Mac Mini G4 (with Airport) as Server??

If g4 as the old PowerPC CPU rather the Intel version you can likely not get as much working

Plex media and nas == no problem

Remote login sure remote desktop and vnc and teamviewer would make that a possible

Which os would be up to the apps you would be running requirements

A server is mostly just a computer that run programs which are used by others across a network

If you use a G4 Mini, as a server, the newest model was a Late 2005; the RAM tops out

at only 1024MB, and a few other limitations may not be workable as a modern server.

To find & buy a server version of Leopard OS X 10.5.x may be costly, as much as $400+

or hopefully less; depending on how far you end up looking, or how long you look, maybe

less than $200. There are more than one version of Server that'd work in PPC however

the last version Mini computer shipped with Tiger OS X 10.4.x. So that means you'd need

to have a suitable server OS X version. It would run faster with original OS X 10.4.11

because it has less demand on the stock hardware configuration. OS X10.5.8 can dog; as

the hard disk drive will spin up, to compensate to use the file swap as Virtual Memory.

Since I have the last model G4 Mini in nearly top trim line, the main bottlenecks in normal

use while running OS X 10.5.8 are the hard disk drive spin rate; recommend an SSD or

a higher capacity (than stock) faster rotational drive, a 7200-RPM. And the RAM cannot

be upgraded past the single stick of PC2700 333 1024MB. The difference would be read

and writes to/from the hard drive as virtual memory and temp swap files. ...Busy work.

The best G4 mini has the 1.5GHz PPC processor, 64MB DDR VRAM, ATI Radeon 9200

graphics card, Bluetooth and wi-fi built-in (one card) and could use a faster HDD than the

stock 5400-RPM drive. The optical drive built-in was either Combo or SuperDrive; added

option was a 56Kbps dialup modem. Mine has Combo drive, and no dialup modem.

OWC macsales site has some Legacy Mercury SSD models for use in older computers

(laptop, and mini mac use about same physical size) and they also have external drive

components such as enclosures for FireWire, as files stored by the computer to another

local drive may need the better connection FW400 over the USB2.0; also FW can be

used as a place to store a backup full bootable system clone, if enclosure has chipset best

suited for use with PPC Mac OS X systems. Oxford-type or similar works in this regard.

The early core2duo Mac Mini may be a better choice as a server. Much faster thoroughput.

My G4 Mini gets some use each day and is set up across the room from my Late 2012 Mini

i7 quad core (server edition) 2.3GHz. For some tasks, it is almost as fast as the newer Mini.

Because Mavericks is the OS X in the newer one, running with only 4GB RAM, it can be

a curious comparison. The newer Mini was bought a year ago direct from Apple online and

was clearance. But not cheap. It is the last model a user can upgrade RAM and HDD/SSD.

And it can support to 16GB 1600MHz RAM in two slots; and has two hard drive locations.

In any event...

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

I recently dug out my old Mac Mini G4 (2005, 1GB) and decided to give it a whirl... still worked fine, except the PRAM battery was weak.

I also dug out a 320 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive and a Apple 85JCA Superdrive ($6, shipped from Ebay) that can write dual layer DVDs. Ifixit.com has instructions on how to change all these items. (Hint, pop the top off the Superdrive and clean the lens first).

The 250GB WD Scorpio is about 50% faster than the stock Apple hard drive, the 320 Gb Scorpio is about twice as fast. You can still find them on Ebay for $25 to $50.

I spent the last couple of days configuring the Mini to dual boot OSX 10.5.8 and Ubuntu Mate Linux 15.10 (hint, you need some magic boot incantations to make the video work properly and need to manually edit a couple of files to get the sound to work)

I did some testing on Ubuntu of a 92,000 line long C program that I wrote... It compiled just fine with gcc. It does a lot of floating point math, trig, and file I/O. I was shocked to see that it runs as fast as on a 3 GHz Pentium system.

If you are willing to do the work and learn a little Linux it makes for a decent server. This was the first machine that I had actually installed Linux on, my desired configuration was not at all something out-of-the-box-standard, and the G4 powerpc is not the easiest way to go Linux. But it does work. The only issue I have is video playback of DVDs is jerky for reasonably sized windows.

People also report using old G4 minis as servers using OSX without problems. Those upgraded hard drive should help even more.

Addendum:

Be sure when considering a replacement or upgrade hard disk drive or appropriate

solid-state drive, the type and physical size are correct for use in your computer...

Minor detail, overlooked when I posted (under assumption most would know) was

the HDD or SSD for use in the PowerPC (pre-Intel based Mac) architecture will

have to be an ATA/IDE (parallel ATA, not serial ATA) though some SSD units may

include an adapter. There may not be room inside some computer designs to fit an

adapter to convert SATA to (P)ATA/IDE. Also the dimensions of the drive case will

have some bearing on which replacement would fit and work. The hardware data

transfer rate on the logic board and the drive attachment to the board, should be

close; some replacement HDD or SSD can be backward compatible. Note details.

Good luck in whatever you choose... 🙂