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Anyone using Mac Mini as a home server?

A

A4orce84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 17, 2012
431
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Hello Everyone,

As the subject states, looking for anyone who has made a mac mini into their home sever? I recently moved into a new home and I think having a central server (for photos, music, movies, etc.) makes a lot of sense. We are an "Apple Family" with MacBook laptops, iPhones, iPads, etc. to consume our media and surf the internet.

I am also in IT (DevOps Engineer), so originally I thought of setting up an Linux (Ubuntu) home server and going from there. However, looking at craigslist and online, I can find a few 2009-2011 Mac Mini's for less than $200. Specs are laughable these days: Core 2 Duo, 4GB of Ram, etc. but if I can toss some more Ram and upgrade the internal HD to a large SSD, maybe that's all I need power-wise for a small home server?

Anyway, I just wanted to ask and see if picking up and old Mac Mini (2009-2012) would be a good idea for running a home server?

Thanks in advance for everyone's time and help, it is greatly appreciated.
 
Depends on your needs. I bought the current version awhile back and tried it but it was just too weak for my needs and I returned it the next day.
Now I just use the PC I already own. I have a 5 bay drobo connected to it with 2x 8tb drives and 3x 4tb drives. Primarily a plex server but the drobo also holds all our photos and various misc files.
The PC has a Intel 5820 6 core CPU.
 
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Also work in technology. Yes, i have two Minis (both are 2014 models) i use one for a iTunes server..
It runs two separate libraries, one is for the kids and the other is for adults. I use a VM to run windows over the Mini for the second server/library. Both Systems have been upgraded with 2TB FireCuda hard drives and apple NVMe storage (256 and 512GB respectively) to provide decent performance (700MB/sec). All the data is sat on 2 Synology NAS devices that are set to replicate key data (not iTunes stuff).

The other mini is a kids play toy.
 
I use a 2011 mini as my home server. It's the slowest 2011 model with a 2.3 i5, but I upgraded it myself with 16G RAM and a 2T SSD. It's getting pretty slow for daily desktop use, but as a server it's quiet, low power, and all around great.

I remote desktop into the mini often, and the only problem is that the mini won't use hardware video acceleration unless there's an external monitor plugged in. Ideally I'd run the mini headless, but if I do that then it's nearly unusable with remote desktop.
 
So, is everyone saying anything older than a 2011 model (2009-2010) with Core 2 Duo is too old to be a decent server? Even after upgrading memory and SSD components?

Thanks again for everyone's time and help, it is greatly appreciated!
 
One mans "decent" is another mans unusable server - the workflow is always the key...
I wouldn't go anything less than a 2014 as the NVMe storage can offset many of the short coming of the dated hardware.
 
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I have a 2014 base model Mini (4gb RAM, 500gb hard drive) for an iTunes server - just runs iTunes 24/7 with homesharing, also have the regular Apple file sharing enabled. All my media is on a fast 4tb USB 3.0 drive and it's connected to gigabit ethernet. It works really well for this, I get about 100MB/sec using it as a network drive. I think the current base model is more than adequate for this. Every night Carbon Copy clones the media drive to another USB disk and I rotate between two backup disks regularly.

I previously had a base model 2012 mini for this, but upgraded it to 16gb and a SSD and gave it to my daughter's family last year. Overall, I think the 2012 is a better machine since the RAM is upgradeable and it just felt faster than the 2014 Mini, even when it only had 4gb. But my server use places very little stress on the Mini, so the 2014 is fine.

I would not go back farther than 2012 since it will only have USB 2.0 and that will limit your choices for fast, affordable hard drives. Shop around, there have been reports here of sale pricing at big box stores on the base model Mini for as low as $350.
 
uller6 said:
I use a 2011 mini as my home server. It's the slowest 2011 model with a 2.3 i5, but I upgraded it myself with 16G RAM and a 2T SSD. It's getting pretty slow for daily desktop use, but as a server it's quiet, low power, and all around great.

I remote desktop into the mini often, and the only problem is that the mini won't use hardware video acceleration unless there's an external monitor plugged in. Ideally I'd run the mini headless, but if I do that then it's nearly unusable with remote desktop.
Click to expand...

I have a 2012 set up similarly... but have it connected to a TV via HDMI... I don't use the TV monitor, as I always remote in, but it seems to have solved that issue...
 
dwfaust said:
I have a 2012 set up similarly... but have it connected to a TV via HDMI... I don't use the TV monitor, as I always remote in, but it seems to have solved that issue...
Click to expand...

I tried this a couple of years ago on my 2011, but it didn't work: the TV had to be powered on to get hardware graphics acceleration. I've had it connected to an old monitor ever since, but have a HDMI dongle coming in the mail that *hopefully* works.
 
My 2014 mini is hidden inside a cabinet in the dining room and connected via HDMI to a cheap Samsung 24" 720p screen for the times I want to watch movies in that room. I am like @dwfaust and generally manage it with screen sharing from another room though. Never had any problems with this, even when the TV is powered off.
 
Late 2012 mini here, running as a file/media server.

Literally just upgraded the internal HDD to a 1TB SSD yesterday. It's always had 16GB RAM so no issue there.

I have a further 18 TB of disk attached by USB. No, it's not horribly quick storage, but it doesn't need to be.

Hooked up via HDMI to my 4K set, but usually monitoring with screen sharing.

Placed my Photos library on the internal SSD, as well as my iTunes library. Sharing is now super quick for both, I normally watch slideshows of my vacation pics with music from my iTunes library on my ATV 4K, and that works very nicely indeed now.

I have not yet tried importing 4K videos into iTunes for serving onto the ATV at 4K, but I'll try that shortly. (Edit to add: works great! I have my ATV 4K hardwired to the network, which helps)

I'm happy. Would I like a new Mac mini to be introduced? Sure, but I have plenty of horsepower now.
 
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A4orce84 said:
Anyway, I just wanted to ask and see if picking up and old Mac Mini (2009-2012) would be a good idea for running a home server?
Click to expand...

You don't say what kind of duties the server will be doing. If it's just going to be a file server you probably want a 2012 so you can get large hard drives with a fast USB 3.0 interface.

Mine is basically a file server (media host and destination for backups), so I use large USB 3.0 hard drives. I also upgraded to 16GB, but that was a waste of money for my purpose--staying at 4GB would have been fine.

If you are going to interact with it a lot, I'd upgrade the boot drive to an SSD. If not, then the original slow HDD is fine--it's not like reboot times and application loading times are important on a file server.
 
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We are using a 2007 mini, hacked to run El Capitann (10.11.6). It runs Server 5.2. It has a 126GB SSD, and the DVD has been replaced with a caddy holding a 2TB hard drive. As well as TimeMachine backups we use it for iCloud caching and Fileserving. It also has a 1.5TB external Firewire disk. It runs iTunes with HomeSharing, and also the Ubiquiti controller software for our wifi.
All in all, going down the path of using dedicated equipment for the router, for wifi and for serving is much more useful and powerful than the all in one TimeCapsule.
 
I also have an i7 2012 with SSD and 16gb of ram. I have 32TB of external storage connected via usb 3. It performs the duties as central photos repository, itunes server, plex server, sickrage and couchpotato, and ubuntu VM admirably (for homebridge). My only worry is moving to HEVC encoding may cause some problems... So far x264 has been flawless.
 
wlossw said:
I also have an i7 2012 with SSD and 16gb of ram. I have 32TB of external storage connected via usb 3. It performs the duties as central photos repository, itunes server, plex server, sickrage and couchpotato, and ubuntu VM admirably (for homebridge). My only worry is moving to HEVC encoding may cause some problems... So far x264 has been flawless.
Click to expand...

Plex on Apple TV does HEVC, although I haven't tried it yet.

I'm pretty happy with the idea of serving up media to my ATV 4K from my mini over gigabit ethernet; it's turned out to be a pretty workable solution all around.

Overall, I'd rather encode to 265 though.
 
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smithrh said:
Plex on Apple TV does HEVC, although I haven't tried it yet.

I'm pretty happy with the idea of serving up media to my ATV 4K from my mini over gigabit ethernet; it's turned out to be a pretty workable solution all around.

Overall, I'd rather encode to 265 though.
Click to expand...
or just use infuse pro and not worry about encoding at all.
 
I have a 2010 Mac Mini with a 256GB SSD and 5TB internal HD on El Cap used for Plex and iTunes server and cloud caching. It is quiet, low power and does its job well.
 
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ihonda said:
What’s the purpose of this dongle? I don’t have anything plugged into my hdmi
Click to expand...
It responds like a monitor to set the display resolution to a useful value so that when you remotely connect to share the display you get a useful resolution rather than the minimum you would get without anything connected.
 
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