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whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,695
4
Hello Mac peeps,

I am researching upgrading my work server situation. I could use some advice!

We just moved into a new studio that is wired with fresh ethernet.

Our current server is an old version Mac Mini (2.53 ghz 4 gigs ram) running OS X Server 10.6.8.

When working through ethernet accessing our files (usually 50gb and larger 3d modeling files) the server is a bit slow, so the habit in the studio is to copy to the local and work from the local hard drive. -THIS IS VERY INEFFICIENT! This workflow leads to so many problems updating the server etc...

We are a small studio of 3, all running macs.

My question is: what is the cheapest way to upgrade the server (either by upgrading the mini's hardware, software, or total server hardware replacement) so that the server will be fast enough to work directly off of?

THanks for all advice!!!!!

r.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,953
508
Inside
Is everyone accessing files on one hard drive on the Mini? Maybe make that hard drive into an SSD or split the files into a few different hard drives to balance the load. The Mini itself, excluding stock internal hard drive, should be more than enough to work as a duty server for that.
 

whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,695
4
Is everyone accessing files on one hard drive on the Mini? Maybe make that hard drive into an SSD or split the files into a few different hard drives to balance the load. The Mini itself, excluding stock internal hard drive, should be more than enough to work as a duty server for that.

Yes everyone ideally would be accessing one hard drive on the mini. The current size of our working folder is 500gb, though the active projects may be able to fit on a 100gb solid state drive.

Is the Hard Drive the real bottleneck?
r.

----------

another question...

would an SSD on the mini server be about as fast as a local hard drive? faster? slower?

also, the old 2.53ghz mini has a "serial ATA (3GB/S)" hard drive interface... too old for SSD?

thanks!

r.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,953
508
Inside
The hard drive is the bottleneck. An SSD on the Mini's internal SATA bus would be the fastest. You can put a second SSD on its optical SATA bus. The SATA II bus inside the Mini is fast enough to work well with a SSD on a gigabit Ethernet network.
 

whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,695
4
The hard drive is the bottleneck. An SSD on the Mini's internal SATA bus would be the fastest. You can put a second SSD on its optical SATA bus. The SATA II bus inside the Mini is fast enough to work well with a SSD on a gigabit Ethernet network.

Would an SSD in the server be as fast as a local HD?
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,953
508
Inside
It could be faster. A local hard drive would max out at about 100MB/s. A server based SSD on a gigabit Ethernet would max out at about +150MB/s. It'll even preform much better for multiple users than a hard drive.
 

whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,695
4
It could be faster. A local hard drive would max out at about 100MB/s. A server based SSD on a gigabit Ethernet would max out at about +150MB/s. It'll even preform much better for multiple users than a hard drive.

Very Interesting...

... would the SSD need to be the boot disk, or can it just be the storage disk?

r.
 

whyrichard

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 15, 2002
1,695
4
also, would an external hd be much slower then an internal hd?

thanks so much for all your advice and help!

r.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,953
508
Inside
The SSD would have to be internal, but not the boot volume. An external drive would be slower than an internal drive.
 
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