Dedicated server VS Server App installed on iMac

[mike86]

Hi all.

 

Currently we have a suite of 16 macs (soon to be more) I have set one of the macs (the one the teachers use, although it is locked down) up with the server app & workgroup manager, also with a file share that mounts when students log on. We have had a few issues with this, mainly Sibelius licence server not responding. I am wondering the benefits if any of having a dedicated server (MacMini) for these macs. I'd appreciate it if anyone could give me the benefits of this & any possible future drawbacks of not having a dedicated mac to run as a server.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

[TomCollins]

Obviously, if the teacher decides to shut down their Mac for lunch or the end of the day, your server is also down. I've had it where people have restarted their macs because it's 'running slow'. Obviously if you have a suite of 16, that's 16 that then lose their connection to the shares, and I've found OS X actually completely freezes when it loses connection to Open Directory (the example being at a company using OD only, might be different when using magic triangle).

 

If I was in your situation, I would go for the dedicated server. No one will go and turn it off after they have used it and will obviously be out of the touch of students & teachers, plus it would work well if you do expand, a teacher iMac, although they are pretty powerful as they are, running both the teachers applications and also serving 16+ other macs.

[ste1988]

Got to be dedicated for me, Best £500/600 you'll ever spend, if teach is working at that mac all day, its going to slow you down so much, and that's if there are never too many problems, have the mac mini and you can login and mess any time.