It comes with several; however, even though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Apple user, and have been since 1976, I have also been an embedded designer for over 3 decades. And as such, I think I can safely say that this is a clear case of a vendor (LG) that never should have been approved as an alternate source.
Apple has been replacing the panels/machines of anyone who complains. The problem is that the Samsung panels that Apple can use don't have as high of a contrast ratio, and a slightly warmer white-point; so some consumers are unhappy with that, too...
Fortunately, it seems like the fear of losing the business to another "glass" supplier (like Sharp), has made LG fix the issue. So, if you buy a rMBP NOW, it likely won't have the issue.
Coupled with several nasty doses of IL-2 (which does bad things to you)
No doubt!
That's scary stuff!!! How did they avoid you going into Septic Shock after INTENTIONALLY INJECTING Interleukin-2. especially after your immune system was "rebooted"?
Any computer that doesn't stand 2 ft. tall and sound like a damned jet isn't going to have enough internal storage for a decent-sized media library, and so will be using external storage. The 2 ft tall part isn't usually a problem, but that damned jet-noise just doesn't cut it in a media application.
My fileserver has sixteen drives in it. You can't even tell it's on in a room with normal levels of ambient noise.
But when that single, oversold, 5U rack "monster server" (which has been oversold because you have to make that $24k back somehow!) falls over, you'd better have ANOTHER $24k server to swap it out, pronto; because now FIFTY clients are breathing down your neck while you spend a couple of hours getting everything reloaded and working again (that is, assuming you even HAVE that spare $24k server just lying around)...
Except you wouldn't have a single 5U server, you'd have 2x 2U servers or 4x1U servers and a virtualisation cluster. So a single hardware outage would mean a bunch of VMs just restarted automatically (and nearly instantly) on another host. Or if you were really fancy and were using VMware's Fault Tolerance, they'd never have gone down at all.
I will admit that, if you had the staff to setup and maintain that across several VM's in a fault-tolerant cluster, that might actually be a superior way to go, both cost and reliability-wise. I sometimes forget how good virtualization has gotten in the past few years.
So now, the use case is down to whether Apple-Specific services are required. But for those cases, the Mac mini is reliable, reasonably low-cost, and relatively easy to administer for those with *nix skills.
The 2 ft tall part isn't usually a problem, but that damned jet-noise just doesn't cut it in a media application.
If hard drive noise for quiet drives is a problem, then there is no solution, as SSDs are too expensive for the storage amount a media server needs.
Who said anything about SSDs? Nice try. But do go on...
Otherwise, though, there is nothing that requires a computer to be noisy. My HTPC only makes any noise because it has a video card that is beefy enough to play games. I have a fanless card that would do just as well if I was only playing media, and the processor is the same Core i5 as the base Mac Mini. The power supply has a fan that only runs when it gets too hot, but it never will as the parts in the machine can't ever draw enough power.
You mention that your "HTPC only makes noise because..."
Who cares WHY it makes noise. It makes noise. Next...
The HTPC case is brushed aluminun with a standard media rack size,
Whatever a "media rack" is. The Mac mini is brushed aluminum, too. So?
and can hold two 3.5" drives and two 2.5" drives internally, which could easily be 10TB (the 2.5" drives don't have height limits, so I can use the Western Digital 2TB drives). This looks far better than a Mac Mini with 2-3 external drives connected to it.
So, you're going to do backups to the same box as your media library? I hope you realize that you are one Power Supply failure from losing your entire collection, and that a RAID (if you are silly enough to put your trust in consumer-level RAID) is no substitute for backups... So, since I ASSUME you aren't that stupid, exactly HOW do you avoid having "external drives", whether directly attached, or somewhere else?
Also, those 2TB 2.5" WD drives are $189 apiece; so you have 2 HARD DRIVES that are 2/3 of the cost of an entire base-model Mac mini. Yeah, sounds like a great deal you have going there...
The best solution is a storage server in a different room, and then you can use anything for a media player..
No, all you need then is ????ft long HDMI and/or RCA cables, and a perfectly-positioned "other room". A lot of people don't have that luxury.
.you don't need a full-fleged computer like the Mini. I've got sub-$100 media players that can play back pretty much anything, and they have no moving parts, so are completely silent, and draw less than 30W from the wall plug.
Oh, you mean like an AppleTV, right? Yeah, you can have one of those, too, for the other TV. And then you know what? Because of how AirPlay works, you can then essentially have TWO "HTPC"s.
Oh, and I note that you DIDN'T crow about how your HTPC was "so much cheaper" than a Mac mini. Telling,
Even the "server" version of the Mac Mini does not support ECC RAM. Many other important server-grade features, such as IPMI, are also missing. Why would anyone choose this over cheaper, more robust commodity PC server hardware? You can't even plead cosmetics, because it's a freaking server; it goes in a rack somewhere and only a handful of IT staff ever need to see it. The only possible reason I can think of why someone would want to run an OSX server is if they were going to be remote-accessing it to run Xcode for iOS development. What else can you do on OSX that you can't do on Windows or Linux?
And what can you do on Linux that you can't do on OS X? Let's leave Windows out of it; because they have some fairly unique abilities in their server OSes, that (although it pains me greatly to say it) I don't think either OS X nor Linux can really match.
But one of the best points of using a Mac as a Server, particularly in a low to moderate-load use-case (like, say, most small businesses) is that in 95% of the cases, don't NEED an "IT" ANYTHING.
Gotta remember: Not every installation is the same, and for every business that needs even a small server room, there are 10,000 businesses who can get by perfectly with something like a Mac mini server sitting on a shelf in the backroom, and the simplicity of setup and maintenance of OS X Server, especially when combined with the drop-dead backup simplicity of its Time Machine Server.
And that most assuredly ISN'T the case for either Linux or Windows servers.
You can fit six or eight easily on a 1U shelf, more if you put them on their sides.
You can fit two Minis side-by-side on a 19" rack, and unless the rack is extra-deep, you can only fit two back-to-front, so that makes four. On a 23" rack, you can fit six.
If you put them on their sides, they require a 5U height, and if you wedge them in, you can fit 13 across a 19" rack, which gives you 26 per 5U which is just over 5 per rack unit, but then they are literally touching, and you'd have to be very careful when adding/removing them. So, 24 per 5U is probably the usable limit.
$24K will buy you a lot of computing power in a 4U rack...enough so that you can set up virtual machines that would be as powerful in actual use as the dedicated Minis with their underutilized CPUs.
Yeah. And when one Mini gives up the ghost (which apparently is pretty rare anyway), it inconveniences one or two clients for a few minutes, while an ENTIRE new Mac mini is swapped out and the websites and the system/webserver configs restored from a network backup.
But when that single, oversold, 5U rack "monster server" (which has been oversold because you have to make that $24k back somehow!) falls over, you'd better have ANOTHER $24k server to swap it out, pronto; because now FIFTY clients are breathing down your neck while you spend a couple of hours getting everything reloaded and working again (that is, assuming you even HAVE that spare $24k server just lying around)...
It's packed like a jack-in-box with poor heat management even in a consumer environment. Pack them together like sardines and you're just making the situation worse. Beef up the components and you're just complicating the already piss-poor heat management.
These things are bad enough as a "home server". Nevermind cramming an absurd number of them into a rack.
The only reason that this is even an issue is the whole "monopoly" Apple has on running MacOS binaries. Otherwise, this would be an obvious candidate for virtualization or running on hardware that's actually designed for the operating environment.
Really? Poor heat management?
That must be why they have such high failure rates in this application.
So the mini would make a great media server - Plex or something.
A Mini makes a great media player, but without greatly expanding it's footprint using external drives, it makes fairly crappy media server, as you can only put 2TB of disk inside (assuming that 9.5mm is the max height it can handle).
Any computer that doesn't stand 2 ft. tall and sound like a damned jet isn't going to have enough internal storage for a decent-sized media library, and so will be using external storage. The 2 ft tall part isn't usually a problem, but that damned jet-noise just doesn't cut it in a media application.
There are machines that are extremely similar to the capabilities of Mac Mini, only they're cheaper...
Now there would be a reasonable use for these if they used MacOS specific apps perhaps. Or maybe the customer knows how MacOS works and doesn't want to deal with having to learn Linux or Windows. Probably they've already been using a Mac for a server for some time and want to host in an external data center instead.
Or perhaps he already HAD a Mac. Ever think of that???
this just some hipster fad? Finding a use for old Apple boxes? Or do they offer something that linux/windows hosting doesn't?
With the Minis, if you need more capacity of any kind, you just add a mini. And at $999 for the iMac Mini with OS X Server, you get a powerful machine with a small form factor and it produces a lot less heat.
Also, a regular Linux box makes a lot of noise. So the mini would make a great media server - Plex or something.
They do make good Plex servers.
Deadly quiet, 100% trouble-free, and plenty fast. I set up one for a client in 2010. Running 24/7/365.25 ever since. If it wasn't for the pilot light, you couldn't tell it was even "on" from two inches away in a dead-quiet room.
Is this a new fad or something? Some tweaker rolled into my office wanting to know if we did consulting for setting up a webserver on an apple platform. We only did windows/linux. I questioned him on why he wouldnt just use a linux box for webhosting? He didnt have an answer.
Is this just some hipster fad? Finding a use for old Apple boxes? Or do they offer something that linux/windows hosting doesn't?
And I question why a so-called web hosting consultant wouldn't just set up the native Apache install that already exists in OS X and gain some coin AND few experience-points? Did you ever stop to think that he might have asked that because he already OWNED the Mac, and just wanted to set up the built-in Apache webserver on it???
And I ask, speaking of "hipster fads": Does your precious Linux box offer anything that OS X-based Mac hosting doesn't?
Perhaps (and I could be wrong here) another reason to buy this Pixel is that it's got decent hardware but isn't going to be troubled by secure-boot and things like that so you can install your own OS on it if you get tired of chrome-OS.
Same with a MacBook (any model). No "secure boot" there, and much better build quality, too.
I have been really disappointed at the lack of development in Google docs over the past year. They have clearly become bored with the project, and one again gone off on another tangent. That is the thing with Google. No focus, other than collecting user data and selling it, which is fine, but they used to give us good services in return.
Exactly.
Google has a very distressing habit of going all-out on a Project, then, even if it is even moderately successful, suddenly saying "Well, we're done with this. Thanks for playing!" Everyone does this to some extent; but Google is even worse about it than Microsoft (I think).
Actually, it's not just about the software, but the method of delivery of it. Think the App Store/Google Play/Chrome Web Store. With this play, Google is deploying mass-market business applications through a centrally managed repository/marketplace that runs on a portable browser platform. This is Google's vision of the PC, and also the reason why Microsoft has been such a big detractor of Google. If Google can pull this off, Microsoft will go the way of Blackberry.
He can, but he would have to be paid what any other person living here would be paid. The reason things are so much less expensive in some other countries is that their laws and regulations are different. A Chinese employer doesn't have to deal with the EPA, OSHA, the Department of Labor, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare/other Department of Health and Human Services mandates, etc. etc. A tariff or trade embargo would be the only way to stop the arbitrage based on the difference in regulations unless the regulations themselves change.
So, it seems that FireFox is no more "suitable" without a Flash-Blocker plugin that Safari, eh?
Did I say so? I never even mentioned Safari in the first place. I only said "a suitable browser," something that does not imply any specific one, and used Firefox as an example. You are the one who apparently has a need to twist things.
No, I can read. Maybe you can't WRITE.
Gimme a break. The GGP was talking about OS X, which pretty much implies Safari, and then you DON'T come back with "Well, if you are using Safari, use THIS (like I did)", or "If you use FireFox, you might want to check into...". No, instead you made a snarky, side-swipe at Safari, and got called-out on it.
Show how the progression of this sub-thread proves me wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
It comes with several; however, even though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Apple user, and have been since 1976, I have also been an embedded designer for over 3 decades. And as such, I think I can safely say that this is a clear case of a vendor (LG) that never should have been approved as an alternate source. Apple has been replacing the panels/machines of anyone who complains. The problem is that the Samsung panels that Apple can use don't have as high of a contrast ratio, and a slightly warmer white-point; so some consumers are unhappy with that, too... Fortunately, it seems like the fear of losing the business to another "glass" supplier (like Sharp), has made LG fix the issue. So, if you buy a rMBP NOW, it likely won't have the issue.
You're confused. It wasn't the $199 Wing Wang Wong China Special that had problems working with Linux. It was the Retina Macbook.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple_mbpr_linux&num=1
I think you have that backwards. It was the Linux devs. that had the onus of providing compatibility; not Apple.
Coupled with several nasty doses of IL-2 (which does bad things to you)
No doubt!
That's scary stuff!!! How did they avoid you going into Septic Shock after INTENTIONALLY INJECTING Interleukin-2. especially after your immune system was "rebooted"?
But however they did it, congrats!
My fileserver has sixteen drives in it. You can't even tell it's on in a room with normal levels of ambient noise.
Impressive.
I assume you listen to headphones/earbuds a lot?
Except you wouldn't have a single 5U server, you'd have 2x 2U servers or 4x1U servers and a virtualisation cluster. So a single hardware outage would mean a bunch of VMs just restarted automatically (and nearly instantly) on another host. Or if you were really fancy and were using VMware's Fault Tolerance, they'd never have gone down at all.
I will admit that, if you had the staff to setup and maintain that across several VM's in a fault-tolerant cluster, that might actually be a superior way to go, both cost and reliability-wise. I sometimes forget how good virtualization has gotten in the past few years.
So now, the use case is down to whether Apple-Specific services are required. But for those cases, the Mac mini is reliable, reasonably low-cost, and relatively easy to administer for those with *nix skills.
The 2 ft tall part isn't usually a problem, but that damned jet-noise just doesn't cut it in a media application.
If hard drive noise for quiet drives is a problem, then there is no solution, as SSDs are too expensive for the storage amount a media server needs.
Who said anything about SSDs? Nice try. But do go on...
Otherwise, though, there is nothing that requires a computer to be noisy. My HTPC only makes any noise because it has a video card that is beefy enough to play games. I have a fanless card that would do just as well if I was only playing media, and the processor is the same Core i5 as the base Mac Mini. The power supply has a fan that only runs when it gets too hot, but it never will as the parts in the machine can't ever draw enough power.
You mention that your "HTPC only makes noise because..."
Who cares WHY it makes noise. It makes noise. Next...
The HTPC case is brushed aluminun with a standard media rack size,
Whatever a "media rack" is. The Mac mini is brushed aluminum, too. So?
and can hold two 3.5" drives and two 2.5" drives internally, which could easily be 10TB (the 2.5" drives don't have height limits, so I can use the Western Digital 2TB drives). This looks far better than a Mac Mini with 2-3 external drives connected to it.
So, you're going to do backups to the same box as your media library? I hope you realize that you are one Power Supply failure from losing your entire collection, and that a RAID (if you are silly enough to put your trust in consumer-level RAID) is no substitute for backups... So, since I ASSUME you aren't that stupid, exactly HOW do you avoid having "external drives", whether directly attached, or somewhere else?
Also, those 2TB 2.5" WD drives are $189 apiece; so you have 2 HARD DRIVES that are 2/3 of the cost of an entire base-model Mac mini. Yeah, sounds like a great deal you have going there...
The best solution is a storage server in a different room, and then you can use anything for a media player..
No, all you need then is ????ft long HDMI and/or RCA cables, and a perfectly-positioned "other room". A lot of people don't have that luxury.
.you don't need a full-fleged computer like the Mini. I've got sub-$100 media players that can play back pretty much anything, and they have no moving parts, so are completely silent, and draw less than 30W from the wall plug.
Oh, you mean like an AppleTV, right? Yeah, you can have one of those, too, for the other TV. And then you know what? Because of how AirPlay works, you can then essentially have TWO "HTPC"s.
Oh, and I note that you DIDN'T crow about how your HTPC was "so much cheaper" than a Mac mini. Telling,
Even the "server" version of the Mac Mini does not support ECC RAM. Many other important server-grade features, such as IPMI, are also missing. Why would anyone choose this over cheaper, more robust commodity PC server hardware? You can't even plead cosmetics, because it's a freaking server; it goes in a rack somewhere and only a handful of IT staff ever need to see it. The only possible reason I can think of why someone would want to run an OSX server is if they were going to be remote-accessing it to run Xcode for iOS development. What else can you do on OSX that you can't do on Windows or Linux?
And what can you do on Linux that you can't do on OS X? Let's leave Windows out of it; because they have some fairly unique abilities in their server OSes, that (although it pains me greatly to say it) I don't think either OS X nor Linux can really match.
But one of the best points of using a Mac as a Server, particularly in a low to moderate-load use-case (like, say, most small businesses) is that in 95% of the cases, don't NEED an "IT" ANYTHING.
Gotta remember: Not every installation is the same, and for every business that needs even a small server room, there are 10,000 businesses who can get by perfectly with something like a Mac mini server sitting on a shelf in the backroom, and the simplicity of setup and maintenance of OS X Server, especially when combined with the drop-dead backup simplicity of its Time Machine Server.
And that most assuredly ISN'T the case for either Linux or Windows servers.
You can fit six or eight easily on a 1U shelf, more if you put them on their sides.
You can fit two Minis side-by-side on a 19" rack, and unless the rack is extra-deep, you can only fit two back-to-front, so that makes four. On a 23" rack, you can fit six.
If you put them on their sides, they require a 5U height, and if you wedge them in, you can fit 13 across a 19" rack, which gives you 26 per 5U which is just over 5 per rack unit, but then they are literally touching, and you'd have to be very careful when adding/removing them. So, 24 per 5U is probably the usable limit.
$24K will buy you a lot of computing power in a 4U rack...enough so that you can set up virtual machines that would be as powerful in actual use as the dedicated Minis with their underutilized CPUs.
Yeah. And when one Mini gives up the ghost (which apparently is pretty rare anyway), it inconveniences one or two clients for a few minutes, while an ENTIRE new Mac mini is swapped out and the websites and the system/webserver configs restored from a network backup.
But when that single, oversold, 5U rack "monster server" (which has been oversold because you have to make that $24k back somehow!) falls over, you'd better have ANOTHER $24k server to swap it out, pronto; because now FIFTY clients are breathing down your neck while you spend a couple of hours getting everything reloaded and working again (that is, assuming you even HAVE that spare $24k server just lying around)...
NOW which approach looks unwise?
> Look at the MacMini specs
It's packed like a jack-in-box with poor heat management even in a consumer environment. Pack them together like sardines and you're just making the situation worse. Beef up the components and you're just complicating the already piss-poor heat management.
These things are bad enough as a "home server". Nevermind cramming an absurd number of them into a rack.
The only reason that this is even an issue is the whole "monopoly" Apple has on running MacOS binaries. Otherwise, this would be an obvious candidate for virtualization or running on hardware that's actually designed for the operating environment.
Really? Poor heat management?
That must be why they have such high failure rates in this application.
Oh, wait...
So the mini would make a great media server - Plex or something.
A Mini makes a great media player, but without greatly expanding it's footprint using external drives, it makes fairly crappy media server, as you can only put 2TB of disk inside (assuming that 9.5mm is the max height it can handle).
Any computer that doesn't stand 2 ft. tall and sound like a damned jet isn't going to have enough internal storage for a decent-sized media library, and so will be using external storage. The 2 ft tall part isn't usually a problem, but that damned jet-noise just doesn't cut it in a media application.
There are machines that are extremely similar to the capabilities of Mac Mini, only they're cheaper...
Now there would be a reasonable use for these if they used MacOS specific apps perhaps. Or maybe the customer knows how MacOS works and doesn't want to deal with having to learn Linux or Windows. Probably they've already been using a Mac for a server for some time and want to host in an external data center instead.
Or perhaps he already HAD a Mac. Ever think of that???
this just some hipster fad? Finding a use for old Apple boxes? Or do they offer something that linux/windows hosting doesn't?
With the Minis, if you need more capacity of any kind, you just add a mini. And at $999 for the iMac Mini with OS X Server, you get a powerful machine with a small form factor and it produces a lot less heat.
Also, a regular Linux box makes a lot of noise. So the mini would make a great media server - Plex or something.
They do make good Plex servers.
Deadly quiet, 100% trouble-free, and plenty fast. I set up one for a client in 2010. Running 24/7/365.25 ever since. If it wasn't for the pilot light, you couldn't tell it was even "on" from two inches away in a dead-quiet room.
Is this a new fad or something? Some tweaker rolled into my office wanting to know if we did consulting for setting up a webserver on an apple platform. We only did windows/linux. I questioned him on why he wouldnt just use a linux box for webhosting? He didnt have an answer.
Is this just some hipster fad? Finding a use for old Apple boxes? Or do they offer something that linux/windows hosting doesn't?
And I question why a so-called web hosting consultant wouldn't just set up the native Apache install that already exists in OS X and gain some coin AND few experience-points? Did you ever stop to think that he might have asked that because he already OWNED the Mac, and just wanted to set up the built-in Apache webserver on it???
And I ask, speaking of "hipster fads": Does your precious Linux box offer anything that OS X-based Mac hosting doesn't?
Perhaps (and I could be wrong here) another reason to buy this Pixel is that it's got decent hardware but isn't going to be troubled by secure-boot and things like that so you can install your own OS on it if you get tired of chrome-OS.
Same with a MacBook (any model). No "secure boot" there, and much better build quality, too.
Now, what was your point, again?
I have been really disappointed at the lack of development in Google docs over the past year. They have clearly become bored with the project, and one again gone off on another tangent. That is the thing with Google. No focus, other than collecting user data and selling it, which is fine, but they used to give us good services in return.
Exactly.
Google has a very distressing habit of going all-out on a Project, then, even if it is even moderately successful, suddenly saying "Well, we're done with this. Thanks for playing!" Everyone does this to some extent; but Google is even worse about it than Microsoft (I think).
Actually, it's not just about the software, but the method of delivery of it. Think the App Store/Google Play/Chrome Web Store. With this play, Google is deploying mass-market business applications through a centrally managed repository/marketplace that runs on a portable browser platform. This is Google's vision of the PC, and also the reason why Microsoft has been such a big detractor of Google. If Google can pull this off, Microsoft will go the way of Blackberry.
...and then all our base belong to Google.
I guess you might be stating my opinion; but my thought is why? What is the 3d web going to give me that 2d doesn't?
Nausea and vertigo, among other things...
He can, but he would have to be paid what any other person living here would be paid. The reason things are so much less expensive in some other countries is that their laws and regulations are different. A Chinese employer doesn't have to deal with the EPA, OSHA, the Department of Labor, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare/other Department of Health and Human Services mandates, etc. etc. A tariff or trade embargo would be the only way to stop the arbitrage based on the difference in regulations unless the regulations themselves change.
Spoken like a true outsourcer..
Correct. To a point. Everyone will have the opportunity to have a job if they elect to take it. There will be millions of penny jobs.
It creates other problems, but there is no question minimum wage creates unemployment.
Only from those firms who are too shortsighted to understand the connection between eggs and omelets...
To summarize, you are an idiot."
To sum,arize: WHOOOSH...
If we increase the minimum wage again, a bunch of minimum wage workers will lose their jobs again. Just like the last time.
So, by that logic, if we decrease the minimum wage to zero, everybody will have a job!
Can someone tell me what the temperature of the earth is supposed to be set at? Apparently it's not set right.
That's easy!
72 degrees in Summer, 68 degrees in Winter; just like the gummint says...
How are you going to compete when some guy in China can do your job for less than the US poverty level?
Trade Tariffs.
Because "some guy in China" will NEVER be able to flip burgers HERE.
So, it seems that FireFox is no more "suitable" without a Flash-Blocker plugin that Safari, eh?
Did I say so? I never even mentioned Safari in the first place. I only said "a suitable browser," something that does not imply any specific one, and used Firefox as an example. You are the one who apparently has a need to twist things.
No, I can read. Maybe you can't WRITE.
Gimme a break. The GGP was talking about OS X, which pretty much implies Safari, and then you DON'T come back with "Well, if you are using Safari, use THIS (like I did)", or "If you use FireFox, you might want to check into...". No, instead you made a snarky, side-swipe at Safari, and got called-out on it.
Show how the progression of this sub-thread proves me wrong.
Question: What's the only thing worse than Flash?
You mean besides Java applets, right?
I'll at least concede they are a tie for uselessness...