When Apple announced the MacMini at Macworld Expo last January, an immediate discussion began in the technology community about the possibility of using it as a server. Just like when Apple introduced the G4 Cube, and the Xserve, companies even came out of the woodwork, basing their whole business model on MacMini Colocation. While the latter is a bit absurd, the former is worth discussing. While digital.forest has never been a "Mac Only" facility (our very first server in 1994 was a Sun Microsystems SparcStation 5) we have always been very open-minded about platform, and embraced the Mac as one of many we support. The Macintosh community, a fiercely loyal group of customers that any company would be wise to embrace, has shown digital.forest as much loyalty as they have shown Apple. This is how we have become the largest collection of MacOS servers on the Internet, at least outside of Apple's corporate datacenters.

People who run servers are always attracted to small form-factor computers because when you buy colocation, part of what you are buying is space. The more computer you can pack into the least amount of space the better... so the theory goes. It also helps that Apple is selling the MacMini for a very low price. A full-blown FreeBSD UNIX install on a sub-$500 computer.

Given the insane colocation market now the cost-per-rackspace argument is kind of moot. But the appeal of a spending under $500 for a server is hard to argue with... even if it may not be a significant performer. An Xserve is far better suited to serve moderate-to-high traffic sites, but as a low-volume mail server for a small office, or a "personal server" the bang-for-the-buck of the Mini isn't too bad.

So it didn't surprise us today when Phil Herring, a long-time client of digital.forest showed up today to replace his aging "blue & white" G3 mail server with a brand new MacMini.

Above: Phil Herring unpacks the lunchbox-sized container that the Mini ships in. This is the first server that has ever come into our datacenter carried one-handed.

Above: Phil Herring holds up his new server.

Above: This little computer is twice as powerful as the one it sits upon, and 3X more that the one it is replacing. We'll have to find out from Phil how well it performs.

I'm keen to find out myself actually, as we have racks and racks of G3 & G4 computers that carry pretty light loads. Mind you we also have racks and racks of G4 & G5 machines and Xserves that carry pretty high loads... but the combo of Xserves and Minis might be an interesting "Big & Little" option. Personally, I'd like to see an "Xserve lite" more tailored to the realities of the datacenter and Internet serving, (Apple should look at Dell's 1U & 2U servers... very nice) but until that happens, we may be looking at a lot of Minis... who knows.

--chuck goolsbee
vp of technical operations
digital.forest
seattle, wa