Mac Mini or MBP?

MuGeN · 28 Sep 2011 at 10:13

Ho-kay, so I've gotta get a new machine for the office for light design work, but I've also gotta get a server of some sort as a central fileshare but also to house git repositories and mysql databases so might try and do both at once at least for now.

Am I better off getting a mac mini server or the base MBP and buying lion server separately?

Whichever I get, I obviously need it to be running a standard user for the designer to use and have all the clever stuff going on as an admin user in the background... is this even possible? I know 2 machines is a much better option but will this perform fine for the time being?

theheyes · 28 Sep 2011 at 17:38

How hard is the server going to get hit? I couldn't really recommend running a server on a laptop - any sort of file server I'd want raid1 as bare minimum. I'd strongly consider doing it "right" first time if this is an actual production environment rather than try to wing it.

It is possible, a decent amount of RAM would help and I would consider virtualizing the server.

deusexlumina · 28 Sep 2011 at 17:47

mac mini for now. Or even a second hand mac pro provided its fully stable.

MuGeN · 28 Sep 2011 at 19:34

But is the idea of running a normal user alongside a server a viable one? It won't be hit hard at all but I still want it all to run well...

theheyes · 28 Sep 2011 at 22:38

It's technically viable, yeah, especially if it's not going to be stressed very much. I would just run the server side stuff in a different user account. It's hard to say how sensible this is however without knowing how many people are going to be accessing the server, how frequently and whether the data is mission critical and how big that database is.

Your problem could be as trivial is one of your colleagues shutting the lid on the laptop, or as serious as all your RAM getting swallowed up and the disk spending most of its time being thrashed.

The point is just be aware that what you've suggested is pretty much a lesson in how not to run a server, but there isn't much to say you can't do it. Give it a try if it's the only option, but I would suggest adding some RAM whichever hardware you choose.