Mac Mini as Media Server
Robidoux -- Fri, 05/16/2008 - 10:44
I am considering using an older Mac Mini as my media server. Does anyone have any experience using the Mac Mini in this capacity or have any pros/cons?
I am considering using an older Mac Mini as my media server. Does anyone have any experience using the Mac Mini in this capacity or have any pros/cons?
Unless you are getting it for VERY short money you may want to consider either a new one or an Apple TV.
The reason is the hard drive size in older minis is quite small, and when you add up the cost of adding a larger internal or external drive you've equalled or exceeded the price of new one with a larger drive.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Thanks for the response! I have a core solo sitting around and was planning on upgrading the hard drive to a faster (7200 RPM) and larger (160GB) and I also came across this article which I also posted. The thought is that I can not only use the Mac Mini for playing movies but could also use it for browsing online from time to time as well. Besides the slower mac mini's and smaller hard drives are there other reasons not to do it?
One other attribute that might be nice is the time machine with Leopard. By simply plugging in an external hard drive and a 15 second configuration, Time Machine would be a perfect backup for my media library in the event something goes wrong with my hard drive. I wouldn't have that with Apple TV.
That sounds like the way to go, but you may want to go with a larger drive. Its amazing how fast they fill up once you start burning your CD library.
an external HD, time-machine, and leopard will give you a nice server package. And , yes, it will deliver a level of redundancy you can't get with an Apple TV.
Sounds like you're ready to take the plunge...
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Yep, I think I'm ready, I was just curious if there was something I was missing.
Thanks!
How quiet is the Mac Mini?
(I'm looking for something almost dead silent as my media server)
Thanks,
Wolfi
The mac minis that I have used have been extremely quiet. I recommend going to an apple store to check out if it passes muster.
an old mac mini (g4 or later) would work nicely for a media server. the older mini's come with a 60gb drive in them which is plenty big enough to store the OS on it. then get yourself a nice NAS device or a drobo unit and store all of your valuable content in this. buffalo makes a 4TB nas device that you can configure it as a raid 5 device which would give you 3TB of actual data. this will aid in not exposing your data to a single disk drive failure that would normally corrupt your data. with a raid 5 setup, you can lose 1 hard drive and the unit will continue operating. all you have to do is replace the failed drive and the unit will rebuild itself in the background. the drobo unit is very nice also. the advantage of a newer mac is the gige capability which would provide enough bandwidth to support multiple rooms of audio and video.
even with a raid device, you can still get corruption so it is still wise to get an extra drive to backup your most critical info that you just can't lose. what you can do is backup your critical data onto a drive weekly then store the drive in a fire proof vault. cheap insurance with the cost of disk today.
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