Mac Mini Server vs Nas vs Cloud Storage?

lumencreative

lumencreative

lumencreative

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I am looking for a solution for file sharing within our small office (only 2 of us at present) and we need something that can be accessed remotely with as much ease as possible as we both work from home during the evenings/weekends.

So far, I have been looking at these options:

1. Base model Mac Mini running Mac OSX Server (could then potentially grow to using as a mail server as well, instead of paying for Office365 Exchange Online). Limitation would be internal hard drive size and need to use external storage.

2. 2-4 bay NAS enclosure with a couple of 2TB disks in RAID configuration (already have the drives waiting to be used).

3. Cloud storage such as Microsoft OneDrive or Apple's version when it's out.

4. A Western Digital Live drive which has a personal cloud feature.

Any thoughts on the above, or other options to consider would be very much appreciated.
 
Two thoughts:

- I strongly discourage you from the Mac Mini option, particularly the hosting your own email part.
- Try the cloud storage option first (it's either free, or very cheap), and see how that goes for your needs.
 
Synology NAS's did have a mail server app available, if not there's plenty of 'web based' ones that could run off it's web server.
 
Interesting replies...

rotor: why would you advice against the mac mini option? We use Macs all the time so would have thought this would be a sensible route, especially as we already have the Mac Mini. The issue I guess would be the external storage.

Also, why are you against hosting our own email? We have a dedicated IP address provided by our ISP so that's not an issue.

lsg1r: Thanks, I'll look into the Synology systems.

welshdragon: I don't really have a budget in mind but ideally, if we're going to be buying new hardware, I would like to fund it with the sale of the Mac Mini that we already have (so about £400 tops).

My main concern with NAS drives is cost and I don't want something that I'm going to have to spend hours and hours maintaining. That's why I was looking at the WD My Cloud drives but I've read bad things about them working with macs.

Thanks again guys
 
lumencreative said:
My main concern with NAS drives is cost and I don't want something that I'm going to have to spend hours and hours maintaining.
Click to expand...

Honestly the cost of a 'mid range' Synology (there are other's but I've used synology without issues for years now) with drives won't be much different to mac mini, especially when you add on extra drives.

As to maintaining... mine was plugged in (including an APC ups), initial set up of nas (users etc), set up of firewall on router and that's all I've done apart from the rare update to the OS... I'm using mine on windows with it having 'folders' mapped to drive letter without issue and mine was a cheap model :)
 
The whole point of a NAS is that there is no maintaining to do. You're paying for a purpose-built product to do the job exactly as intended.
 
lumencreative said:
Interesting replies...

rotor: why would you advice against the mac mini option? We use Macs all the time so would have thought this would be a sensible route, especially as we already have the Mac Mini. The issue I guess would be the external storage.

Also, why are you against hosting our own email? We have a dedicated IP address provided by our ISP so that's not an issue.
Click to expand...
Here are a few questions to ask yourself when thinking about hosting your own mail/website/blog/anything:

- Are you going to religiously keep the server patched? Not only the OS, but all the other layers that will be exposed to the Internet?
- Do you fully understand the ramifications of every decision that you make while setting it up, upgrading it, configuring it?
- Do you care about uptime? Availability? Performance?
- Are you going to be strict about backups? Not only running them, and ensuring they run every day, but periodically doing a test restore, and taking the backups offsite?
- What is your strategy for securing the published server/service/website? For keeping this security up to date in the presence of constant attacks and the evolution of hackers' knowledge?

Office 365 and equivalents offer AMAZING value for money; it's just an absolute no-brainer. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to host your own, is if you are a tinkerer, and "want to learn", or think "you can do it better". That's fine for something with no commercial value (e.g. a lab), but for the email of a commercial entity, i.e. something that represents money (and the loss thereof), there is just no question that I want it to be reliable and secure.

As far as the NAS goes, the Mini is vastly overkill. Since you already have it, I would probably start with it, but it's going to be much harder to setup and maintain than a NAS, which is a simple device with a single purpose, and that just does the job quietly without any fuss. NAS software upgrades are potentially automatic (e.g. done at 3am), and things like snapshots and backups are all part of the job description.
 
As a semi-related aside, I know that when you are paying for things out of your own pocket, it's easy to justify tinkering and doing it yourself. However, ask yourself this: are you serious about your business? If so, unless hosting mail/websites is your business, then is it the best use of your time to be wasting it on this, when you could be spending it on productive work that will earn you income?
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'm really not sure what route to go down. It seems that to a large extent, it's down to preference.

Someone on another forum has suggested that OSX Server offers automatic encryption so that's a plus for the Mac Mini solution, plus I already have the mini to hand so it would just be the cost of a decent USB3 enclosure and OSX Server software.

I have been talking to a couple of the companies I work for. One company I work for has a Dell Server that runs 4 x VMWare virtual servers and Veeam backup software. The server then backs up to a 4 Bay QNap NAS drive that's on site and once a month, that syncs to another remote 4 Bay QNap NAS drive at someones house.

I also recently set up a Windows Server 2012 Essentials system for one customer and they use their server for remote access but I don't really like the idea of going down a Windows Server route if I can help it (although I can get the Windows Server software via my Actionpack subscription).

I've been giving this a lot of thought though and my requirements are as follows:

1. File Storage for any number of potential users within the office.
2. Different access rights for different people.
3. Potential to act as an email server in the future.
4. The ability for our remote web servers to do an FTP backup to the on-site solution potentially daily.
5. The ability to sync all data to the cloud (either something like Microsoft OneDrive or Apple's Cloud Drive).
6. A nice touch would be the ability to share certain files with clients.
 
Are you going to religiously keep the server patched? Not only the OS, but all the other layers that will be exposed to the Internet?

This is one of the things that concerns me. If I went with the Mac Mini, OSX Server upgrades are all automated and OSX Server would be the only thing running. Whatever solution I go for, I want as minimal upkeep as possible really.


Do you fully understand the ramifications of every decision that you make while setting it up, upgrading it, configuring it?

This is why I'm asking for help really. I want the solution to be right from day one. I don't want to spend money and time setting something up to find that it doesn't quite do what I want. I also need to be able to configure it properly because obviously any changes to configuration could screw the whole system if done wrong.


Do you care about uptime? Availability? Performance?

Uptime and Availability are number one. Performance wise, as long as file access isn't ridiculous, I'm happy.


Are you going to be strict about backups? Not only running them, and ensuring they run every day, but periodically doing a test restore, and taking the backups offsite?

I'm going to be anal about backups because it won't just be our data being backed up, it will be customers data as well.


What is your strategy for securing the published server/service/website? For keeping this security up to date in the presence of constant attacks and the evolution of hackers' knowledge?

Again, this depends fully on which solution is being used. We have parts of our web servers that are not accessible by anyone but us so we block all IP addresses apart from our office and my house. This is very effective at keeping hackers away :)


Office 365 and equivalents offer AMAZING value for money; it's just an absolute no-brainer. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to host your own, is if you are a tinkerer, and "want to learn", or think "you can do it better". That's fine for something with no commercial value (e.g. a lab), but for the email of a commercial entity, i.e. something that represents money (and the loss thereof), there is just no question that I want it to be reliable and secure.

You're quite right regarding the email and that's why I'm not looking to move our email from Office365 (at least not yet).


As far as the NAS goes, the Mini is vastly overkill. Since you already have it, I would probably start with it, but it's going to be much harder to setup and maintain than a NAS, which is a simple device with a single purpose, and that just does the job quietly without any fuss. NAS software upgrades are potentially automatic (e.g. done at 3am), and things like snapshots and backups are all part of the job description.

I'll give the NAS systems a good look because I wasn't aware that they took snapshorts and backups out of the box so to speak.


rotor said:
As a semi-related aside, I know that when you are paying for things out of your own pocket, it's easy to justify tinkering and doing it yourself. However, ask yourself this: are you serious about your business? If so, unless hosting mail/websites is your business, then is it the best use of your time to be wasting it on this, when you could be spending it on productive work that will earn you income?
Click to expand...

You raise an excellent point - Our business is actually about 40% hosting email/websites and our hosting servers are in a secure datacentre with dedicated gigabit network ports. I wouldn't dream of hosting customers emails internally so I should eliminate hosting our own emails as well.
 
can someone elaborate with them own cloud setups what they are mainly used for and what they can benefit to ive seen guides about using it on raspberry pi obviously the power isnt as good as a server build or pc etc
 
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