A true home network..Can I do this?

[Screamingbeaver]

Okay, I've got a small home network, Wired in the office, and wireless throughout the house. A couple of iMacs, a tower, a couple laptops, and yes even a windows machine.

My questions is this? Can I run an Xserve with OSX server, from my office, (downstairs) and netboot (obviously they would have to be wired) all the other machines, so that I could install all my apps on the server, so any mac I happen to be at launch them? Also run all our families mail IMAP style from the server as well? Rather than maintaining all 6-7 Macs individually, this would be ideal. Just setup the user accounts and permissions on each machine and everything runs off the server.

Can I do this? What proplems may I have?

Thanks
Beaver

 

[Kwyjibo]

search for netboot on the forums, it seems like its pretty complex to even setup but I guess it would be worth a try. I wish I was in a position to buy an xserve and experiment for ya.

 

[mnkeybsness]

you don't need an xserve. just mac os x server and a mac to run it on.

 

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by mnkeybsness
you don't need an xserve. just mac os x server and a mac to run it on.

Agreed. Buying an xServe to use at home does seem OTT! I would think u'd be better off buying an older dual G4 system and a copy of OS X server, something like a dual 533MHz I would think should be enough, maybe even a dual 1GHz Quicksilver (not sure how much they go for). Then with all that money you save from not forking out for an xServe you can fill out the G4 with RAM and disk drives, maybe even RAID if you wished, you'd still save a bucket load over an xServe, and it'd be a hell of alot better for home (no need for a rack, hardly any noise etc.)

 

[CMillerERAU]

I can attest to the no Xserve thing. We got one for our little college newspaper outfit and its been one noisy sun of a gun. And as a storage server, the dual 1Ghz G4's go to waste (well, not for SETI@home). Definately spend your money on getting a new mac and converting one of your old ones into the server.