MAC FileMaker Server 11 on Mac Mini

[JPierre]

Hi All,

Will it be possible to run FileMaker Server 11 on a MacMini Core 2 Duo with 4 GB ram, running Snow Leopard 10.6?

I am expecting to have 6 - 10 users connected for this solution.

Cheers,

JPierre

[IdealData]

Don't see why not. You might want to change the hard drive to a 7200 rpm and suitably rated for 24/7 operation. In fact that is my next move too and I have 30+ users.

[JPierre]

Can I order one with 7200 RPM drives, or should I take it to a shop to have it done. - Sorry for this dump question.

[IdealData]

Apple don't supply the faster drives - so it's 3rd party services. Make sure you find someone who knows what they are doing as there's a few tricks to get inside the Mac Mini - easily found on the web though.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Guest

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I certainly would not recommend or use such a consumer grade machine for hosting databases.

Steven

[iMarcW]

The Mini makes a great small-workgroup FileMaker server, as I recently posted here:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showpost.php?post/352217/

Just get a faster hard drive like people are saying (external is an option, too). The new Mini's are quite fast (FM Server isn't much of a CPU hog anyway) and even the dual-internal drive server edition has been shown to generate surprisingly little heat inside that compact enclosure.

[IdealData]

Maybe "consumer grade" but the choice is then Mac Pro or Xserve - mega bucks for 6-10 user operation.

[IdealData]

Bet it would really fly with a Solid State Drive!!

[JPierre]

Thanks all for your reply and assistance.

As much as I respect Steven's response, these solutions will be quite an investment for this solution. Therefore, I am kind of sold to Ideal Data's and Marc's suggestions, with an external 7200 Raid drive. Thank you all for all your help.

Cheers

/JP

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Maybe "consumer grade" but the choice is then Mac Pro or Xserve - mega bucks for 6-10 user operation.

Not really. A mega bucks server would be in the $30K and higher range, and an xServe clearly is not.

How much is it worth to have a high quality server if you have to pay to have the drives restored on one that the chief server engineer called a 40% utilization tested one?

Steven

[enzobro]

I am curious to know if this solution worked well?

Will FM server 11 be able to backup to a firewire hard drive?

Would it be better(faster) to boot and run from an external "enterprise" hard drive in a firewire 800 enclosure? and then just use the internal notebook drive for backups?

What would you say would be the limit for a Mini served FM DB? how many users? or how many records?

Edited May 18, 2010 by Guest

[bruceR]

Never going to happen. Get the Mini.

[IdealData]

I did get a mini - and I pursued the solid state drive and 4Gb RAM to initiate 64-bit mode. The boot time is incredible - 8 seconds from cold to desktop! It also opens my 40+ file solution in less than 60 seconds whereas my old G5 Xserve took around 5 minutes.

[bruceR]

We will be curious to see how that works out in the long term. Seems like you have to be a smart shopper to get SSD to keep its performance up.

[El_Pablo]

We are running FMS11 on the new mac mini server and it works great. Needed a little tweaking to connect to the Windows Active Directory, but mostly works well.

Since it's my first experience with Mac OS X, I needed to learn Perl scripting.

Since it's a "consumer grade", backups, backups and backups.

[typewriter]

How about using a MacMini with a RAM disk? Suppose you have database of 500 Mbyte, a RAMdisk of ca 3 Gbyte and you have FileMaker Server running with the files on the RAMdisk. Naturally, you must backup the whole thing several times a day, because if the Mini goes down, so does the 'disk'. Or does FileMaker store the tempfiles in its own directory?

HE

[Bailey Kessing]

I went the Mac mini way with an SSD drive and couldn’t be happier. Hundreds of millions of records and fast as can be. 120 users.

[typewriter]

Did you get the SSD supplied by Apple or did you purchase it separately?

And would you recommend getting extra RAM or a faster CPU (the corei7)?

[innodat]

We have a Mini (Server edition) here also, two internal disks, RAID configured, works great. The only issue is RAM. There's only two slots and the largest modules (to date) are 4 GB/each. Still, for a small workgroup I can definitely recommend it. It's very energy efficient too.

[John May - Point In Space]

FYI, the i5/i7 models support up to 16GB with 8GB DIMMs:

http://eshop.macsale.../shop/mac-mini/

- John

[innodat]

FYI, the i5/i7 models support up to 16GB with 8GB DIMMs

Wasn't aware of that - thank you for your correction. Will go order some RAM myself just now... :-)