PowerPC Servers

[lastmile]

If you're running a PowerPC Mac as a server please post pics of your setup, inside and out!

I'd don't have any to share at the moment or I'd start.

Since you're in a PowerPC forum at least some of you must be like me and have a tendency to upgrade computers as a "proof of concept" rather than something that's necessarily the most easy or economical route!

I'm working on some upgrades to an Intel iMac but I think my only "Power PC Server" right now would be a 1.42 GHz G4 eMac that I totally pulled apart a few years ago, thoroughly cleaned, and cut up just a bit to fit a PATA->SATA adapter and a 1 TB 5400 RPM drive. I wanted to see if I could get a SATA drive in it. Had to use a very small PATA->SATA adapter but it works and even at 5400 RPM boots pretty quickly. Its been awhile since I've done anything with eMacs so I could be wrong but I think I picked a model that could still boot OS 9. Just because. No pics because its in storage at the moment.

Some of the things I'd like to see, in order of age (and possibly ridiculousness):

1. PowerMac 6100 with Nubus SCSI card hooked to a giant, loud, hot, energy-sucking drive array.

2. PowerMac 8600/9600 with that odd mount on the bottom of that case filled with four drives. I think it could take four. I prefer the 8500/8600 cases but not much rooms for drives in them.

3. PowerMac G4 stuffed with four or more drives. No fair using a MDD, that's too easy!

4. G4 Mac Mini hooked to external drives

5. PowerMac G5 with G5 Jive or other method of sticking extra drives inside the case

6. Xserves and RAIDS! So nice looking but so loud! (So I'm told)

Bonus points* for fiber channel (for some reason I'm holding onto an old ATTO copper FC PCI card that is supposedly OS 9 compatible) and hardware RAID controllers.

 

[eyoungren]

If you're running a PowerPC Mac as a server please post pics of your setup, inside and out!

I'd don't have any to share at the moment or I'd start.

Since you're in a PowerPC forum at least some of you must be like me and have a tendency to upgrade computers as a "proof of concept" rather than something that's necessarily the most easy or economical route!

I'm working on some upgrades to an Intel iMac but I think my only "Power PC Server" right now would be a 1.42 GHz G4 eMac that I totally pulled apart a few years ago, thoroughly cleaned, and cut up just a bit to fit a PATA->SATA adapter and a 1 TB 5400 RPM drive. I wanted to see if I could get a SATA drive in it. Had to use a very small PATA->SATA adapter but it works and even at 5400 RPM boots pretty quickly. Its been awhile since I've done anything with eMacs so I could be wrong but I think I picked a model that could still boot OS 9. Just because. No pics because its in storage at the moment.

Some of the things I'd like to see, in order of age (and possibly ridiculousness):

1. PowerMac 6100 with Nubus SCSI card hooked to a giant, loud, hot, energy-sucking drive array.

2. PowerMac 8600/9600 with that odd mount on the bottom of that case filled with four drives. I think it could take four. I prefer the 8500/8600 cases but not much rooms for drives in them.

3. PowerMac G4 stuffed with four or more drives. No fair using a MDD, that's too easy!

4. G4 Mac Mini hooked to external drives

5. PowerMac G5 with G5 Jive or other method of sticking extra drives inside the case

6. Xserves and RAIDS! So nice looking but so loud! (So I'm told)

Bonus points* for fiber channel (for some reason I'm holding onto an old ATTO copper FC PCI card that is supposedly OS 9 compatible) and hardware RAID controllers.

PowerMac G3 Server, running OS X 10.4.11 Tiger Server. 1GB ram, wth Sonnet SATA card and two Netgear Gigabit Ethernet adapters. I have a 2TB RAID (Fantom Drives dock) that contains two 1TB Western Digital Red server drives connected via eSATA to the G3.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/server….2083135/

In regards to number 3…a few years back.

PowerMac G4 Quicksilver with 1.8Ghz Sonnet Duet (dual processors), 1.5GB ram, SATA drive controller, 3 video cards (to drive six monitors), a USB 2.0/FW800/400 cards, BT 2.0, DLSD via SATA. At the time it had around 2.6TB internal drives with two other 1TB drives connected via USB.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/quicksilver-beautification-project.1953562/

Currently, my main Mac is a Quad, again driving six displays. Has 16GB ram.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/quad….2032117/

If you click on the "6 Displays" link in my signature you can see my Quad and my G3 server.

 

[pl1984]

While not mine a friend of mine is still using his xServe G5 (RackMac 3,1) to run a small insurance business of his. It's a dual processor, 2.0GHz, 5GB RAM, dual 1TB internal hard disks. It has been running as a MySQL database since it was purchased new.

Unfortunately technology has moved while the OS it runs, Leopard, has not. Continuing to support new versions of MySQL have become increasingly challenging and he's migrating to Linux based systems.

 

[weckart]

PowerMac 8600/9600 with that odd mount on the bottom of that case filled with four drives. I think it could take four. I prefer the 8500/8600 cases but not much rooms for drives in them.

The cases are identical from what I can see. My 8600 has a truncated Logic Board with a black plastic strip where the missing three PCI slots were situated in the 9600.

I have a 9650 but cannot locate the original server software anywhere. Oddly enough, mine also spits out any 9600 install disk I have tried. I wouldn't have thought the firmware was any different.

The only server I run at the moment is a hackintosh despite having plenty of choice in the PPC Mac dept.

 

[Slix]

My iMac G4 (pictured here on the right) is running 10.4.11 Mac OS X Server. It runs locally on my network in my bedroom, and it provides NetBoot and NetRestore to Macs on my network, useful for setting them up with new Mac OS X images and NetBooting is super cool. It's also nice to use it for sharing installers of games and applications to the Macs on my network.

 

[pet84rik]

No pictures of my machine, but it is a regular PM G4@400 and I am using it from time to time as my ssh host. But sorry, Apple fans, no MacOS for this purpose, I am using a drive with OpenBSD (6.3 at the time, so - latest and greatest) with a few tools like emacs, clisp, etc. But to be honest, using this as a server is not efficient - speed is still acceptable, that is not an issue, but the power consumption is enormous. So, I am using it mostly for PowerPC sebtimental reasons :-D

EDIT: but the second drive is populated with MacOS X Tiger and it works nicely as a video editing machine (yes, G4@400 with 1GB of RAM and 720p video). I can use my MacBook Pro, but it is fun to sit down to a real machine and let it import 4 minutes of footage in barely 1 hour :-D