In its target market (companies with up to 200 users), it is an outstanding performer and is also a capable utility server in a wide range of usage needs. The Mac mini with Lion Server is a real improvement on an already solid performer. From my point of view, the excellence of the Mac mini server is worth it. I have seen folks get the new Mac mini server to run Snow Leopard Server, but it’s pretty involved, and not something I’d ever recommend. Unfortunately, because of the hardware changes, you’re stuck with Lion Server on the Mac mini. In fact, currently, the only major weakness of the Mac mini with Lion Server is, well, Lion Server ( ), which, as I noted in my review of that product, is a good start on a major revamp, but has some serious issues. Nothing about FireWire prevents its use for managed storage.)īut these are not showstoppers. And FireWire is not common on remote storage with SNMP management. If you do have a storage device on FireWire, you have to have a dedicated application on the server to manage the storage. Yes, there’s FireWire, but there’s not a lot of managed storage devices with FireWire ports. One of the past problems of the Mac mini server was that you had only one high-speed interface for storage-the gigabit ethernet port. With the latest model, I’ve added a file server and a network home directory server to that list, and the reason is simple: Thunderbolt.
#2011 mac mini server software#
In the past, I’ve used them for Open Directory servers, security camera software servers, remote access servers-anything where I need a dedicated server for some task, but don’t want to spend a lot of money and need it to fit into my existing infrastructure. It’s a nice step in the right direction.Īs utility servers, Mac mini servers are quite awesome. So now, you can have a Mac mini server hooked up to high-speed storage either directly through Thunderbolt or through a Thunderbolt adapter like the SANLink, and still have the gigabit ethernet port free, which means that server and storage communication isn’t affected by other network traffic. For example, you can use a SANLink Thunderbolt to Fibre Channel adapter from Promise, and plug the Mac mini server into a Fibre Channel network that you’d use for, say, Xsan and StorNext, or to use the Mac mini server with existing Fibre Channel storage.
(The Mac mini still has a FireWire 800 port, four USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, and an SDXC slot.) Not only is Thunderbolt much faster than FireWire 800, it’s an adaptable bus, even outside of using it for a display. The other major change with the Mac mini server is the new Thunderbolt port that replaces the Mini DisplayPort.
#2011 mac mini server pro#
File transfers were performed with a 2.4GB disk image over a gigabit ethernet network, using a 17-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro with a 5400-rpm hard drive.-Testing by John C. Internal transfers were done via CP and the time utility.
Network transfers were via SCP without any optimization. Results are an average of six timed trials. Mac mini server with two 256GBSSDs (8GB RAM) Mac mini server with two 500GB 7200-rpm hard drives (4GB RAM) Benchmarks: Mac mini with Lion Server Platform
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