5.4K RPM. You wouldn't put these in a RAID server.