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."

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.

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: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: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.

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 [apple.com], 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.

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: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: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?