Can a Mac mini 3.1 be used as a server?

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Can a Mac mini 3.1 be used as a server?

Hi,

I've got an "old" Mac Mini from late 2009 that aren't being used for anything at the moment.

I'm considering using it as a server for my other macs - but before I purchase the Lion Server I just wanner make sure that it's up for the task.

It's already got 8Gb memory. I'm going to buy a 2Tb harddrive for it and a 2Tb usb harddrive - as far as I can read on other sites it should be okay with 4Tb harddrive. Does anybody have experience with this kind of setup?

I'm going to plug in an EyeTV as well to show recordings from that on my AppleTV through iTunes - Does anybody have experience with this kind of setup?

Any suggestion regarding choice of harddrive will be appreciated.

Regards,

Lars Hansen - Denmark

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Mac Mini 5.1

Posted on Mar 21, 2013 2:57 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 22, 2013 9:18 AM in response to LarsKHansen

You shouldn't have a problem. The Late 2009 Mac minis make really decent servers outside of the fact that storage can potentially be an issue if you need lots of it. USB2 might be a little slow if you have the need to be constantly moving a lot of data. For what it's worth, I use a Late 2009 Mac mini as our server for everything (mail, contact, calendars etc etc) but file sharing (which I use a Mac Pro 2006 to do this). This is how under utilized the CPUs are in this regard running Lion Server 11G63…

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Answer 2

LarsKHansen Author

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Mar 25, 2013 1:06 AM in response to infinite vortex

Hi Infinite Vortex,

Thank you for your answer - I'll get going on the internal harddrive asap 🙂

What about an external Firewire harddrive? Could that be a good replacement for a usb harddrive?

Regards,

Lars Hansen

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2013 3:30 AM in response to LarsKHansen

Firewire will work fine. OK, it's far from fast in today's USB3/Thunderbolt world but will work solidly and far better than USB2. Just be mindful of your possible forward compatibility needs if in fact you need to plug this drive into something else. Having said that there's a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter if you need it. I went for a couple of USB2/USB3/FW400/FW800/eSATA drive docks from NewerTech instead so I could plug in to anything (Mac or PC) and expect the drive's maximum performance.

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