I know some of you have opinions/thoughts on the kinds of machines that FMS9 should be running on. The organization I work for is deciding between using a macmini or an xserve. I'm aware that some of you will say "get an xserve...what is your data worth" while others will say "a mac mini has worked fine for us". I'd like to hear from both of you, and would love to know the reasons why a macmini isn't the way to go. there's 6-12 people in this organization. has someone written an article on this anywhere?

My thoughts;

The Mini doesn't seem like a good idea for no other reason than its not server hardware. The xServe seems like overkill for the environment that you've described.

Will this be a server for hosting FM files to clients or will it also do other things? There so much more potential in the xServe that if you can take advantage of more of what it brings to the table then go with it.

It really has to do with how much data the machine will be processing and "serving" to clients. If you have a 2 MB address book type application then I reckon a Mac Mini will work fine for up to 20 people. But if you have 1 GB solution with hundreds of fields and calculations then your mileage may suffer.

The Mac Mini may work fine for you just get plenty of ram, don't run anything else on it, and preferably get a 7200 RPM drive. And be ready to upgrade if needed.

As an Apple engineer I have supplied and installed FMS8 on a Intel based Mac Mini with no real Problems.

The Internal HD's are weak so it's better on a Firewire External 3.5"

backed up by Time Machine.

The drives in the miniMac disqualify it for use as a FileMaker Server if you value your data.

Time Machine and similar devices and services should not be used on FileMaker Server machines, particularly if they might interact with the hosted FileMaker Pro files.

Steven