Mac Mini mid 2010 as a file server or any other purpose?

[johnkree]

Hello...
Now I have a Mac mini sitting beside my tv that was used as a media center but due to its low ram (2GB) it’s pretty useless and sitting around for years now. I like how it looks but I haven’t thought about it for a while now.
I read that it is possible to use it as time machine (have a 500gb ssd lying around, too) or as a file server. Maybe with own cloud?
I could upgrade the ram to 8gigs. Would this still work or is everything else just too weak for this task?
Someone would buy it for 100€/ 110$... I just don’t know what to do with it.

 

[chrfr]

Hello...
Now I have a Mac mini sitting beside my tv that was used as a media center but due to its low ram (2GB) it’s pretty useless and sitting around for years now. I like how it looks but I haven’t thought about it for a while now.
I read that it is possible to use it as time machine (have a 500gb ssd lying around, too) or as a file server. Maybe with own cloud?
I could upgrade the ram to 8gigs. Would this still work or is everything else just too weak for this task?
Someone would buy it for 100€/ 110$... I just don’t know what to do with it.

If you can get that much money for it, sell it.

 

[Boyd01]

I would also sell it and not look back. 2010 is just too old, slow and incompatible for my taste. But, of course, that is up to you. Otherwise, I believe Apple added the ability to use a Mac as a Time Machine destination with High Sierra. Can you run that on a 2010 Mini? I am using a 2012 Mini for that and had to Google how to set it up, it's not very intuitive! Apple used to sell MacOSX Server for this purpose on older versions of MacOS, not sure if that is still available. I don't know that 8gb would be any better than 4gb for that purpose.

If you just want a file server, turn on file sharing. I do this on my 2012 Mini and it works well also, I can just about saturate my gigabit ethernet with USB 3.0 external disks. But the 2010 Mini only has USB 2.0.

 

[mdgm]

The 2010 can take up to 16GB RAM (2x8GB), I think and is oldest Mini to officially support running High Sierra.

There was a big leap in 2011 with for the first time the inclusion of a Thunderbolt port and also for the first time some models had quad core CPUs. The 2012 added USB3 ports.

The 2018 is much faster and the new M1 runs silent most of the time.

If you don’t need to run 32-bit apps then the M1 would be an excellent choice for a new media centre.

I’m now booting an early 2009 Mini (CTO 4GB RAM) running El Capitan off a FW800 SSD and it feels like a much newer machine. An internal SSD would be even better.

 

[glenthompson]

Downside to it as a file server are the USB2 ports. A little slow for a lot of data, BTDT. However if your needs are minimal then it can do great as a Time Machine destination and as a file server. I have a 2012 with 2 4tb drives attached that I use as a media and backup server.

 

[mdgm]

You can put up to two internal SSDs in a 2010. As it only has SATA II (3Gb/s) ports, SATA II SSDs are the best way to go.

If you are not dealing with huge amounts of data and don't need to do large sequential transfers very often then the speed probably doesn't matter too much.

People talk a lot about USB2 being slow etc., but what really holds old machines back is a spinning HDD.

Yes, USB3/Thunderbolt will help achieve faster sequential speeds, but even over USB2 a SSD will do wonders for "random" reads/writes. For general use it is the slow "random" reads/writes of a HDD that makes a computer feel slow.

If fast performance was critical to johnkree the 2010 probably would have been retired years ago.

 

[glenthompson]

People talk a lot about USB2 being slow etc., but what really holds old machines back is a spinning HDD.

Yes, USB3/Thunderbolt will help achieve faster sequential speeds, but even over USB2 a SSD will do wonders for "random" reads/writes. For general use it is the slow "random" reads/writes of a HDD that makes a computer feel slow.

Most modern HDDs can saturate a USB2 interface. My USB2 speed is 60MB and most HDDs can do over 100 and some get close to 200. Yes, latency and seek time can be a factor but caches on the drive can mitigate some of that.

 

[mdgm]

Most modern HDDs can saturate a USB2 interface. My USB2 speed is 60MB and most HDDs can do over 100 and some get close to 200. Yes, latency and seek time can be a factor but caches on the drive can mitigate some of that.

You are talking about sequential read/writes. “Random” read/writes are much slower than that using a HDD. It’s the more “random” read/writes that make a computer feel slow unless you are copying a lot of data or working with huge files.