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."
Have the Mac Mini's been engineered for stacking together in close configurations like this? I'd hate to be the guy owning the Mini in the middle. Would I have ANY airflow?
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....