OSX home server?

E

e_lectro

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 26, 2000
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I am slowly moving towards being a full apple house and would like to build a NAS or home server for backups and file sharing. Windows Home Server seems to come up in discussion a lot but I would like to keep everything OSX. Without going as far as getting OSX Server and a Xserve, can I use a regular Mac as a fileserver with disc mirroring?
 
For a home file server any machine will do. Raid 1 is what I assume your wanting to do, you should be able to set that up with disk utility for software raid.

I have afp (netatalk) running on my Ubuntu nas box since my mbp was my main machine. Not as simple as OS X, but the hardware is expensive enough for a college student without having to buy another Mac.;)
 
You can although the big issue I would see is with expansion. If you just want a small home server then it should be fine. You could always get some nice external sata or sas enclosures as well.
 
Yes, mirroring is exactly what I want. I know it can be as waste of space but I'll take the piece of mind with our home photos. I've already lost too many from drive crashes.

I have not tried the disk utility software yet, we only have laptops so no chance to play with software raid.

I'm thinking about buying an older mac for the server... or following lifehacker's article from earlier today. I used to be a UNIX admin, but I would rather not run Linux as the server. I need something my non-UNIX-admin-wife would feel comfortable with.
 
the server should be transparent to the user, why does it matter what OS it runs? your wife should never even have to know it's there
 
"should" is a strong word... until I'm out of town and she needs to let someone else access it or something breaks. I would feel better with something she has working knowledge of vs me trying to do it over the phone.
 
e_lectro said:
"should" is a strong word... until I'm out of town and she needs to let someone else access it or something breaks. I would feel better with something she has working knowledge of vs me trying to do it over the phone.
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I suppose if it's that important to have the data, you could also look into a small NAS.

Maybe the Time Capsule, to keep everything Apple (and "guaranteed" to work) or some other brand...
 
A small Raid 1 NAS typically houses two drives leaving no growth space. With the move to lossless audio, 20+ MP cameras, and HD home movies I see that filling up very fast even with 2TB drives. I'm not saying that I'm jumping straight into the 10TB [H] Club, but a growth path would be nice.
 
e_lectro said:
A small Raid 1 NAS typically houses two drives leaving no growth space. With the move to lossless audio, 20+ MP cameras, and HD home movies I see that filling up very fast even with 2TB drives. I'm not saying that I'm jumping straight into the 10TB [H] Club, but a growth path would be nice.
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there are plenty of NASs with growth options, for much less than an xserve, even used.

but OS X server is fun to tinker with.
 
You could run a mac mini with firewire disks daisy chained, you would be limited on throughput so nothing crazy, but it would allow you to expand the capacity.

Looks like newegg has fw enclosures for as low as $36.
 
e_lectro said:
"should" is a strong word... until I'm out of town and she needs to let someone else access it or something breaks. I would feel better with something she has working knowledge of vs me trying to do it over the phone.
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Once the software side is set up I can't imagine why it would need to be touched. If hardware crapped out I don't think I'd want someone that doesn't know what they're doing messing with it anyway. :eek:

The only thing that would be halfway reasonable would be a g4, but I don't think they have sata. I guess you can use pci cards if speed isn't too important
 
aaronearles said:
You could run a mac mini with firewire disks daisy chained, you would be limited on throughput so nothing crazy, but it would allow you to expand the capacity.

Looks like newegg has fw enclosures for as low as $36.
Click to expand...

I've seen so many drives fail in external enclosures that run 24/7 it isn't funny. Best way is a multi drive enclosure with a cooling fan.
 
I run my server on XP Pro, as that was the license I had around, and it is also doing very light HTPC duty in the living room. Everything is completely transparent to my Macbook. I open up finder and the computer is right there on the left by default. Click on it, and all my shares are right there at my finger tips. Because it is transferring over the lan it doesn't matter how the disks are formatted (NTFS/FAT/etc). Everything is extremely easy. It's as if the share was another partition or something; just as easy to access.

It's been this way for over a year and I've had absolutely zero issues accessing from my Macbook, or any computer on the lan for that matter. All you see is the share, nothing else.
 
Another possibility would be to go the Mac Mini route, and get a drobo to go with it. Expandable storage with a firewire 800 interface. Running regular OS X should be fine for all intents and purposes, so I wouldn't worry too much about OS X Server.
 
e_lectro said:
Yes, mirroring is exactly what I want. I know it can be as waste of space but I'll take the piece of mind with our home photos. I've already lost too many from drive crashes.

I have not tried the disk utility software yet, we only have laptops so no chance to play with software raid.

I'm thinking about buying an older mac for the server... or following lifehacker's article from earlier today. I used to be a UNIX admin, but I would rather not run Linux as the server. I need something my non-UNIX-admin-wife would feel comfortable with.
Click to expand...

Raid is NOT a backup! even raid 1, the raid card could die, or go out and there goes everything, what you need is a proper backup, spare harddrive used to backup then removed and stored, burning to multiple disks and so on.

Any reason why you only want Apple based servers?
 
Don't the HP WHS boxes do Mac backups thru Time Machine? Can't they also serve shared folders to the Macs?

RAID1 is definitely not a means of true backup tho... Say you have a NAS box running RAID across two drives for instance, what if the NAS box itself dies (rather than the drives), you'd have to run out and find/buy an identical one and hope to hell it can re-build the array... Nevermind less extreme calamities like a virus creeping into the array, etc. OTOH, if you're just using the NAS to backup stuff that will remain on your own systems as well, it's not as big a deal... Many of those $200-$300 NAS boxes will also allow you to backup the entire array to an external USB drive hooked up to the NAS.
 
I have a bit of a simplistic home media server setup using my old iMac G5 iSight 20". I replaced the factory 250GB internal disc with a 500GB unit (not for the faint of heart - iSight G5 iMacs and Intel iMacs are evil incarnate trying to get into them - at least, I thought so :p). Then I have two external 500GB Firewire discs. The first is the iMac's Time Machine volume; the second is a backup disk that I use for a nightly SuperDuper! differential image backup of the internal disc. The iMac carries everything - iTunes library, file shares and web server. It'll stream flawlessly to two AppleTV's simultaneously, while downloading content, serving my web site and transferring data to/from my Mac Pro.

I also have a 500GB Time Machine that I use as sort of a dust bin / scratch space for temporary storage (but that doesn't handle any media service duties), and an Airport Express to stream music to my stereo. This is just icing though really.

Should the internal 500GB in the iMac die, I can add a new external boot volume (not digging into that iMac's guts ever again :p), add a new external Firewire boot disc, rearrange my backup tiers and go. It's simple, reasonably inexpensive, and gets the job done with minimal setup fuss. The iMac has tons of capability and so far has made for an outstanding media center. :) Only bummer is that, as a PPC machine, its useful days are drawing to a close as future releases of OS X will be Intel-only. But hey, at four years and counting it's been a great workhorse. :)
 
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Firemane said:
I have a bit of a simplistic home media server setup using my old iMac G5 iSight 20". I replaced the factory 250GB internal disc with a 500GB unit (not for the faint of heart - iSight G5 iMacs and Intel iMacs are evil incarnate trying to get into them - at least, I thought so :p). Then I have two external 500GB Firewire discs. The first is the iMac's Time Machine volume; the second is a backup disk that I use for a nightly SuperDuper! differential image backup of the internal disc. The iMac carries everything - iTunes library, file shares and web server. It'll stream flawlessly to two AppleTV's simultaneously, while downloading content, serving my web site and transferring data to/from my Mac Pro.

I also have a 500GB Time Machine that I use as sort of a dust bin / scratch space for temporary storage (but that doesn't handle any media service duties), and an Airport Express to stream music to my stereo. This is just icing though really.

Should the internal 500GB in the iMac die, I can add a new external boot volume (not digging into that iMac's guts ever again :p), add a new external Firewire boot disc, rearrange my backup tiers and go. It's simple, reasonably inexpensive, and gets the job done with minimal setup fuss. The iMac has tons of capability and so far has made for an outstanding media center. :) Only bummer is that, as a PPC machine, its useful days are drawing to a close as future releases of OS X will be Intel-only. But hey, at four years and counting it's been a great workhorse. :)
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Really? My girlfriends non-iSight iMac G5 was the easiest machine to work on I've probably ever used...
 
0ptional said:
Really? My girlfriends non-iSight iMac G5 was the easiest machine to work on I've probably ever used...
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Exactly. The pre-iSight iMac G5 was a joy to work on - extraordinarily easy, and Apple even has "how-to" guides in their support knowledge base for working on them yourself for fast, easy upgrades and service. Easy access to pretty much everything was the order of the day with it.

Unfortunately, when the iSight w/ ALS model dropped in '05, they went to this funk-tacular clamshell arrangement that was virtually impossible to open without damaging the machine housing or having an Apple store do it for you. I think I could do it a lot easier now (some sort of magnetic tool would be effective I think), but it still ranks as one of the least-user-service-friendly Apple computers I've ever encountered.

Makes a great home media server though. :)
 
Firemane said:
Exactly. The pre-iSight iMac G5 was a joy to work on - extraordinarily easy, and Apple even has "how-to" guides in their support knowledge base for working on them yourself for fast, easy upgrades and service. Easy access to pretty much everything was the order of the day with it.

Unfortunately, when the iSight w/ ALS model dropped in '05, they went to this funk-tacular clamshell arrangement that was virtually impossible to open without damaging the machine housing or having an Apple store do it for you. I think I could do it a lot easier now (some sort of magnetic tool would be effective I think), but it still ranks as one of the least-user-service-friendly Apple computers I've ever encountered.

Makes a great home media server though. :)
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Weird, wasn't aware of that.

I know for certain I'd never let my girlfriend leave her original G5 on for an extended period of time, the caps in the PSU's are known to take a dive, and I don't have a place lined up to replace them should they fail.

Her PSU makes a weird ticking sound when you plug it in, but if you unplug it, wait a second, then do it again, it's fine... it's really unnerving.

I guess we can't complain, she did get the machine fully working except for a broken HDD for $10 at a local school district surplus sale.

I'm still jealous.
 
One idea, if you are sure you want to go that way, is just getting an Intel Mac mini and OS X Server. You don't need Xserve or anything for it. Personally if I had the money to do so, I would love to do what you are thinking about. OS X server is tons of fun to play around with and great if you have a house full of macs. That said I am cheap and will just keep using Slackware on an old P4 for my home server :p
 
I was going to replace my ancient G4 733 running Tiger server with a new Mac Pro, but I too am looking at the mini option with OSX Snow Leapord server and a NAS box. Seems more practical to me.
 
Impulse said:
Don't the HP WHS boxes do Mac backups thru Time Machine? Can't they also serve shared folders to the Macs?
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No derailment intended. I am looking for the same solution. Having a media server for 2 OSX laptops, for a PS3 and a Windows 7 machine. I'd also like to use it to back up all the computers.

I also use an external drive to back up the laptops, which is then disconnected and stored in a safe area.

My question. If I am going to leave a machine on 24/7, I'd want it doing something else too. Like using it as an advanced router, like PFSense or Untangle or whatever. Fitting as much into a box that was on 24/7. Ideas?
 
I'm not sure how wise or optimal it'd be to use your media/backup server as a router as well... Even the cheapest stand-alone routers out there today will consume far less power for that purpose, will have plenty of config. features (whether natively or thru hacked firmwares), and will probably be easier to set up by keeping that aspect of your network separate from the server itself... Maybe I'm way off here tho.

Whatcha gonna do when you need to bring the server offline for maintenance and you wanna go online tho? Just seems like more hassle than it's worth, 'specially when you'd probably need wireless gateways and/or switches anyway (which would absorb the cost of a separate router).

That being said, if you're just looking to milk the WHS for all it's worth, there's a lot of plug-ins for WHS to add extra functionality to it, check out some of the FAQ/stickies on these boards, etc.
 
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