Hi,
After having many issues researching to whether this would work i thought i would share my experience in turning a 2006 Mac Mini 1.1 Core Duo into a competent Plex Server.
After wanting to run a machine that performed as a headless Plex, iTunes and File server as well as a dedicated machine for downloads and uploads.
I investigated possible mac mini's / NUC's that would happily sit wired to my router and sit under the tv in view with the PS4 and Sky Box. I wanted it to look decent as it would be on show so was determined to do this with a Mac Mini, this would also mean i could serve my iTunes library to many devices and my iMac. I also wanted to do this on a relative budget which meant looking at the 2006 core duo's and upgrades.
After researching a great deal i had come up against a lot of threads and opinions that stated i would almost certainly need at least a 2010 or newer machine in order for this all to work correctly but i thought what the hell, lets give it a go.
I managed to secure a 1.66Ghz Core Duo 2006 Mac Mini for £50.00, a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo for £6.49 and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD for £50.00 all on eBay.
After swapping out all of the hardware i installed a fresh copy of Snow Leopard 10.6 which ran great but only to find that i hadn't researched software enough to realize that i had to run a very old version of Plex Media Server which wouldn't serve media to my iPad's and iPhone's in the household as they all ran the most up to date client. With a similar issue with iTunes.
So after researching further i started the task to upgrading the Mac Mini's software. In order to upgrade to Lion a Dual Core CPU is needed - check, 2Gb RAM - check, Firmware 2.1 -no check!
Flashing the firmware was actually pretty simple, i followed the tutorial on post 3 here - http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/296034-upgraded-mac-mini-11-late-2007-with-osx-106/
This was successful however the Lion installer still would not install, saying my Mac was not supported. This seemed to contradict everything i could find online which was very odd. So in looking for a different route i found this thread, specifically post 8 - http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/296034-upgraded-mac-mini-11-late-2007-with-osx-106/
This worked a treat which meant i was now running 10.7 Lion, which ran faultlessly but i wanted more! Although i could run a newer PMS and iTunes i wanted to run the latest versions. With this machine being headless i wanted to be able to remote client to it via Chrome RCD this meant i could connect to the machine from all of my devices, Chrome RCD would not run correctly on 10.6 and as i found out 10.7.
I came across MacPostFactor (originally called MLPostFactor). This is a great piece of software which will edit and install later OSX versions onto older Mac hardware with pretty much only one or two clicks.
I first upgraded to Mountain Lion which installed successfully however there was an issue with no 64bit Kexts being available for the GMA950 on board graphics. This meant although everything ran, the screen would constantly flicker making remote connecting to the machine it was pretty tough to switch from windows and generally use the machine - there is no work around.
I thought i would give Yosemite and El Capitan a go with MacPostFactor to see whether the issue was the same, worse or better.
I started first with El Capitan 10.11 but the installation was repeatably unsuccessful, this was also the same with Mavericks 10.9 but Yosemite 10.10 installed without a hitch. Even better the graphics although not perfect were far improved, no flickering of the screen. The only issue were that animations although were not slow there werent very smooth. I could easily live with that!
So after spending £106.49 probably 10 man hours in total (most of which is research, tasks above is probably only a total of 3-4 hours) i have a 2006 Mac Mini running 10.10, with the latest version of PMS and iTunes which i can connect to via Chrome Remote Desktop perfectly.
PMS has no issue in serving 1080p files/media to any of the two TV's, three iPads, two iPhones, a PS4, ATV4 and ATV1 with OSMC in the house.
I also painted the Mac Mini's case matte black when i was performing the hardware upgrades so it looks great sitting next to the PS4.
If anyone is thinking of doing this, its simple to do for most people and with great rewards considering the limited time and money spent!
Cheers
After having many issues researching to whether this would work i thought i would share my experience in turning a 2006 Mac Mini 1.1 Core Duo into a competent Plex Server.
After wanting to run a machine that performed as a headless Plex, iTunes and File server as well as a dedicated machine for downloads and uploads.
I investigated possible mac mini's / NUC's that would happily sit wired to my router and sit under the tv in view with the PS4 and Sky Box. I wanted it to look decent as it would be on show so was determined to do this with a Mac Mini, this would also mean i could serve my iTunes library to many devices and my iMac. I also wanted to do this on a relative budget which meant looking at the 2006 core duo's and upgrades.
After researching a great deal i had come up against a lot of threads and opinions that stated i would almost certainly need at least a 2010 or newer machine in order for this all to work correctly but i thought what the hell, lets give it a go.
I managed to secure a 1.66Ghz Core Duo 2006 Mac Mini for £50.00, a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo for £6.49 and a 1TB 7200RPM HDD for £50.00 all on eBay.
After swapping out all of the hardware i installed a fresh copy of Snow Leopard 10.6 which ran great but only to find that i hadn't researched software enough to realize that i had to run a very old version of Plex Media Server which wouldn't serve media to my iPad's and iPhone's in the household as they all ran the most up to date client. With a similar issue with iTunes.
So after researching further i started the task to upgrading the Mac Mini's software. In order to upgrade to Lion a Dual Core CPU is needed - check, 2Gb RAM - check, Firmware 2.1 -no check!
Flashing the firmware was actually pretty simple, i followed the tutorial on post 3 here - http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/296034-upgraded-mac-mini-11-late-2007-with-osx-106/
This was successful however the Lion installer still would not install, saying my Mac was not supported. This seemed to contradict everything i could find online which was very odd. So in looking for a different route i found this thread, specifically post 8 - http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/296034-upgraded-mac-mini-11-late-2007-with-osx-106/
This worked a treat which meant i was now running 10.7 Lion, which ran faultlessly but i wanted more! Although i could run a newer PMS and iTunes i wanted to run the latest versions. With this machine being headless i wanted to be able to remote client to it via Chrome RCD this meant i could connect to the machine from all of my devices, Chrome RCD would not run correctly on 10.6 and as i found out 10.7.
I came across MacPostFactor (originally called MLPostFactor). This is a great piece of software which will edit and install later OSX versions onto older Mac hardware with pretty much only one or two clicks.
I first upgraded to Mountain Lion which installed successfully however there was an issue with no 64bit Kexts being available for the GMA950 on board graphics. This meant although everything ran, the screen would constantly flicker making remote connecting to the machine it was pretty tough to switch from windows and generally use the machine - there is no work around.
I thought i would give Yosemite and El Capitan a go with MacPostFactor to see whether the issue was the same, worse or better.
I started first with El Capitan 10.11 but the installation was repeatably unsuccessful, this was also the same with Mavericks 10.9 but Yosemite 10.10 installed without a hitch. Even better the graphics although not perfect were far improved, no flickering of the screen. The only issue were that animations although were not slow there werent very smooth. I could easily live with that!
So after spending £106.49 probably 10 man hours in total (most of which is research, tasks above is probably only a total of 3-4 hours) i have a 2006 Mac Mini running 10.10, with the latest version of PMS and iTunes which i can connect to via Chrome Remote Desktop perfectly.
PMS has no issue in serving 1080p files/media to any of the two TV's, three iPads, two iPhones, a PS4, ATV4 and ATV1 with OSMC in the house.
I also painted the Mac Mini's case matte black when i was performing the hardware upgrades so it looks great sitting next to the PS4.
If anyone is thinking of doing this, its simple to do for most people and with great rewards considering the limited time and money spent!
Cheers
