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Hi,
I am looking at the possibilty on running Mac OSX server on a Mac Mini. I am looking at this page. It tells me it has 2 x 500GB hard drives.
Apple (United Kingdom) - Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server
Apple (United Kingdom) - Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server - Tech Specs
Does anybody know if they are on a raid array? I suspect not.
We've got one of these, just checked and there is no hardware raid in it and the drives show up as server drive and macintosh drive, so they aren't on a raid array here.
For reasons best known to themselves, Apple ship the Mac Mini Server with the system installed on one drive and the other drive as an independent volume. Typically when we install them we want to mirror the drives for security, but that involves re-installing the system software. Not difficult, but a couple of hours you could have used for something else :)
Insert the installer DVD, boot from it by powering up whilst holding down C, choose Disk Utility from the menus (not from the hard drives, as you'll be wiping those), in disk Utility select the RAID tab and set up a mirrored RAID set, dragging the two drives from the list into the RAID window. Name it however you need to and hit Create. Once completed you can quit Disk utility and proceed with the System installation.
Yeah, it's very annoying! I haven't done it on ours, but I should as Linux software RAID is pretty good. Seems Apple don't quite have that bit right yet.
As much as I love apple kit usually, I can't help thinking they really don't "get" the whole concept of server hardware at times. Even the xserve feels like a mac pro shoe-horned into a 1u case than a properly thought out server (and don't get me started on the trouble my suppliers and I have had finding a 10gb NIC for it)
Really...? Small Tree have been doing 10gb cards for ages....link belowQuote:
Originally Posted by Roberto
10GbE Cards - Small Tree
Yes. There's one installed and working in one of our mac servers right now. But it was horrendously expensive and difficult to source a SFP+ nic for a mac server compared to one for a Dell server, say.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean-OC04
The fact that a 3rd party provides 10Gb NICs for mac servers is hardly a standing ovation for how well Apple themselves 'get' the server market.