Need help selecting Rackmount KVM for Mac Minis

[Jay Deah]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm an Infrastructure Engineer and struggling with product selection on a suitable KVM switch for my use case, hopefully someone here has some practical experience with this and can help steer me in the right direction.

 

I'm currently using a HPE LCD8500 Rackmount console unit connected to a HPE KVM Switch which used to have a selection of windows HPE servers connected via various VGA and DP Dongles. all working well... but now all the servers are decomissioned so this equipment is effectively spare.

 

I also have around a dozen or so Mac Minis of various Eras what i need to manage via a console+KVM. Unfortunately i cannot use the HP setup because the mouse/trackpad will not work when connected to a Mac Mini. Google shows me this is a fairly common issue with some KVMs. my current workaround is to directly plug in a mouse to the mac ad-hoc but this is obviously janky.

 

So, i want to get myself a new KVM just for managing these mac minis. requirements are: Must be rack mountable, must support at least 16 macs, preferably exandable. MUST WORK WITH MACOS!. Preferably using native HDMI and no sort of adapters. Preferably with IP remote access using something modern+secure (ie no Java apps or similar). Preferably a current/supported product with an active roadmap (ie not something that hasnt had a security fix released in 7 years)

A nice to have would be something that can also do remote power control, but since i already have fully managed PDUs in the rack it's really not a deal breaker.

 

I'm hoping to re-use the HPE LCD8500 console, but it's also not a big deal to use a standard monitor, keyboard and mouse in the rack on shelving as i have plenty of spare space and dont have any limitations around air containment.

 

for those interested i'll be mounting the mac minis in these things:

https://www.mk1manufacturing.com/Mac-Mini-Rack-Mounts/MMR-2G-5URS-c17/

 

Thanks in advance!

Jim