Hacker News Reader

Comment by chvid | Hacker News Reader

So much naysaying here. The Mac Minis are excellent for certain use cases (like a home server) and they last forever. Great that Apple is updating them regularly.

View on HN

Intel NUCs are even better for home server use cases. Similar form factor, much cheaper, and you can put your own memory and storage in them. Just built my own last week and it idles at 5W, it's great.

There is no Mac OS X and Apple's service/warranty.

Also if you try to match the boxes spec by spec; the Mini are usually not that much more.

I really don't understand the fascination with Mac OS. I have two macs and tbh it feels like a polished Linux distro that doesn't run that well after a few OS versions (my 2015 Macbook Pro is so slow it is useless now and I've bought a Thinkpad).

Though I will admit that I typically Brave, Brew, VSCode / Visual Studio and iTerm. It might be me just and not getting any of the real benefit, but I tend to use Windows and Linux just a shell.

What sort of home server use cases do people need OS X for? The only thing I could think of is running an Xcode build server but that seems quite niche.

It appears that an OS X server can take any compatible printer and expose it to the network as a generic PostScript printer. Clients on the network only need to support PostScript, and the server handles everything device-specific.

I've been tempted to buy a Mac for that alone. If there's any similar options for Linux, I would be very interested.

Why would you want to run macOS on a server (no matter that it is just home server)?

The Intel NUCs are excelent little machines. Some of them support Intel AMT, so you can have them completely headless in some cabinet.

Out of curiosity, how do you measure its idle power?

Kill A Watt! https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp...

My Mac Mini home server cost was zero. I retire my old Minis for these functions, I run an IRC server on my 2009 Core 2 Duo Mini and idle power is about the same there.

Well we don't all get our computers off the back of trucks so I'm not sure this is relevant.

They are not lasting forever anymore since sad is soldered one of two ours just died a little after a year.

They used to last forever, because you could replace the failing parts that wear out, like the hard drive.

Then they soldered the SSD onto the motherboard.

I wouldn't say "updating them regularly". The last three updates were in 2018, 2014, and 2012. That 4 year stretch without an update had many thinking they would just discontinue the Mac Mini.

They are the best entertainment center machines.... the full Internet experience from your couch using a wireless mouse and keyboard.

That's hardly unique to Apple hardware: https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboar...

Im sure it isn't, but i used various mac minis as an entertainment center since 2008. It's compact and fits nicely into the TV cabinet or dresser.

I've used any wireless mouse/keyboard bought from Best Buy since. Prefer they are separate as I dont type. Just click through my bookmarks to read and watch content.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com