Someone using a server today?

[boppin]

Hello everyone,

There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you all: do you actually run any servers at home or elsewhere? If so, for what purpose?

We don’t have any need for them anymore, since we got fiber-optic internet and our current Wi-Fi is more than fast enough. Apart from that, the only other thing I can mention is that a cousin of mine once wanted to set up a Mac server as an update server for his fleet of devices.

Thanks!

 

[drrich2]

The line between 'storage' and 'server' with NAS (network-attached storage) has gotten muddied quite a bit over time. I have a Terramaster F8 NAS with 2 4-terabyte NVME SSDs in a RAID I type array so effectively 4-terabytes actual storage. Bought this holiday shopping season 2025 before NVME prices over doubled. Picked it up not out of 'need,' so much as a desire to learn about and experience having a NAS and seeing what useful things I could do with it.

One thing I did was cherry pick several thousand photos out of my long-term digital snapshot collection and put them in a photos folder on the NAS that can be accessed via an iPhone app. from my phone or my wife or kid's phone (not that they care or ever have, but they could!). I also set it to backup my kid's iPhone photos.

I don't know if that rises to the level of acting as a 'server,' but it lets multiple devices access content without tying up a large amount of storage on each individual device.

I think I've also got the PDF versions of some family photo books on there.

It lets me arrange online access for files I wish to have accessible remotely, without having to make my Mac's SSD accessible online (or bother figuring out how to designate what's accessible and what's not).

If I were a home movie enthusiast instead of a snap shooter, I'd consider hosting personal videos.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I run a server for backup storage and for Jellyfin / Plex.