Mac mini - small but mighty

I speak today of the Mac that hides its light under a bushel: the Mac mini server that was overshadowed by the brilliant new 27-inch iMacs when Apple rolled out its latest models back in October. (A bushel, by the way, is the wicker basket medieval Brits used to measure out spuds in the markets.)

I have had a Mac mini, hooked to a 20-inch Cinema Display, since their introduction in January 2005. Only once have I had a problem, due to a serious software conflict.

The mini was Apple's first foray into low-cost computing and was the sharp edge of the wedge being driven into Windows' consumer market, something Apple has continued to do with higher-spec machines.

For people switching to Mac, the mini was a good deal. For about $600 you got a reasonably fast Mac configuration, a bunch of nice software and a better and easier-to-use operating system than Windows. Buyers could keep their old monitor and keyboard, plug them into a Mac mini and were Mac-adapted at minimum cost.

For Mac folk like me, the mini was a quiet, reliable workhorse, churning out thousands of words and fielding a similar volume of emails.

But others, among them Mac experts such as Marc Edwards of iSlayer (it built the IceTV electronic program guide) and Bjango, the Melbourne iPhone apps outfit, had hooked their Mac minis to TVs and turned them into servers running home and office networks.

Now Apple has acknowledged that trend by producing a Mac mini adapted specifically as a server for small businesses, work groups, schools and homes that have networks feeding Macs.

The machine's footprint is the same as the original mini's but doesn't have an optical CD/DVD SuperDrive. Instead it has two 500-gigabyte hard drives and comes with Mac OS X Server installed. It has a 2.53GHz processor, four gigabytes of RAM and an impressive array of ports: five USB 2.0, one FireWire 800 port, one gigabit ethernet, a mini DVI port and a mini display port, plus audio in and out.

Compared with standard servers, the Mac mini server is quiet and economical, using only about 14 watts of power when idle. It does not need a monitor because you can see it on networked machines and you can put it away in a cupboard.

At $1399 it is a bargain because it includes Mac OS X Server software, which retails for $699. Mac OS X Server includes an Address Book server, a Time Machine server and a calendar (iCal) server as well as a podcast production system and built-in blog and wiki software. It's the sort of server a small school could consider.

You could use it as a media server, plugged into a digital TV and running iTunes, but if that is all you want, save your money and buy a standard Mac mini.

So, I hear you cry, if it does not have an optical drive, what happens when you need to use the software installation DVD that comes with the Mac mini server? Any MacBook Air owner could tell you that, like the Air, the mini server can read CDs or DVDs from the drive of a networked conventional Mac or PC, or you could buy a MacBook Air SuperDrive ($139) and plug it into one of the USB ports.

There should be a good market for the Mac mini server. Networked computers are proliferating in our homes and workplaces. The mini looks like a good, cheap, well-featured, easy-to-configure-and-use server for small businesses.

And that is not to count the several million homes that, like ours, have three, four and sometimes more computers used by people who live there, or who regularly materialise, mostly by way of the larder and wine rack, to "borrow" our cable bandwidth.

- © Fairfax NZ News