Mac mini as Home server

[Tottenstein]

Would it be a good idea to buy a late 2012 Mac mini with an 2.5Ghz Intel i5 and run it as an home server 

 

Plex will be the main big use case 

[lieder1987]

How many / what type of streams?

 

[Tottenstein]

1 minute ago, lieder1987 said:

How many / what type of streams?

 

idk, how much you think it can do ? 

[Slayer3032]

It can only hold a single 2.5" drive, if your library will always be small enough for that and you're looking for something that has no upgrade path for drive redundancy, sure it would work fine. If you already have the hardware or it's so good of a deal you can't it pass up, definitely go for it though. Seeking one out for whatever used market pricing is for one however, I definitely wouldn't. It would definitely make a great little HTPC with a cheap ssd.

 

I'd suggest something more like a SFF Dell Optiplex which can hold maybe a few drives inside of it or more if you get really creative.

[Tottenstein]

1 minute ago, Slayer3032 said:

It can only hold a single 2.5" drive, unless your library will always be small enough for that and you're looking for something that has no upgrade path for drive redundancy, sure it would work fine. If you already have the hardware or it's so good of a deal you can't pass up, definitely go for it though. Seeking one out for whatever used market pricing is for one however, I definitely wouldn't. It would definitely make a great little HTPC with a cheap ssd.

 

I'd suggest something more like a SFF Dell Optiplex which can generally hold maybe a few drives inside of it at least if you get creative.

i want something small and cheap hence why im looking at the mac mini, the deal i found is 142 USD, and i was thinking on using external drives as storage for the plex server

[Slayer3032]

Yeah I guess you could hook a WD Elements 8TB or two up to it or something, I have one of those that I shucked for my spare parts home server that I'm really happy with. I'd just rather have something with less external wiring and points of failure, I just have ethernet and power running into mine.

 

If you're alright with having externals hooked up to it, making the setup spaghetti all over where it lives. It will do all your most basic stuff. It won't handle transcoding like 2K/4K HDR HEVC streams but your more conventional 1080p H.264 or H.265 it will do fine provided you're direct streaming. It's a laptop dual core with hyperthreading though, the price seems kind of high for your application when you can generally find SFF's with desktop i5's and i7's at the same price. It's not too expensive though and if you decide you'd like a more serious setup, it would still make a great HTPC although older stuff is starting to lack in playback support for the newer formats. Does it have USB3? I wouldn't recommend it if you can't get the full speed out of a drive at least.

 

Generally though you'd stick the server somewhere out of the way and then stream it to a low power device like a Chromecast. If you're hooking it directly up to what you're going to watch it on, you're kind of not using the Plex server as a server.

 

Just remember you can't like stash your drives in a cabinet with no airflow, externals generally get pretty hot and a higher end enclosure possibly with some fans would be a good idea.

[Tottenstein]

4 minutes ago, Slayer3032 said:

Yeah I guess you could hook a WD Elements 8TB or two up to it or something, I have one of those that I shucked for my spare parts home server that I'm really happy with. I'd just rather have something with less external wiring and points of failure, I just have ethernet and power running into mine.

 

If you're alright with having externals hooked up to it, making the setup spaghetti all over where it lives. It will do all your most basic stuff. It won't handle transcoding like 2K/4K HDR HEVC streams but your more conventional 1080p H.264 or H.265 it will do fine provided you're direct streaming. It's a laptop dual core with hyperthreading though, the price seems kind of high for your application when you can generally find SFF's with desktop i5's and i7's at the same price. It's not too expensive though and if you decide you'd like a more serious setup, it would still make a great HTPC although older stuff is starting to lack in playback support for the newer formats. Does it have USB3? I wouldn't recommend it if you can't get the full speed out of a drive at least.

 

Generally though you'd stick the server somewhere out of the way and then stream it to a low power device like a Chromecast. If you're hooking it directly up to what you're going to watch it on, you're kind of not using the Plex server as a server.

 

Just remember you can't like stash your drives in a cabinet with no airflow, externals generally get pretty hot and a higher end enclosure possibly with some fans would be a good idea.

the mac has 4 usb 3 port and thunderbolt and yes im not going to use it as an htpc im going to be using an lets say chrome cast in the living room streaming it and since i have port forwarding im going to be using it during trips

yeah i know it has to have airflow but the mac mini has such a little footprint it will be easier to hide that then an old server or some old workstation.
what i am thinking of doing with this pc is having it in my bedroom and have it host an plex server but also maybe use it as a htpc in the bedroom since i dont have any smart device hocked up to my tv there

[Bacon soup]

I wonder if a low end intel NUC would be more powerful. I use a Celeron J3455 as a server, but I dont stream videos from it. It cost me f-all coz I already had RAM and an SSD from my broken laptop.