pixellip

Hi everyone I’ve got some advice to ask concerning buying a mac server. I am at a crossroads wondering what to do. Install Bootcamp on them. yes yes ! We have 11 Snow Leopard Imacs here and I’ve joined them to our windows AD domain. For some reason the login button keeps disappearing (that is the button called ‘Other’ which is present on the login screen that let’s you log into the network). In the end after not being able to solve this issue and it holding people up I had to rever to adding some local users to the macs instead. It make me wonder if AD implementation in OS X is a bit flaky? Also Iphoto doesn’t seem to want to play with windows and shares and likes the data to be installed locally on the mac so here I hit my first bump ( at least Apple told me this) . Everyone wants to use Iphoto and this is an issue logging onto the windows AD. Thirdly the few Mountain Lion macs I bought will not let me browse to them via my Windows 7 pc ( via Samba ). This means at the moment I can’t back them up from my pc with my automated Windows 7 software. I asked Apple but had no response. I think there are a few people having issues with Samba on Mountain Lion. After all these problems and frustration ( and not to mention trying to get Carbon Copy Cloner to back up on each Imac to a share on the windows network and also running into problems) I am pondering whether it would be worth buying a mac mini and trying to set up a mac server and work out how to get the users across from AD into the mac mini. Or do I persevere with Macs and our AD domain? I have no experience of this and wonder where to put my eggs…… I would prefer to ditch the macs altogether – it is hard trying to convince people this is the way to go. They want their macs…..so be it. Anyway I’d be interested to hear some people’s thoughts on what they think would be the best solution. Buying another server means more admin for IT and it’s possibly less centralised admin ( 15 macs are not that difficult to manage but it’s an extra thing to do - plus you have the backup issue). The question is whether I buy storage and persevere with our Windows AD domain or plump to a buy a mac mini server. I am not sure what will be the best move so any opinions are much appreciated. We have about (So far) 250 kids wanting to use the macs – 20 at a time – and 1 gig of storage each. This could grown in time……but for now that’s the sort of space / amount of users – not very many. All they do is Photoshop and Iphoto. It seems folks on here have the same frustrations running Macs on a windows network does it not?

That's really handy thanks Davit. I'd say there would be 20 macs using the server......there's about 250 users here who use macs I had already joined our Imacs to the AD domain but for some unknown reason the 'Other' login button drops off on the Imacs and no one can suggest why and everyone was getting fedup.....which is why I started thinking maybe it's time to buy a mac server. Wasn't sure if AD on the macs was a bit flakey or not. The mac minis look good......I keep wondering what they will be like running one as a server with that many users ( it's only Photoshop and Jpegs they are opening not video). Thanks of all your help everyone.....I do appreciate your advice.

The trouble with buying a mac server is also the issue - do we have to set up all the users again ( 250 of them ).....as they are already on our windows AD domain.......it could be difficult to manage involving duplication.....sorry if I am going off topic.......

I see thanks Ross. I had a feeling someone was going to suggest that. I was thinking of buying a Mac server but there are so many things I need to find out. I wonder - would a mac mini suffice for 250 users? They look pretty fast.....for something so small. It's difficult to know how much dosh it's going to cost for the amount of users and space. I am trying to hunt down some tips about it....trying to integrate it into a Windows environment. It's a big hill to climb up at the moment!

Hi I've got so many questions about macs and AD. Where do I start! Is there a way of getting all the users to have the same icons on the dock no matter who logs in? You can put a bunch of aliase's from Applications into the Users / Shared folder but it's not quite what I wanted.....I wanted to fix an all users taskbar with the same programs on that involves no dragging on the part of the user. Also I wanted Picassa to open when you double click on a Jpeg ( not Iphoto). Is there a way of automatically setting file associations for all users ( automating this ). Thanks for your help , I'm really stuck hunting on the net for these answers.