Considerations: - max out the memory - add an external hard drive(or two) for RAID1 reliability. A second external for backups. - Secondary USB->100/1000 adapter for network fault tolerance, in case the built in network port goes belly up - USB->serial or remote KVM(vid/keyboard) into the box Great way to go if you want minimal space usage and easy to replace servers. Just need to make sure you have good backups. :) Wing. On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Joe Sporleder <joe at wacondatrader.com> wrote: > Any thoughts on the new Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server? I was always lead to believe by my local Apple dealer and mailing lists such as this one, that one needed a tower like a MacPro, or an Xserve for file i/o reliability because the mini's notebook sized hard drives couldn't stand up to the vigorous pounding that a server's hard drives would face. However, I'm also aware that there are server co-location providers that specialize in finding homes for mini servers, long before Apple came up with the pre-configured version of a Mac mini server. > > We are a small print publishing company, and I'm seriously considering the Mac mini server when I decide to move to Snow Leopard server in the near future. We average about 8 workstations that store files on the server via AFP, and we average about 2 dozen users that depend on the server for POP3 email access. Before the Mac mini server config, my other consideration was getting a MacPro tower, which now I'm wondering is overkill (our current server is a G5 tower that was retired from workstation duty and outfitted with some bigger hard drives). Shoot, for extra redundancy, I could buy 2 Mac minis with Snow Leopard Server and still be well under the cost of one MacPro with Snow Leopard Server. > > Joe > _______________________________________________ > X-Servers mailing list > X-Servers at listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/x-servers > -- Wing Wong wingedpower at gmail.com http://www.wingedpower.com/