Colocate Your Mac mini

Pfhreak writes "Pure Static is already offering a service to colocate your Mac mini into a rack for those who want to set up a server on the cheap. Unfortunately, according to their FAQ, they're not planning on creating a Mini supercomputer. Which could be good news for those of you that are working towards being the first to set up such a cluster who have purchased a couple pallets of Minis, but haven't had time to finish setting up the cluster."

Comments

Imagine a Beowulf...

[bdesham]

...oh.

Never mind.

mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

mmm, chocolate mac mini

Re:mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, you're not the only one; I read it Chocolate Your Mac Mini as well.

Which is precisely why I'm posting this anonymously.

Re:mmmm

[liangzai]

Beware of the warning on some Apple products: Do not eat.

Re:mmmm

[Fear the Clam]

Me too.

Then, when I realized that I was wrong, I thought Why not? You could hollow out one of those 20-pound Ghirardelli chocolate bars they sell at Trader Joe's for $20 with a dremel tool and put the guts of a Mac mini in there.

But that would be wrong.

Re:mmmm

[natoochtoniket]

Chocolate, strawberry, orange, blueberry...

I wonder how long it will take Apple to start making mac minis in flavored colors?

They already make vanilla.

Re:mmmm

[tverbeek]

You could hollow out one of those 20-pound Ghirardelli chocolate bars they sell at Trader Joe's for $20 with a dremel tool and put the guts of a Mac mini in there.

Not quite the same thing, but it occurs to me that the Mini would make it much easier for me to create the Mac I've been wanting to build for a few years now: an OS-X-capable "classic" Mac. I have an SE case available, and the Mini provides a trivially-easy means of fitting the necessary electronics in it. All I need now is an affordable and compatible 10" LCD, and I can finally build my Mac SE-X.

Re:mmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be more like hot chocolate: Chocolate + G4 Heat = Melted Chocolate...just add milk and enjoy, but the mini might be a total loss.

Re:mmmm

[porcupine8]

Wow. A Mac SE-X and a chocolate mini. The computer world has finally started to respond to the needs of the female population. I'm in heaven.

Mac Mini Cluster??

[X43B]

I've heard from several locations how desireable it would be to have a Mac Mini cluster. I hope the submitter was joking because does that make any sense? For one the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 1GB, the processor is not 64bit and gigabit ethernet is not available. I'm not saying a sub $500 Dell is the way to go. You can by an Xserve dual 2.3Ghz G5 machine for $2300. I bet one of those would outperform five Mac Minis.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[X43B]

"Yeah, it may outperform, but it costs a lot more. Simple math, idoit."

1.) 1 X 2300 5*500
2.) when calling someone an "idoit", it would be best to spell it correctly

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[bano]

If you buy the base mac mini its $499
So 5*$499=$2495
How is that cheaper than $2300.
Idiot

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[EasyT]

If you're comparing cost per unit of storage or bandwidth (and even perhaps processing power), the Xserve is going to win. But for small businesses even a single Xserve may be excessive. If you instead compare total cost out of pocket, a colocated Mac Mini suddenly looks like a superstar. The colocation service linked to is potentially a great way for a small business with limited product demand to cheaply and reliably serve the internet.

If you want to compare againt cheap PCs instead of Xserves, size will likely be your issue. From what I've seen, all PCs priced cheaper than a Mac Mini are physically larger. Any colocation service would likely charge more for the additional space consumed.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[antifoidulus]

First, you are looking at the wrong stats. If you plan to run your cluster as anything besides a side show, heat/power concerns are going to be as big of factor in your cost calculations as the hardware itself. I don't know if the mac mini gives off a lot of heat but it's something to take into consideration.
However, the fact that you probably cannot upgrade the ethernet capabilities in a mac mini to even fast ethernet is probably the bigger strike against the mac mini. In a lot of problems that employ parallel computing, the network latency can be as important as the processor speed(of course, there are plenty of exceptions and plent of "trivially parallel" problems). The Dell is a bit more upgradable than the mac mini. Though it's not nearly as cute.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[X43B]

"But for small businesses even a single Xserve may be excessive."

Then it wouldn't exactly be a cluster, would it? It would be a single server. My entire post was in regards to a CLUSTER (see the title of my post, it doesn't say colocated server)

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Anonymous Coward]

No, 5*$450 = $2250 That is cheaper than $2300.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[cheezedawg]

1.) 1 X 2300 5*500

Actually, as other people have pointed out, you can get them for $450.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Lars T.]

Depends on what you want to do. If you run RC5-72 (for fun or for profit, or because you are TLA), a cluster of Mac Minis probably can't be beat, not even by a dual G5.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[EasyT]

Um, yes. I did see that the first line of your post referred to a cluster, but the second line of your post then referred to the submitter, who seemed to be (mainly) linking to a colocation site, and so I mentally started assuming you must be using the word cluster loosely, as "a number of similar things collected together or lying contiguous". I stand corrected.

Back on track now, let's look at your numbers. A 2.3GHz dual G5 Xserve for $2,300 you say? May I ask where you're getting that number? Looking at Apple's web site now, I see that same model going for $3,999. And even the low-end 2.0GHz single-processor G5 Xserve is $2,999. Both models support up to 8GB of memory.

I'm not arguing that Mac Minis' would make a better price/performance cluster, I'm just clarifying the numbers involved for anyone who wishes to embark upon such as argument.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Alrescha]

"However, the fact that you probably cannot upgrade the ethernet capabilities in a mac mini to even fast ethernet is probably the bigger strike against the mac mini."

What do you call 'fast'? The mini is 10/100.

A.
(everyone on my block calls 100Mb 'fast')

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Thing 1]

2.) when calling someone an "idoit", it would be best to spell it correctly

Heh, I thought his space bar malfunctioned and he was saying, "Simple math, I do it." (The unwritten part being "It appears that the fine gentleman I am replying to is incapable of mathematics.")

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[X43B]

"Looking at Apple's web site now, I see that same model going for $3,999"

I see a node going for $2,999, so if you are going to get technical, I was closer to being right. The fact that you chose the non node model proves you don't understand what I was talking about. Why would you have a DVD superdrive on a cluster node? That makes no sense at all. I referred to the submitter explcitly referencing a CLUSTER. I said I hoped the submitter was joking, yet my entire statement was about a cluster, no colocation. I made no mention of colocation or the submitters mention of colocation. I think it was obvious what the subject of the post was.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[antifoidulus]

First of all, there is something called fast ethernet, and secondly, I was talking about latency, not bandwidth. For instance, fast ethernet has about 1/10th the latency(startup time) of normal ethernet. 100Mbps is the bandwidth of ethernet.
Pretty much one of the first issues you tackle when you study parallel computing is that for small messages, latency is the real killer. Latency time is orders of magnitude more than the time per byte, and unless you are sending huge messages(which happens a lot less than you would think on most applications), latency time dominates the time it takes to actually send the bytes.
If you are interested, hop on over to amazon.com, check out a few books, fascinating topic. I took a class in it, and I have just seen the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Alrescha]

Ok, your wiki link says:

"Fast Ethernet is a collective term for a number of Ethernet standards that carry traffic at the nominal rate of 100 Mbit/s, against the original Ethernet speed of 10 Mbit/s"

Regardless of whether you were talking about latency or bandwidth, you were talking about Ethernet. So, what do you mean when you say:

"However, the fact that you probably cannot upgrade the ethernet capabilities in a mac mini to even fast ethernet is probably the bigger strike against the mac mini."

As as I said before, the mini is 10/100. According to the link you gave me that's 'fast'.

A.
(who is posting so much 'cause it was a snow day)

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Ohreally_factor]

Possibly your age is showing and you're not keeping your terminology consistent from one sentence to the next. This is confusing and makes it just about impossible to discuss anything. 100 Mbps = Fast Ethernet. The term Ethernet, used generically, can have speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps. The Mac mini uses fast ethernet, i.e., 100 Mbps.

You're correct to bring latency into the discussion, and I'm hoping you could tell us if there are major latency differences between the various ethernet speeds (I suspect there are, no I'm sure there are) and what those differences are. Also, what impact does the ethernet controller (or NIC as the case may be), it's design and it's chipset have on latency.

As I'm sure you're well aware, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the powerful clusters we read so much about is the high speed interconnects. Based on this limited knowledge alone, I'd agree with you that a Mac Mini cluster probably faces an insurmountable obstacle to getting any serious parallel computing done. But you can't make your argument if you get bogged down with incorrect terminology, even contradicting the very link you provide.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are interested, hop on over to amazon.com, check out a few books, fascinating topic. I took a class in it, and I have just seen the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, fascinating. You "took a class in it", while many here have been working in networking for many years and some even in parallel computing.

I couldn't care less what the wiki says or what you think it says. Ethernet comes in lots of grades, but mostly, ethernet is considered to have various bandwidths well below 100Mbit/s (most think it is 10Mbit/s, no more, no less. Most are wrong.), fast ethernet is 100Mbit/s. Yes, what do you know, the wiki is not that specific (ethernet on thickwire, tends to be 1Mbit/s and yes I have used it).

The Mac Mini, does fast ethernet.

Regarding latency in clusters, the system designer needs to take into consideration what will suffice given financial constraints. For some, 100Mbit ethernet will be fine, but then for others, specialized low latency multi-point interfaces are required (like Myrinet).

It seems you really have just seen the tip of the iceberg. Get your scuba gear on and come back when you are more clued up and less of a smart arse.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on what you want to do. If you run RC5-72 (for fun or for profit, or because you are TLA), a cluster of Mac Minis probably can't be beat, not even by a dual G5.

A Mac Mini is going to be lucky to have a tenth the memory bandwidth of a single G5. If your app is memory intensive, the G5 will be more economical. I think I would rather go dual Opteron though.

Take a look around the web for various memory benchmarks. The G5 is a MASSIVE jump on the G4. Then there are multi CPU Opteron boards which support NUMA, which can be closer to some much larger current day "big stuff" memory bandwidth. ~25 Gbytes/s.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Anonymous Coward]

I said I hoped the submitter was joking

Yes, I would not want to use Mac Mini's as clusters for what I do, simply because of the memory bandwidth restraints of the G4's they use.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[ArbitraryConstant]

For cluster computing, it's gigabit minimum. Preferably something better. For example, the Big Mac cluster uses Infiniband, a low-latency network technology.

100 is good enough for desktop use, and good enough as a web server, but it's not good enough for cluster computing.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[isorox]

when calling someone an "idoit", it would be best to spell it correctly

He did spell it correctly

A Doit is
1. A small Dutch coin, worth about half a farthing; also, a similar small coin once used in Scotland; hence, any small piece of money. --Shak.

2. A thing of small value; as, I care not a doit.

And iDoit is, naturally, The iApple iway iof ispelling idoit.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Anonymous Coward]

No, 5*$450 = $2250 That is cheaper than $2300.

You're forgetting the network hardware (e.g., switch and cables) you'll need to cluster 'em. That probably eats up the last $50.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Lars T.]

For some things you don't <i>need</I>memory bandwidth - including RC5-72. And the Opteron, sorry, sucks ass at it. <a href="http://n0cgi.distributed.net/speed/">See for yourself</A>.

Processor, MHz, #, Score (in keys/sec)
AMD Opteron 2420 1 9,547,969.00
AMD Opteron 1600 4 24,101,848.00
AMD Opteron 1792 2 9,891,998.00
AMD Opteron 2000 2 15,145,274.67
AMD Opteron 2200 2 15,099,050.00
PowerPC 744x/745x G4 1250 1 13,123,240.83
PowerPC 744x/745x G4 1333 1 13,918,160.25
PowerPC 744x/745x G4 1400 1 14,769,045.00
PowerPC 744x/745x G4 1416 1 15,045,897.00
PowerPC 970 G5 1600 1 8,360,235.00
PowerPC 970 G5 1800 1 13,147,178.00
PowerPC 970 G5 2000 1 15,057,412.00
PowerPC 970 G5 2000 2 28,715,624.55
PowerPC 970 G5 2400 2 31,000,000.00
PowerPC 970 G5 2500 2 33,962,933.71

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Libraryman]

the fact that you probably cannot upgrade the ethernet capabilities in a mac mini to even fast ethernet is probably the bigger strike against the mac mini. In a lot of problems that employ parallel computing, the network latency can be as important as the processor speed

You seem to be forgetting IP over Firewire. It may not quite be gigabit, but it is fast, easy to set up, and supported, by default, on both the hardware and the OS. Of course now you are free to complain that the mini doesn't support Firewire 800!

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Wesley Felter]

Firewire is not switched, so a cluster using IP over Firewire would usually be slower than using 100Mbps Ethernet.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Wesley Felter]

Of course, RC5 cracking is a total anomaly. It's the only application that the G4 is the best at, and it's not even a real-world application.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Alan Partridge]

Don't forget that the Mac mini has Firewire, and that OSX allows for IP over Firewire 400 at near GigE rates.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Alan Partridge]

It most certainly IS a real world application, thousands of people are using it right now. I myself have a couple of dual2.5Ghz G5s and a room full of P4 Northwoods eating RC5 keys right now.

And it's certainly not the only application that gains massive acceleration via Altivec.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Wesley Felter]

It most certainly IS a real world application, thousands of people are using it right now.

My point is that RC5 cracking does not accomplish anything useful. It isn't even entertaining IMO.

And it's certainly not the only application that gains massive acceleration via Altivec.

Sure, but those programs run faster on a G5. I think RC5 cracking is the only program that runs faster on a G4 than a G5.

I stand by the claim that for all useful applications, an Xserve G5 beats a Mac mini cluster.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[amanpatelhotmail.com]

But if you can find 10 people you know to go through a "free" deal, you can get your mac mini for free!. Check out sig.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[MemoryDragon]

There are various options, USB2.0 is fast enough to handle GBit Ethernet to a big degree (not fully probably but fast enough) then there is IP over firewire which is also very fast...

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Alan Partridge]

Clock for clock, maybe. But the 2.5Ghz 970fx is the dnetc RC5-72 champ in absolute terms.

Well, no-one would build a Mac mini cluster for REAL work anyway - if you happened to have 30 in your building you might try something with Apple's new clustering software.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[Pfhreak]

I hope the submitter was joking because does that make any sense? For one the maximum amount of RAM you can have is 1GB, the processor is not 64bit and gigabit ethernet is not available. Yes, I was joking about the mini cluster. Although, given that this is slashdot, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone do it just for the geeky fun of it.

Re:Mac Mini Cluster??

[EasyT]

The fact that you chose the non node model proves you don't understand what I was talking about.

Your assertion that I don't know what I'm talking about is entirely correct. But I'll continue on anyway. ;-)

You're right, the Xserve Node is the logical choice for a cluster and we should be referencing it if we care about any sort of serious comparison of an Xserve versus an Xserve's cost in Mac Mini's. You seem to feel that this is a no-contest win for the Xserve and that the idea of using Mac Minis in a cluster is a joke, correct. But rather than dismiss the idea outright, let's actually look at the numbers:

(Stock Config).. 1 XSERVE NODE........ 6 MAC MINIS
Price:.......... $2,999............... $2,994 (6x $499)
Processors:..... 2 G5s @2.3GHz each... 6 G4s @1.25GHz each
Memory:......... 512MB DDR400 ECC..... 1.5GB DDR333 (6x 256MB)
Storage:........ 80GB Serial ATA...... 240GB ATA Ultra (6x 40GB)
Bandwidth:...... 2,000 Mbps (Dual Gb). 600 Mbps (6x 10/100 BASE-T)

So for processing power, the Mini cluster takes the lead, although certain situations may exist where the G5s could outperform the G4s as the Xserve has an impressive system bus that gives it additional performance gains not reflected in the above numbers. For memory, the Minis' take a clear and commanding lead in quantity, but they lose in memory access speed. Also additionally unlisted in the above chart is the Xserve's superior memory bandwidth. Moving on to storage space, the Minis win a dramatic hands-down victory, but they then lose out badly in the network bandwidth department. But on the whole, the Minis appear to be standing up well in many areas.

But the tides can turn if you want to max out some of the available build-to-order options. For example, this is what you get if you max-out the RAM in an otherwise stock configuration:

(Maxed RAM)..... 1 XSERVE NODE........ 8 MAC MINIS
Price:.......... $6,849............... $6,592 (8x $824)
Memory:......... 8GB DDR400 ECC....... 8GB DDR333 (8x 1GB)

With equal amounts of RAM, slightly better access speeds and superior memory bandwidth, the Xserve now clearly out-performs the Mini in this area.

If we decide we value storage space enough to maximize our HDs in otherwise stock configs, we get these numbers:

(Maxed Storage). 1 XSERVE NODE........ 6 MAC MINIS
Price:.......... $3,449............... $3,294 (6x $549)
Storage:........ 400GB Serial ATA..... 480GB ATA Ultra (6x 80GB)

Now the Xserve is still behind, but not by much. (For this case, "maxed out storage" only refers to the maximum storage I can BTO from Apple's web site. It should be noted that the Xserve can theoretically top out at 1.2TB. It should also be noted that I'm not bothering to compare to the terrifying capacity of the Xserve RAID. I mean geez.)

Of course, these adjustments to the stock config require us to imagine that we value these specific features that favor the Xserve in a comparison. But depending on our task, we may not actually place such a high value on these things and instead lean back towards the stock config. For example, if we say we value raw computational power over these other considerations, the Mini may still stand up well. After all, it's got GHz on its side, while the Xserve has the stronger architecture and system support. I'd personally love to see real-world task performance comparisons.

In conclusion, after this analysis I hope most will agree that while the Xserve remains a sensible choice, the Mac Mini delivers such surprising value for its size and power that the very idea of a Mac Mini cluster need not necessarily be written off as a joke.

(This whole thread reminds me of the age-old question "Which would win in a fight: A Rottweiler, or a Rottweiler's weight in Chihuahuas?" But that's a comparison for another day.)

I can't resist....

[fm6]

...giving a blurb for my former employer Hurricane Electric, even though I despise the idiot who owns the place. They'll rent you cabinet space that is probably not much more expensive than a MacMini "condo". And they provide 24/7 human intervention for free, something MacMiniColo charges extra for.

Also, I'd wonder about any colo facility located in a former bank vault. It sounds cool, but it doesn't strike me as a very cost-effective place to put a data center.

Re:I can't resist....

[Yaztromo]

Also, I'd wonder about any colo facility located in a former bank vault. It sounds cool, but it doesn't strike me as a very cost-effective place to put a data center.

It would also be a complete bitch to run cables into it.

Some years ago I worked for an ISP that had taken over part of an old medical office building that had been renovated (somewhat). There was this one great room with an opening in one inner wall where there used to be a window which we used as the server room.

Everything was great until the day when the VP of Technology decided we should run some cable through the wall, and took a screwdriver and tried to hammer it through the wall. Clang -- he hit solid metal, and couldn't get through. As it turned out, the room used to be an X-ray chamber, and had 1/4" of lead from floor to ceiling in each and every wall.

On the bright side, it was nice to know our server room would have probably survived a distant nuclear blast ;).

Yaz.

Why?

[NardofDoom]

The Mac OS is 90% of the experience of owning a Mac, and having the hardware is the other 10%. And what's the point of having a server that's also pushing a GUI?

Colocate a Linux server, which is almost made to be administered remotely. Macs are made to be seen, used, and not heard. Unless you're running Garageband or iTunes.

Re:Why?

[moosesocks]

OS X is essentially FreeBSD with a pretty GUI on top.

Install OS X server, and you've got a top-notch backend with a beautiful / easy to use graphical frontend that you can either access via VNC or apple's remote server administration utility (not a remote desktop, but rather, a remote control panel). People use Windows 2003 because it provides a decent feature-set while being easy to use. Linux is obviously more featured and secure, but is a PITA to use. OS X Server takes the best of both worlds.

When the system's just sitting there, the GUI isn't using many resources -- RAM would be the only concern I see here, and chances are that most of the GUI stuff would be the first to be swapped to disk.

My biggest peeves here are the Mini's hardware specs. 256mb of ram just won't cut it for a server, and no sane person would run a server without RAID or some other form of redundant backup. Of course, you could set up two minis in a load-balancing configuration, and then you've got much more redundancy than you would get with one server running RAID.

Re:Why?

[hkb]

OS X is essentially FreeBSD with a pretty GUI on top.


Actually it's Mach, with a BSD-like environment on top of it, including most of its userspace coming from FreeBSD.

It's really nothing like FreeBSD in the kernelspace, and is in fact, quite a bit slower than FreeBSD.

Re:Why?

[sootman]

"no sane person would run a server without RAID or some other form of redundant backup."

Obviously a Mini is not server grade hardware. "Serious" people start with redundant discs, move on to redundant power supplies, and go from there. The mini is just a cheap way to go for some fun. As for backups, that's why God gave you a network:
-----
$ crontab -l
0 1 * * * tar zcvf ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz ~/public_html/*
0 2 * * * scp ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz me@some.other.server:~/backups/
0 3 * * * rm ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz
-----
SSH keys are your friend!

---posted from a G4/1.25 GHz mini with 256 MB RAM that is also serving a few small sites via DSL

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

god dammit, do we have to go through this every single time? you don't have to split hairs. it's fucking UNIX. uname, bash, uptime, it's all fucking here. if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's UNIX, OK?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say it wasn't a *nix, just that it's not FreeBSD.

Mac OS X is a great desktop/workstation *nix, but Linux or *BSD are much better choices for a server OS.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except we are talking about high speed clusters here. Who cares if it has uname and uptime, it needs to has the numbers where it counts.

Re:Why?

[djdavetrouble]

I know why. Mac people are rabidly pro mac to the point of wierdness. Case in point the studio manager at the company that I work for. He won't even let a non-mac RIP into the room for his plotters, so now he is doomed because this rip software he uses for the plotters _still_ only runs on os9 machines. This means right now he is stuck on old hardware, which means slower RIPs. We could have been using an EFI Fiery, that runs on custom wintel boxes, and it would run circles around what he is stuck with. The funny part is that he is operating this mac only enclave in a Novell 5.5 environment that has almost hostile file services for the mac, and no print services. He has a ghetto file server in the corner with some of those big LaCie's attached since the company servers are so sketchy (AFP over Appletalk via Prosoft). Viva beauracracy. Even the host for his ftp site is one of those mac rack places.
(written on a PowerMac G4)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

$ crontab -l
0 1 * * * tar zcvf ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz ~/public_html/*
0 2 * * * scp ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz me@some.other.server:~/backups/
0 3 * * * rm ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz

I hope you're scheduling that so that all three fall on the same side of midnight.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, yeah, MAC people are idiots.

Re:Why?

[x736e65616b]

Well duh - that's what the first two fields (0,[1-3]) mean.

The important part is, though, that the backups and copy operations take = 59 seconds to complete. :)

-j

Re:Why?

[b1t r0t]

Actually, the copy operation taking more than 59 seconds isn't a problem. On any "normal" Unix system, the file isn't actually deleted until all users of it are closed, which is something that a lot of script kiddies don't know when they try to delete the system log. All rm does is remove the directory entry and decrement the link count in the inode. I haven't tested it, but I think HFS+ under OS X also has this behavior.

Re:Why?

[sootman]

I think I have it set for 59 minutes...
0 1 * * * tar zcvf ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz ~/public_html/*
0 2 * * * scp ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz me@some.other.server:~/backups/
0 3 * * * rm ~/`date +%Y-%m-%d`.tgz
the zeroeth minute of the first, second, and third hour of the day. or do I have that all backwards...
in any case, I'd make a script that did one, the other, and the next thing, and just call that script, rather than have 3 cron entries.

Can you really trust a company...

[tdemark]

...who has the following in their welcome Flash movie?

The site is overloaded.
you loose paying customers.

Emphasis is mine. Lack of capitalization and bad spelling is theirs.

Re:Can you really trust a company...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, they are much smarter than you think. The capitalization is *clearly* a tribute to the great poet e e cummings. Don't tell me you haven't read him! As for the word "loose", yes unfortunately this word is commonly a misspelling of "lose", but don't let that influence your interpretation of Pure Static's masterpiece of word play. Let's check the dictionary: loose - To untie or unbind; to free from any fastening; to remove the shackles or fastenings of; to set free; to relieve. The meaning conveyed by Pure Static is "unleash". Therefore, a translation of their bon mot into "simpleton's english" would be:

The site is overloaded.

The competitor's site is overloaded. Paying customers are turned away, their desire extinguished like a flame in a sheet of rain, washed down a mountain and dashed against the rocks.

you loose paying customers

But when customers visit your Pure Static-hosted site, they become paying customers. In fact, your site is so powerful, so masculine, it literally invites a torrent of payment from the unsuspecting site visitor, a powerful inverse of the unfortunate cretin who visited the competitor's so-called site. Essentially your site looses paying customers from the void.

Sometimes the low level of Slashdot discourse shocks me.. but not often.

*sniff*

Uhm, okay yeah it's a bunch of ex-graphic design wankers who got high on microwaved CD-ROMs and had a crazy idea for a hosting company. Cut them some slack, 'kay?

Re:Can you really trust a company...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can no one on /. spell "lose"?
It's driving me crazy.
You lose your glasses.
You loose an animal.
Simple really

You'd have to be pretty desperate

[Cmdr-Absurd]

The mini is NOT server-grade hardware.
from the FAQ

What about hardware failure? In case of hardware failure we will repair the units. However they are your units and you will be charged for the repairs.

How often will that happen if they put a bunch of these in a rack togeter? laptop drive running 24/7.... hmmm. In an encloded space jammed up against other minis.... hmmm. seems like a bad idea to me. Better to get a used xserve.

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[superpulpsicle]

Mac minis are the most overrated piece of garbage. I can understand iPod getting the attention, it's a good product overall.

The PC shuttle, being ultra tiny, came out years ago. It got zero attention compared to the Mac mini. People are just being biased, clapping over anything coming out of Apple.

The shuttle was equally as small and even more customizable. I don't think slashdot even had 1 article on that. Size doesn't really matter, the Apple logo matters.

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[TheRaven64]

I just got an email from the company addressing these two concerns. Firstly, they are in a wire grid maximising air flow around them - which should alleviate the cooling issue. Secondly, they allow external disk drives to be connected for $5/month or $7.50/month if you require a power outlet. Since OS X can boot from a FireWire disk, there is nothing at all stopping you from buying a 320GB 7,200RPM disk and leaving the internal disk turned off.

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[Cmdr-Absurd]

I would not trust a firewire-attached disk for server usage and that solutions requires an extra finacial outlay for both the disks and the 'rent' in the space they take up. If it were me, I'd still go with a used xserve over a mini. But like I said "if you are desperate..."

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[Anonymous Coward]

The differences are there, though.
A shuttle is still (or rather, was more strongly when first introduced) a barebones system. The mini is simply missing a keyboard/display/mouse, not a cpu, RAM, hard drive, et cetera.

Also, by comparison, the shuttle is large. I don't honestly know how large the current gen shuttle, but having been around both minis and MY shuttle pc (first gen) I know that the volume of the shuttle is enough that more than 2 minis could occupy the same space. Also, they're considerably lighter.

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[jbplou]

how about the fact your paying $30+ to have an inferior server. I would rather pay for a linux, bsd, or windows shared hosting plan for $5 - $10 a month. Lets face it Mac is just a hobbiest computer.

Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate

[fnj]

The shuttle was equally as small [as the Mac Mini]

Man, you must have found some wicked strong crack. I have a Shuttle, and it measures 7.25x11x7.75", which is 618 cubic inches. The Mac Mini is 6.5x6.5x2, which is 84.5 cubic inches.

The Shuttle is 7.3 times the size of the Mac Mini.

Even my custom Mini ITX system is 8.5x11x2.5", which is 234 cubic inches -- way, way bigger than the Mac Mini.

It's very simple. There is no PC even remotely comparable to the Mac Mini. Period.

Running OSX without GUI

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to run a Mac without the overhead of a gui using the included OS?

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Cmdr-Absurd]

quite possible. xserves ship without video card by default now. You can do all you setup via the command line and use ARD to do gui stuff if you want... or just stick with the cli. Apple publishes a very nice cli reference manual.

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Puggs]

yes

login as '>console' as the user

i may have the details slightly wrong, but ive been up for 30hrs, so please forgive me for not checking.......

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Lars T.]

What overhead? A few percent when you actually use the GUI.

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Ohreally_factor]

Apple publishes a very nice cli reference manual

You don't have a link, by any chance?

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Apple publishes a very nice cli reference manual

You don't have a link, by any chance?

Command-Line Administration

More docs

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Ohreally_factor]

Thanks!!! You just made all the time I waste on slashdot actually useful!

Re:Running OSX without GUI

[Cmdr TECO]

The missing piece of the puzzle is the commands systemsetup and networksetup. These are the only non-GUI way to administer certain things, and they are not included in plain OS X, only Server. However they are free downloads from Apple, though in a slightly roundabout way, as detailed on Mac OS X Hints: they are inside ARDAgent.app in the Apple Remote Desktop 2.1 Client.

run away!

[bill_mcgonigle]

...giving a blurb for my former employer Hurricane Electric

I used to use these guys in the '90s. They screwed up the billing, claimed my CC# was giving an 'error code' (it wasn't, it was fine for everthing else) and instead of doing something like, say, calling me on the phone, they deleted all my files and canceled my account without notice.

Buyer beware.

Re:run away!

[TheRaven64]

Can you recommend a decent, yet reasonably priced, alternative? I was recently looking at FreeBSD shell accounts (my current server runs FreeBSD, and I like it, but the network connection and power are somewhat unreliable to the building it's in) and they were at least double the price of the Mini in TFA.

Re:run away!

[Anonymous Coward]

Be clear on that it was the Hurricane Guys that you used in the 90s

Re:run away!

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm currently using 1&1 and so far, so good.

If you get the root server account ($50/mo) you have your own machine so you could install FreeBSD or whatever you want on it. The rescue disc image is debian linux though, so you'd have to be conversant with that for dealing with a crashed filesystem (and sure that the resuce disc has the appropriate filesystem modules on it for your FreeBSD partitions).

Really though, if you're just interested in a shell account there's not a heck of a lot of difference between a FreeBSD and a Linux shell account (and we're happy about it!).

Re:run away!

[fm6]

Do you absolutely need FreeBSD? Unless your needs are very special, you can probably adapt to Linux, and that's what most inexpensive hosting providers run. It doesn't make sense to restrict your options just to avoid a little relearning.

I use Dreamhost, mainly because they have good uptime and connectivity. (I do have issues with their lag in software updates.) But there are a lot of decent providers out there. To separate them from the (also numerous) flakes, you need to ask questions. If it's not on their web site, email them: How many people do you have? What kind of turnaround can I expect for support requests? What kind of network connections (it had better be plural) do you have? How much downtime have you had?

Re:run away!

[Rolan]

CSoft is who I've been with for years. Never had a problem. For $5/month you can get a shell account with 700 MB of storage.

Re:run away!

[bedessen]

Paul Vixie mantains a list of people offering inexpensive 1U colo services. You might start there and then try to search for testimonials or experiences with any that seems like good deals.

You should also check out the advertising forums on WebHostingTalk.com, where you will find many, many good deals on dedicated servers, colo, VPS, shared, etc.

The prices of the service listed in this article are, quite frankly, laughable. Their cheapest plan would be $43/month for a paultry 50GB of traffic. For around $50 to $75 you could get either a full 1Mbit (approx 316GB/month) 1U colo, or you could rent a dedicated server with probably a couple hundred GB metered. And in the latter you don't have to buy a machine.

For the $25 to $50 range get a VDS. You get all the control of a dedicated machine, without the cost. And you could most definitely do a heck of a lot better than a measly 50GB a month for a $40 or $50 VDS.

I just don't understand why you'd want to colo a mac mini. The small, sexy design is meaningless if it's locked in a datacenter, so you might as well just get a standard 1U server and be done with it. You have MANY more options for hosting a 1U or 2U server than some dinky little mac mini. Competition = better deals.

no GUI needed

[bill_mcgonigle]

And what's the point of having a server that's also pushing a GUI?

The login screen doesn't eat many cycles sitting idle, but you could disable it in inittab if you wanted to.

You can do just about everything at the command line but I usually leave a VNC server running because it's just faster to do some things that way.

Not that there's anything wrong with a linux server, which you can rent for next to nothing.

and once the condos are full...

[rc3105-Riley]

they dissapear w/o a trace, except for the $299 "buy it now" mac mini ebay listing (qty 5,000)

*wonder if co-lo xbox condo's are marketable. $150/unit + softmod + gentoo...

Proof of Concept?

[blew_fantom]

i suppose making clusters and such would be a fun experiment, especially if the benchmark figures show that its competitive with other cluster farm arrangements relative to cost of ownership and operation and other financial figures. but it seems as tho apple's target market for the mac-mini IS NOT the server market. i think that much is clear. the hardware is nowhere near server grade. apple isn't THAT stupid. why would they try to cannibalize their x-serve or even the G5 market? that is not to say, the mac-mini isn't useful. if you had to recommend something to your parents something that was non-MS reliant (less work for you what with the maintenance and all), the OS is stable (BSD woo hoo!), and it looks darn cool so your parents are the envy of all their friends, AND it comes in that "cheap" (hidden costs notwithstanding)... the mac-mini is for you. tho, if wal-mart or costco started carrying the mac-minis, then you know fo' sho' Jobs lost his marbles.

you know..

[outZider]

This is a blatant advertisement.

My take on Mini-as-server...

[Bug-Y2K]

Speaking as the guy who runs the oldest and largest Macintosh colocation facility on the Internet. (outing myself on /.)

I think, the form-factor is great. However, that said they would make a lousy server. It has a very slow, laptop HDD not at all optimized for use 7/24. They are not equipped with an adequate fan for cooling the unit if packed densely (like the photoshoped up "condo" on the Pure Static website.) If packed that tight, I bet the MBTF of the drive (and other components) drops to under two months or something insanely short like that.

Google "IBM Deskstar drive failure" to find out when non-server spec drives are used in a 7/24/365 environment

The final remaining issue with the mini-as-server idea is the external power brick. Wall-warts are the bane of any server installation. Very tough to work around. Potential fire hazard if not handled properly.

...

All that said, I expect we will see some clients who send us Minis to colo. We will probably treat them like we did iMacs & G4 Cubes - Put them on well ventilated shelves, in open racks. NOT pack them tight in a cabinet.

And with the Mini, just like the companies that popped up claiming to be "the place" to colo your [G4, Cube, Xserve, insert Apple product here] in the end, digital.forest will still have more of them colocated. Why? We have been doing it longer, have a better facility, and better support. We have knowledgeable systems administrators ON SITE 7/24, who understand MacOS, MacOS X, as well as other UNIX flavors and Win32. We are in our 11th year, opening our third facility. We are a known quantity, with a reputation for quality. Not just some guy who registered a domain name on January 12th.

However... all this interest in using them as servers should be a big honkin' clue to Apple!
They need to make "Xserve Lite" 1U - 18" X 18" X 1.75"
one or two drives
one 64-bit pci slot (for an FC card)
1 usb port front and one in back
ditto firewire
built-in video
(low-end admins need video... lame I know, but check the lists and forums about how many people freak when their G5 Xserve arrives sans video card)
Ideal would be video front and back, ala the Dell servers
No need for the goofy split case of the Xserve (I have seen two fall apart in a rack)
No need for those gawd-awful "whack a paddle/kill the server" drive sleds. (I want to find the engineer in Cupertino who designed this and beat them senseless - with one of these lame drive sleds! Sure, they look nice, but they are functionally worthless. Except perhaps as a blunt object to beat people with.)
$1000 price point.
"workgroup server" or "lightweight web server"
No need even for OS X Server, just MacOS
An option to buy Server if you need filesharing for more than X users.
If there really is a market for people to shoehorn an low-end DESKTOP machine into a server role... then Apple should address it. Especially something as ill-suited to server work as the Mac Mini.

--chuck goolsbee
vp tech ops
digital.forest
seattle, wa

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Ohreally_factor]

Hey, I was going to contact you guys about colocating my iPod Shuffle, but I was afraid you might eat it.

Thanks for the info and insights, especially re: suitability. This brings to mind the other "mini project" of creating a "media server" that seems to be motivated because the mini looks like it could be a media appliance. I'm sure people will come up with some cool uses, but in some cases they're going to end up spending more money for less solution.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Bug-Y2K]

Send us your Shuffle! I hear they are quite tasty!

--chuck

______________________________
all Ihr Mischen gehören zu uns

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Johnny Mnemonic]

You forgot the 10/100 NIC. For God's sake, people: the mini is not meant as a server, and if you use it as one I fear that you'll get bummed on the Mac experience in general, decrying the "crap" hardware.

At most, you might use a mac Mini as a DHCP/NAT/3 person file-server for collaboration or for emergency network services. It might make a fun thing to hit when you need to do file recovery, for instance, like a portable hard drive/NAS device. But if you think you're going to run Quick Time Streaming Server off of it, buy a few minis--you'll need them, one after the other.

As for cheap Server grade hardware: interesting idea, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Folks would be too inclined to buy less than what they need, and then get pissed of when it breaks under load. Maybe a single 1.8Ghz G5 CPU, less max RAM, built in video, etc? I dunno; I'm not feeling the market. You're pretty close with the cluster Xserve, except it doesn't have video or optical drive; maybe a cluster with a single CPU option? And other stuff removed too?

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[harlows_monkeys]

I think, the form-factor is great. However, that said they would make a lousy server. It has a very slow, laptop HDD not at all optimized for use 7/24

What about servers with light load? The thing that is very interesting about this Mac Mini colocation deal is that the monthly cost is comparable to shared hosting plans. Sure, you wouldn't want to stick 300 virtual hosts on a Mac Mini...but how about taking one site from a virtual host and putting it on a dedicated Mini? That looks quite attractive for those of us who would like more control than we get on shared hosting, but don't have high load sites.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[harlows_monkeys]

You forgot the 10/100 NIC

What about it? Most colocation plans are 100 mbit/second or under (usually well under).

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Anonymous Coward]

SPAMMER.

However, that said they would make a lousy server. It has a very slow, laptop HDD not at all optimized for use 7/24.

Actually, the drive in the Mac Mini is fast for a 2.5" drive and is designed for longevity, having a 5 year warantee. I try to keep my server stuff within RAM and even the slow G4 memory will saturate 100Mbit/s. When the file is not in RAM, of well, I will have to put up with the little ~40MB/s drive.

They are not equipped with an adequate fan for cooling the unit if packed densely (like the photoshoped up "condo" on the Pure Static website.) If packed that tight, I bet the MBTF of the drive (and other components) drops to under two months or something insanely short like that.

If these can handle a 33% - 66% duty cycle in peoples homes, they should be okay for 100% duty cycle in a properly equiped filtered, cooled and humidity regulated computer room.

Google "IBM Deskstar drive failure" to find out when non-server spec drives are used in a 7/24/365 environment


The IBM Deskstar problems were NOT due to 24/7 operation. The problems were due to the fact that the drives were broken when they left the factory. Regardless of the duty cycle you attempt to get out of a particular IBM Deskstar which is afflicted with the famous problem, it will die well before any other typical drive which is asked the same duty cycle.

It's like pointing at a Lada and saying, "See!! Cars are badly made! You should buy a truck for courier work!". When the Lada was possibly the worst car you could have chosen.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[ArbitraryConstant]

Apple doesn't tend to use very good network chipsets in their low end desktop machines. They eat a lot of CPU time and don't go very fast. Doesn't matter in a desktop machine, but it hurts in a server, even at slow colo speeds.

Probably doesn't hurt as much as the laptop drive anyway. Besides, people probably don't want these as high-load servers. The probably just want something off-site.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Bug-Y2K]

Load is not the issue. The reliability & design of the hard disk drive is. Laptop drives are designed to be power frugal, spinning down when not in use. A lightly loaded server would be spinning up every time a web request comes in. It would be slower than a heavily loaded Xserve. If it was heavily loaded, or packed tight in a 'condo" then the drive could just die after some relatively short time frame.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Bug-Y2K]

You do backup your serverson occasion, don't you??

While we rarely see a colo push more than 10mbits, backups over the network routinely hit >80Mbits per second. Of course, it is better if your server has two NICs, one for public network access, the other for private backup traffic. The Mini can only have one.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Anonymous Coward]

Backups are done over the built-in AirPort. Duh.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[TheRaven64]

I am considering getting one of these to run a mail, Jabber and low volume web server on. With 512MB of RAM, it would have more than enough memory space to cache all of the data files in RAM, and would not need to touch the hard disk. After installing NetBSD's pkgsrc this would make an excellent BSD UNIX system for my kind of usage.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[jsebrech]

I understand heat will kill a drive very quickly, but supposing you could adequately cool the drive, would keeping it spinning really hurt it? AFAIK the problem is not keeping the drive spinning, it's spinning it up again, and again, and again.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be missing a market here though. I checked out your pricing and you charge 299/month for colocation. I called your sales department because I found your pricing page a little confusing (was the service fee per month or per quarter i asked), and got an offer for 149 per month because you are expanding (good for you!).

Your "premium" shared hosting plan is $49 per month for 500 Mb of space.

I keep an old G4 as a server at home and also pay $35 per month for a 5GB shared linux hosting plan. What do I use my server at home and my shared hosting space for?

Primarily I keep every email I've sent and most that I've received on imap email - 800 Mb. It also has webmail access so that I can get to my email when I'm traveling. I host vacation photos so that my friends and family can view them, and then down load the full size photo - 400Mb. I host an svn server so that I have a backup of my code -5Mb. I use my server at home mostly to test out servlet code I write for tomcat and to serve itunes music.

Here are my frustrations with the linux shared hosting plan I use. They can't figure out how to setup imap over ssl, i don't worry about that at work and home, but it gives me the willys in an internet cafe. It's linux so there are weird problems with library incompatibilities, it always takes me twice as long to install things on linux as on os x even though I've been using linux for five years longer. (I like that Apple has decided where things should go and everything else is just wrong, I'm not interested in an ongoing debate between /usr/local/bin and /usr/share.) I don't have super user access so I can't open ports and configure a tomcat server the way I want (and i can't configure my way out of that imap problem for myself). Also my server at home is noisy even though it's already in my closet.

This place is going to charge $23 per month + the cost of the server for 40GB of storage.

So there is a market of at least one for a high storage, low speed, low uptime, total (root) control service running os x. How many other geeks run a server at home who would rather have it in a server room with good power and a fast connection?

I understand where you are coming from because I've developed java software for sites with millions of hits. $20,000 per month was fine for hosting that collection of 5 servers, so there's is a great market for what you offer and you won't be going out of business soon. I wouldn't even use a G5 tower let alone a glorified powerbook for that stuff, in fact I'd be a little hesitant about not using Sun.

But if you'd like to make a more money ... how about hosting a bunch of old g4's somewhere with a good connection and upc but not a diesel generator. Basically the equivalent of "hey dude can I put my server in your office?". Bandwidth needs are minimal, just don't gouge me if I get slashdotted. Security needs are minimal. Only do repairs and replacements during business hours, if my site is down for 3 days it's not really a problem.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[b1t r0t]

Someone needs to make some iPod Mini shaped pieces of white chocolate. Then you really could C(h)ocolate Your Mini!

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[jwgcooke]

You are talking about a whole different pricing model. Looking at the prices on your site you are geared towards hosting something with 24/7 needs and high, consistent bandwidth needs. Places like [macminiservers.com] are something else entirely. I simply want a public IP with a resonable pipe coming in with a small simple piece of hardware backing it up. I have no need for a high end server to handle my personal screwing around on the internet.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Megane]

It's true. Using a laptop hard drive in a server is a bad idea. I have some knowledge of the folly of doing this. The only thing worse than doing this in your own server is doing this in equipment you're selling to other people for use in a server environment. There's a good reason why so much high-end networking gear uses flash cards for storage.

That being said, there are now server-rated laptop drives, but they're all SCSI. So you can't just drop them in.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Bug-Y2K]

> Places like [macminiservers.com] are something else entirely.

Who are they? Where are they? How are they financed? What sort of revenues to they have - TODAY?

Will they be around next year? Five years from now?

I have "G4 Cube Colo Deja Vu"... all over again.

This whole Mini colo thing is just like virgin mary sandwiches on ebay... riding the PR wave as far as they can, whithout any regard to long-term business plans. The very same thing happened when Apple announced the Xserve. What ever happened to these guys? Lots of PR and noise after Jobs announced the Xserve. Now they are vapor.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[jo_ham]

And you have Bill!

Anyone with wrd in their employ is doing something right.

(long time 3wa poster and wrd fan here)

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Ohreally_factor]

Hehehe. Funny thing is that I have seen gummy gameboys.

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[Johnny Mnemonic]

While I believe you, I'd be interested to know how you know that. Trial and error? Or do you examine the chipsets physically to determine manufacture? My question really is: how does one learn the manufacture of the low-level components of a MLB, when that info is not available from the vendor?

Re:My take on Mini-as-server...

[ArbitraryConstant]

"While I believe you, I'd be interested to know how you know that."

It's obvious from the performance of the thing. I know the OS is capable of high network performance because it's used in high performance areas. I assume the rest of the machine is not hobbled in some other way, as the machine performs okay in other respects. The only likely candidate is the network interface itself.

"how does one learn the manufacture of the low-level components of a MLB, when that info is not available from the vendor?"

The BSDs and Linux people generally figure that stuff out pretty quick. Even if a device identifies itself differently, if it has the same interface and the same bugs as a known chipset, it's pretty obvious what it is.

Macminicolo.com

[Special_K_21]

Macminicolo.com has been up for some time, since launch day as far as I can tell.

What a WASTE of DVD-ROM drives!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a terrible waste of DVD-ROM drives.

Heat dissipation

[babbage]

I was looking at this site the other day. My first impression was that it was a pretty good idea -- you have this cheap little computer that would be more than adequate for running a website &/or mail server, and it's small enough that you could get dozens of them of a single rack.

Then it dawned on me that the Mac Mini doesn't have a fan, and depends entirely on being able to vent heat around the bottom edges and back panel. Apple's site has a document warning users:

Always place your Mac mini on a hard, flat surface to provide maximum airflow to the computer's vents around the rubber base. Don't put anything on top of your Mac mini or stack Mac minis on top of each other either.

Sounds like a dense rack full of the things would be liable to overheat & burn out.

Are these people thinking about cooling issues? Their FAQ page made no mention of it last week, and it looks like it still doesn't now. Would anyone trust a rack full of these things not to cook the circuitry?

Re:Heat dissipation

[ZackSchil]

The mini does have a fan but you're right, it relies on the air ducts along the bottom to function.

Re:Heat dissipation

[dmjossel]

The Mac Mini does have a fan.

Of course, that doesn't mean that overheating isn't an issue; I'm sure the "mini condo" image on the aforementioned site is not a good idea.

Re:Heat dissipation

[TheRaven64]

From an email I just received from the company in question on the subject of cooling:

Yes, we have take the cooling issue into account. The picture there is just that, a picture. We are raking minis are to be set on racks made of wire grates. (Like the inside of you freezer.) THis is done to maximize air flow. Also keep in mid that the data center was designed to handle tightly packed pentiums, which run much hotter than g4's. Finally you don't care how loud our cooling fans are.

ee cummings

[faeryman]

A rack of
Mac Minis.
toasted? or bandwidth served hot?
"there is some shit I will not eat"

Poor Cluster

[vijayiyer]

Real clusters use high speed networking like InfiniBand or Myrinet to reduce latency to tolerable levels. Anything else is just a bunch of computers hooked together for trivially parallelizable problems. Seeing as how there aren't expansion slots in the Mac Mini, I really don't see the point.

Re:Poor Cluster

[Megane]

Actually, there is ONE expansion slot, the one used for the AirPort Extreme card. IIRC, AirPort Express uses a standard mini-PCI interface. (The original AirPort used a slightly non-standard PCMCIA.) You still need some way to get a cable out of the box, though.

Re:What a WASTE of DVD-ROM drives!

[ZackSchil]

I hadn't thought about the optical drive. It's a pretty big waste of a lot of components. The mini wasn't designed to be a headless server. Does a headless server really need sound in/out? How about the modem?

Isn't that illegal in Minnesota?

[Skippy_kangaroo]

When I read the headline it looked like "Colectomy your Mac Mini"

That sound's painful and I'm sure it would be against the reverse engineering clauses in your license agreement.

Tish, boom - I'll be here all week.

Re:Isn't that illegal in Minnesota?

[forkazoo]

I got "Cocoa-late" your Mac Mini, and I was very confused. For a moment, I thought that the Mac Mini had some problem running apps that use the cocoa API, or something, and the article would be a hack to gain that functionality, then I just assumed it was a case mod to make the Mini look like a shiny blue widget in a cocoa app. Boy, was I wrong!

It has a fan

[ProfessionalCookie]

It actually has a fan . One fan. One lonely fan. (See figure K).

Granted the fan doesn't run all the time...or does it? In any case the Mac Mini I played with was very very quiet.

Well...

[bjjohnson]

I guess my question is... Is this a case of someone taking advantage of someone else's ignorance? Or could this actually be a legit service. One USEFUL idea is that a person could want a remote location for remote access from around the world to a Mac fromt end via remote desktop services. Someone there to reboot the thing if it crashes while you are in Singapore. I guess there are some good uses for this. Just a thought... What do YOU think?

Interesting but economic?

[jago25_98]

The mini mac has some nice features , especially media related. But these would surely be wasted - like the graphics card.

Surely there's a better option than this?; even powerPC based and similar price range? I'm suprised a slashdotter hasn't said this yet.

Re:Interesting but economic?

[TheRaven64]

I was looking at getting a root shell account on FreeBSD box recently (running in a Jail, so it looks like you have a machine to yourself, but you can fit more than one on a physical machine). Everywhere I looked at charged more for this and about 1GB of disk space than these people are charging for a dedicated box. My needs in terms of processing power and bandwidth are relatively low, but I would like to have complete control over what is running on my system. If anyone can point me to a better deal than this I would be grateful.

Re:Interesting but economic?

[ArbitraryConstant]

The thing with a jail is that it'll be running on a very high end machine (unfortunately FreeBSD doesn't have a decent PowerPC port yet, otherwise an Xserve would be ideal for this) (also unfortunately, MacOS doesn't seem to have the jail facility, so you can't do the jails with MacOS would would also be ideal), and it's probably set up to failover onto another machine if it goes down. You're paying for the reliability.

If your Mac mini goes down, you could be SOL for weeks.

The value you place on reliability is of course completely up to you.

Re:Interesting but economic?

[jago25_98]

Send me a mail. A syndicate type setup seems like a possible answer; total root in escrow perhaps with jails or virtual machines of some sort for each user.

That way you are the middle man.

I would find root on some server somewhere very useful but it's too expensive for me personally.

not for highly loaded servers

[ArbitraryConstant]

I think people want to use them because sometimes you just need something online all the time, even if the hardware can't support a high load. It's still a bad position to be in because the laptop drives don't need high load to kill them, but as you say there aren't a lot of options.

Any comment on how unreliable macslash is? ;)

Re:not for highly loaded servers

[Bug-Y2K]

> Any comment on how unreliable macslash is? ;)

Sure. From what I gather, slashcode runs horribly on OS X Server. They also have issues with the mySQL db requiring a kick in the head after a backup.

Their server is always "up", but they have a real hard time keeping the processes running.

I've suggested to them many times to try something other than slashcode. There are many similar packages that run just fine on OS X. Why be the only site on the planet that is running this code on this OS??

--chuck

Re:not for highly loaded servers

[jsebrech]

Inertia my friend. Inertia is the reason my firewall is still running a 2.2 kernel, even though it's slow, doesn't support smart firewalling and can't combine software raid and journaling without corrupting the filesystem.

Re:What a WASTE of DVD-ROM drives!

[Anonymous Coward]

at $500 who cares if they lay dormant

Not Necessarily

[OS24Ever]

You do not always need an infiniband or myrinet link, it depends on the workload. If there isn't a lot of inter-node communication going on infiniband or myrinet is a big chunk of change for little/no benefit.

For example, workloads like Seti @ Home, Oil Sonar Data Analysis, protein folding, etc need like 1K of bandwidth total to move tiny packets of 'equation and results' and that's about it.

however quantum computing modeling, or airflow analysis, things like that where data is intermingled and not a 'brute force' cluster like the previous set you need a high speed low-latency interconnect for MPI and then yeah you'd want it.

Xserve Blade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the mini is a stepping stone to Apple developing a blade server rig. Think about it-- a few minor changes like upping the Ethernet to gigabit, swapping the laptop drive for a full sized one that can handle server duty, and a different backplane, and then they've just got to design the rack to hold them.

Re:Xserve Blade?

[Anonymous Coward]

stepping stone

Make that Gateway Drug.

Re:run away! CLARIFCATION FROM macminicolo.net

[Anonymous Coward]

I am president of Underwriters Technologies. We run macminicolo.net. Upon first reading the above thread, I was a bit concerned that we were being slandered here. Upon closer reading, however, I think that Bill Mcbgonigle was referring to the guys that started this thread.

But I want to be clear here. Our reputation is our most important commodity, not in an egotistical way, but in a basic moral sense. So I feel that this needs to be clarified.

We are a Texas Corporation that didn't even exist until January 1, 2000. Before that the founders wrote software for big insurance companies. We did no web hosting. Bill, would you mind clarifying who the butt of the comment was aimed at please?

Mac OS X is n FreeBSD

[@madeus]

OS X is essentially FreeBSD with a pretty GUI on top.

Mac OS X is based on Rhapsody (with a new Window Manager theme and the core display technology being display PDF rather than being display PostScript), which is based on OPENSTEP, which is based on NeXTSTEP which is based on mach and UNIX from Berkeley.

There are BITS of FreeBSD in Mac OS X, but there also BITS of FreeBSD in multiple releases of Windows.

Like FreeBSD, it's a UNIX implimentation, but it's a very different style of UNIX implimentation from FreeBSD and it's not based on FreeBSD.

FWIW, you don't have to run the Quartz Window Manager either BTW, you can just choose to not start it. I'm tempted to say your better off with Debian on a lower end G4 PowerPC system like the mini though.

Re:Mac OS X is n FreeBSD

[jsebrech]

FWIW, you don't have to run the Quartz Window Manager either BTW, you can just choose to not start it. I'm tempted to say your better off with Debian on a lower end G4 PowerPC system like the mini though.

Though you honestly think debian is a better desktop system than mac os x? I mean, mac os x seems to have the best of both worlds. All the mac software and all the X11 software, running inside the same environment using the same window manager.

Re:Mac OS X is n FreeBSD

[@madeus]

Though you honestly think debian is a better desktop system than mac os x

It's a better server - it's much easier to manage updates and installs of new server software, has many more applications ported to packages, has a full package managment system, a much more powerful firewall (in the form of iptables) and it will perfom far better than Mac OS X.

It's pretty silly to run Mac OS X as a server in most instances. As a home or small office web/file server? Sure, it's easy and saves time configuring - that makes sense. But if you need to because you don't know how to use another form of UNIX you almost certainly should not be running a server on a public network. If you intend to run PHP/CGI's on a public web server your far better off with Debian as you'll get much better performance and have many more options easily avalible in terms of useable software.

You'll note that's what's being discussed not a desktop (as you'll note from the opening statement in your your reply: 'FWIW, you don't have to run the Quartz Window Manager either BTW').

FWIW, I have Linux dual booting on my current 1.5 Ghz/1GB RAM PowerBook and on my older TiBook, and it's order of magnitude faster than Mac OS X as a Desktop as well.

If I had native 3D graphics card support (including support for dual head display) with my current 128 MB ATI mobility card I'd seriously consider switching back to Debian - dispite being a long time Mac user - especially once we have more sophisticated X builds. For now, I still feel OS X is best though, but they will need to work hard to keep me hooked in the next few years. GNOME, X and applications like Gnumeric, Abiword, Evolution, GIMP and Nautilus just keep getting better and better IMO.

Once you've seen and really used Linux on a G4, it's apaprent how criminally slow Mac OS X is at so many things (especially the appauling Finder). It makes up for lots of it with a very slick accelerated GUI, but in part that's just a clever distraction from some more serious underlying slowless which impacts usability significantly.

mac-mgrs.org

[leejor]

For those of you who don't recognize Chuck Goolsbee's name, he is well know to those of us who administer Macintosh systems. And has long been a leader of the Mac Managers mailing list. One of the best resources for professional Mac admins.

Lee Joramo

HE Rocks

[Daniel Boisvert]

I've been using them since 2000 or so, and they've been approximately perfect. About the only thing they could've done better was include cash with the Happy Holidays card they sent me. ;)

Their bandwidth rocks, the systems aren't over-crowded, and the people rock. I had billing issues when changing bank accounts (I forgot to update the credit card number on file to my new one), and I got a pleasant phone call letting me know that my card wasn't going through anymore. I gave them the new card number, and it was cleared up in no time at all--never any downtime.

At one point they wanted to move me off the server I was on, and onto new hardware, and again that rocked. They provided a web form for me to move my own site (whereas many shared hosting providers will just do it without telling you). I moved it at my convenience, and when it got to the new server my disk and bandwidth allotments had been increased to whatever they were currently offering on new accounts.

They run an IPv6 endpoint you can use for free (tunnelbroker.net) and a very stable EFNet server. The free bittorrent tracker/seed thing I got an email about this morning is pure icing on the cake.

I've had folks offer to host me for free, and I've stayed with my paid account at HE. They're that good.

The only reasons

[BuddyJesus]

That I'd see anyone doing this is: 1. They are fucking crazy 2. Only need a few miniature computers and 3. Somehow rented a room that has no height 4. Want to recreate the "Big Mac" supercomputer in their own home

Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I found www.macminiservers.com which appears to be doing the same thing only cheaper. Plus it sounds like their colo facility has better bandwidth.

Worth looking at if you're thinking of hosting on a Mac. $50/month for a dedicated server ain't bad.

AC

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[Anonymous Coward]

with regards to everyone's comments about overheating, they actually talk about leaving lots of space and such in the why host with us page.

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[Anonymous Coward]

as somebody else mentioned earlier... be nice to have a remote machine that you can use for whatever. Assuming you can get your own Mini (not having to lease it) $20/month for the rack space would be well worth it... I have wanted a remote server for a while to SSH tunnel through the proxy at my office, be able to upload stuff to my parents (on the other side of the country) etc. This sounds like a good deal to me.

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[analogueblue]

I'm currently paying about $120/month for a server. Most of it's for bw I don't use. But for $20/month or $50/month or whatever, I'll probably switch.

Hell, I pay more than $50/month for cable tv.

Plus, I gotta say, I love my powerbook. OS X is awesome for java development. JBoss+Postgres+Apache installs and runs great.

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign up script is boken. Pay by paypal? How long have these guys been around?

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[jwgcooke]

Sign up script? I saw an email address... I got a quick response. Sign up page would be nice though...

Re:Cheaper Option: MacMiniServers.com

[analogueblue]

they musta hear you! They've got a real signup page now:)

https://www.macminiservers.com/signup.jsp/

Mac mini as thin client?

[Johnny Mozzarella]

I think a much more interesting and feasible use of the mini would be as a thin client.

I wish Apple would sell a stripped down mini with no hard drive or optical drive for use as a thin client. An even better a thin client solution would be to put the whole computer inside the display similar to the iMac G5.

Same form factor as an iMac G5 but...
15" LCD screen
G4 processor
No HD
No Optical Drive
512 MB of RAM
Gigabit Ethernet
USB2 and FW400

Sell them in ten packs to schools and businesses that want a thin client solution.

Re:Mac mini as thin client?

[Jeremy Erwin]

I seem to recall Apple selling a stripped down iMac G5-- no optical drive, a GeForce4MX, etc. to schools. It's $1100.

384MB on this iBook Webserver

[TheBillGates]

I've running web and FTP services from a 600Mhz G3 iBook with only 384MB of memory on OS 10.3 server. True, I'm not running something along the lines of ./, but for the infrequently hit web server you really don't need a lot of hardware.

Coloc ate your Mac Mini!!!

[bikerguy99]

Damn palindrome...

Why "funny"? I'm building this...

[GrahamCox]

I don't know why you're modded as "funny" because I just started this project myself. I'm putting a Mac mini into a Classic II case - widening the floppy slot to accept a CD can be done without impacting the look of the machine, and it will be a neat conversion for a nice little desktop machine.
The LCD screen is proving harder to source and it seems that the most readily available type is for in-car DVD players which run to 7 or 8" but are stuck at 640 x 480 resolution. I'm also not sure whether these can be adapted to be driven from the Mac's video port. If you or anyone else hears about a 9" or 10" LCD running at 800 x 600 or better and has a VGA or digital input please let me know!

Re:Why "funny"? I'm building this...

[Jeremy Erwin]

Classic II-X just doesn't have the same ring...

Mac-Mini = homeserver

[MemoryDragon]

This machine is built to stand free so that the internal vent can work. The problem I see with it in a rack is heat issues. Sure you can use the Mac as a home server within a home, a homeserver hosts some services (fileservices sometimes movies and mp3s) and stands free, it is just there 90% of the time and 10% of the time it has real work to do. The problems start if you put that stuff into a rack that once it has work to do it needs a good ventilation where air is sucked in from the bottom like most notebooks do, so it works in a home environemt but easily might burn out in a rack....

Mac SE-X

[slart42]

IIRC Apple did originally plan to label the 68030 Mac SE as Mac SEx, in accordance to the 'x' suffix for 68030 CPUs, as used for the Mac IIx. For obvious marketing reasons, they chose to go with Mac SE/30 instead.

Re:Heat dissipation FROM MACMINICOLO

[Anonymous Coward]

The picture on our web site showing minis in a standard 19 inch rack enclosure is simply a marketing picture. It was chosen as it conveys the concept of what we are doing at a glance.

A standard 19 inch rack, like the one shown on the home page, will not fit 3 minis abreast. At a width of 6.5 inches it can't be done. There is a 1/2 inch problem. A rack is 36 inches deep. The mini is 6.5 inches deep . Thus the per square inch requirements of the mini, with space to keep it cool are achievable within our cost structure.

In a mockup (as the units didn't start arriving until Janaury 23rd) we were able to position units in enough density to meet our price point and still have enough space.

The modern data center itself was design to be able to cool every single U of space crammed with pentium or dual pentium units. The g4 runs quite a bit cooler than a pentium. The AC units are designed to be well over capacity. They have the ability to have failures and still meet the original cooling specifications.

Also please note that the facility was built in the height of the .com era. It is a rare thing to find a data center these days that is full to capacity. However the AC units have not been pulled to to the current vacancy levels in these centers.

The shelves themselves are wire frame to allow the greatest airflow possible. There are also a number of fans. We do not have to worry about the noise from these fans.

We do not expect to, but, if we find that we are even close the top end of the allowable ranges, we will adjust the densities. There is enough flexibility in the price points to give us some space and still keep the operation the black.

Re:run away! CLARIFCATION FROM macminicolo.net

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron.
He's talking about Hurricane Electric.
If you can't understand that how can we expect you to be able to run a goddamn company? Are you some kind of freakin' simpleton?

old bank vault could just be a cheap location

[bitingduck]

Also, I'd wonder about any colo facility located in a former bank vault. It sounds cool, but it doesn't strike me as a very cost-effective place to put a data center.

I went to a Halloween party/haunted house this past halloween that was in a former bank in a dumpy part of LA. The haunted house was in the basement and one of the exhibits included going into the vault (which was pretty much intact). I can't imagine they were paying much to rent the whole facility.

In the case of the colo facility in a vault, it could just be that they got the location cheap and decided they could market it as extra safe even though it may not be, or it could have thermal problems. Money doesn't generate much heat when it's just sitting there, and the vault is probably well insulated and didn't come with good ventilation.

Talk City

[infonography]

A company I worked for till they burst in 2000. We had Imacs in the colo racks. The board was great and it would have been a nice server but the form factor ed didn't lend it self well to being bolted in a rack. The plastic kept cracking and the dust went everywhere.

Re:What a WASTE of DVD-ROM drives!

[Richard_at_work]

*Shrug* I dont know if you were serious, but you could always remove the DVD drive and keep it as a replacement if you have a Mac Mini at home, and the modem can be setup to allow dialin connections for use as a remote admin link, or your own private ISP :)