I'm interested in getting like another G5 along side my iMac. I want to use it as a file server. I have tons of files and would like to save all of it onto that server so I don't have to save all of it to external hdd's and my SSD. Any thoughts?
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Cheap PPC for File Server?
- Thread starter OpTic Jayex
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May I ask why a Mac as a file server ? A NAS would be way better and is designed for this use... Personally, I have used a Netgear NAS, but Synology is popular too.
You can run maczfs on it if you install 10.5 Snow Leopard. That's a good start to file server. The downside is that the PowerMac was limited to 2 SATA drives natively. So you will have to invest in a SATA expansion card (not hard) and also mount the additional drives (harder).
The big downside is that you will be severely limited to what can run on the PPC. The universal binaries thing did not pan out a whole lot and most companies went to Intel only. iTunes stopped supporting PPC at <iTunes version> 10.6.
For ~$100 more you can find a 2006 Mac Pro, which will also suffer from not being supported officially by Apple anymore, but at least it still runs modern software and uses modern hardware. Not to mention it still has good processing strength.
You can do it, just understand the many limitations you will run into. Apple pretty much abandoned us PPC users when they switched to Intel.
The big downside is that you will be severely limited to what can run on the PPC. The universal binaries thing did not pan out a whole lot and most companies went to Intel only. iTunes stopped supporting PPC at <iTunes version> 10.6.
For ~$100 more you can find a 2006 Mac Pro, which will also suffer from not being supported officially by Apple anymore, but at least it still runs modern software and uses modern hardware. Not to mention it still has good processing strength.
You can do it, just understand the many limitations you will run into. Apple pretty much abandoned us PPC users when they switched to Intel.
If it were me and I wanted to stay in the Apple universe I would probably go with a Mac mini G4 using firewire external drives to raise the capacity for storage. The mac mini is way smaller, runs cooler and cheaper, and will fit nicely into your setup. Or, if you want to go cheap the PowerMac G4 will be your better option as they can be had rather inexpensively now. PowerMac G5 is expensive to run for a file server and will run hot, for this application a G4 would be better, IMO.
Sure, it would do the job fine. The only issue is the space it takes, and the cost. They usually are more expensive than the PowerMac G4 or some mac mini G4. Space to power to use the Mac mini G4 is the best bet for this use, IMO.
But if you love the iMac G4 for the design then this is a decent reason to keep one around.
Alright. I'd love to get a Cinema Display for the Mac Mini G4. They are expensive! There like at least 100 bucks for JUST the Display. I was thinking about getting a cheap PM G4 with an ADC port, and getting a cheap used Apple LCd display. Never owned one and would love to have an Apple Monitor. Thoughts?
Alright. I'd love to get a Cinema Display for the Mac Mini G4. They are expensive! There like at least 100 bucks for JUST the Display. I was thinking about getting a cheap PM G4 with an ADC port, and getting a cheap used Apple LCd display. Never owned one and would love to have an Apple Monitor. Thoughts?Sure, it would do the job fine. The only issue is the space it takes, and the cost. They usually are more expensive than the PowerMac G4 or some mac mini G4. Space to power to use the Mac mini G4 is the best bet for this use, IMO.
But if you love the iMac G4 for the design then this is a decent reason to keep one around.
A G4 iMac would work, but you'd be limited to two internal drives and 100Mbit Ethernet. Same with the Mac Mini, two drives and 100Mbit. For a cheap PowerMac, you'd want between the Gigabit Ethernet model and a Quicksilver. The MDD's could be used, but they go for slightly more. You can put many drives into any of those with some SATA cards. For a cheap screen, look into the 15" or 17" Studio displays. While small and old, the 17" still has a nice picture at a resolution that isn't too bad for the modern era. Both of those sizes can be found much more cheaply than the 20+ models.
What about Airport Cards? I can share my connection from my iMac to the Powermac via ethernet. What is the best model for me? ow should i set it up once i receive it?
I found one...
Alright, I found a solution. My sister still has her old eMac. It has a 1.25 ghz processor and only 512 mb or ram with Leopard on it. Still works but puts off a lot of heat. I can use this as my server because I have several external HD's I can plug into it. do I need Leopard or Tiger Server on it? Can I just use Leopard on it and configure it to be my server?
Alright, I found a solution. My sister still has her old eMac. It has a 1.25 ghz processor and only 512 mb or ram with Leopard on it. Still works but puts off a lot of heat. I can use this as my server because I have several external HD's I can plug into it. do I need Leopard or Tiger Server on it? Can I just use Leopard on it and configure it to be my server?
An eMac would work. They're limited to two internal drives, are loud, and generate quite a bit of heat with the CRT on. You can use regular Tiger or Leopard to share files with. Mac OS X Server would run on that machine, but I would advise upgrading its ram to the maximum before doing so. I also suggest not using the server edition unless you have a reason to use it.
Basically plug in the drives and check the file sharing boxes in the Sharing pref pane.
That's it? Dang, I thought it would be complicated. Cool! Thanks so much! I just don't want all my external drives connected to my iMac. I'm upgrading to Mavericks as we speak. Can't wait! How do I setup the computer so my iMac will recognize it as a server?
As long as the eMac is connected to the same network and has file sharing turned on, it'll show up in the iMac's sidebar and you'll be able to connect to it.
You don't want to do that. The NIC is on the USB bus, combined with the armv6 CPU makes transfers stupidly slow. I get speeds of 1.3 megabytes/s over SCP to an EXT4 USB stick.