Mac Mini Server Farm
Photo of a Mac Mini server farm at Apple Insider discovered through a link by Hedirman on My Twitter.
Was asking whether Mac Mini's could be stacked. Hmmm. Could be a hint to the Giveaway second round?
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Graduate Student
That is a ton of Mac Minis.
Mad scientist
A Mac Mini weights 1.31 kg. A ton of Mac Minis would be 763 computers. We can't see all of them so nobody can tell if your statement if correct or not. However as weird as it may sound I'm not going to rule out that the building could contain that many o_O
university film student | ecchikid | the Archivist
http://www.vimeo.com/longhim
...LOL. ^^;
Dance Trooper: DCX-001 O.D.E. (Order of the Dancing Empire)
http://dannychoo.com.my
LOL, you is being you..........
Poet (not)
The original link says roughly 400.
IT-Architect, SysAdmin, WebDesign and Coding, Virtualization (VMware + NetApp)
http://www.milkdrop.de/
Thats just insane... i have seen a lot of funny stuff in my IT career but thats just... WANT... *drool* Oo
Student
That is way cool
They should all be stacked!
Network Administrator
That is absolutely incredible. In response to your question, I do have a file server that I keep in my closet, but that's about it. It's pretty handy, keeps my laptop nice and uncluttered.
Young Grasshopper
http://miragestrike.blogspot.com
Whoa, that's a lot of minis. I wonder how many air coolers they have in that room.
Student/Music Producer/Web Designer
http://www.myspace.com/lionbiscuits
Oh wow. O.O That's pretty incredible. Gotta love Apple! ^^
houkouonchi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/red_mango/
I've seen a similar photo elsewhere. It's very cool looking.
Student | J-Drama beau
http://www.emikro.de.vu
I am not a friend of Mac, but it looks cool =D
And I dont run a server at home.
Voice/Network Engineer
http://www.evilnecko.com
Ha sweet I've walked past that colo cage a few times when I'm in Vegas doing maintenance. We have a few fiber rings that terminate in cage just a few rows down from them. As for the AC comment that facility has Liebert units that will almost blow you over when you walk by them. Being in Vegas means they have to have a ton of redundancy for their cooling systems.
Student
I wonder, is it really feasible to create a large scale sever setup on mac minis? I would expect there to be a cost efficient way to get high performance.
At home I run a single server. Mainly used for central fileaccess (And backup) and using MythTV as a mediacenter frontend.
Mad scientist
I wonder what they are doing. It's not normal to buy that amount of CPU power (though I think Apple offered a discount). I wonder how cost effective the Mac Mini is. It looks like it's a good offer since they decided to use it.
Somehow it seems like a waste that they all have a DVD drive. I bet most of them will never use it as they are likely formatted using a disk image from a firewire drive.
College Freshmen
That looks cool, although I'll admit I don't know much about computers.
Blogger, consultant
http://www.netharuka.com
tl;dr version: that's not a lot of computers in one place; space usage for the Macs aren't well optimized <_< >_>
I'm going to sound really jaded here, but understand this is a comment from someone who used to run server farms. That's a lot of Macs, yes, but I've seen a lot more computers in one place. I've seen the farm used to serve up MSN back when it used to be run by Compaq (which is now HP). We're talking thousands of computers rack mounted up to 16 feet high. Even the far more humbler farm I used to run had close to 600 servers all rack mounted. All told our server room had probably 18 rows with 8 cabinets each. Each cabinet capable of taking 44u (u = 1.75 inches approx) of equipment. Of course, not all of that were servers, much of it was network gear, storage, backup and telco equipment.
Danny asks a good question: can't mini Macs be stacked or more specifically, racked mounted? It looks like they are free standing, which would've been a major no-no if I ran that data center. Free standing servers tip over. Free standing servers are more difficult to access. Free standing servers can be inadvertently moved or easily taken. I see a lot of wasted space in how the Macs are positioned. Also, who did their cabling? They need to redo that. Loose cables will snag on the dumbest things causing an embarrassing network or server outage.
Poet (not)
Maybe someone needs to design a specialized rack for the Minis?
Half Engineer, Half Student, All Robot
http://discombobulatedyouth.blogspot.com/
Where I used to work, we had a bunch of testbeds. Not really servers, but they were stress-tested as much as actual servers. I saw a bunch of what seems to be custom mounted machines. I mean custom mounted as gutted and mounted on a plate that was afterwards rack mounted. Given these were expendable testbeds and the data center was temperature and air conditioned, there wasn't much dust. In terms of rack mounting, 1U is 19in x 1.75in (not sure. Rule of thumb I used to use). A Mac Mini is 6 x 6 x 2 in. I guess I optimal orientation would need 2U. This also allows sufficient breathing room. Of course, the chassis would either need to be stripped or holes would need to be drilled to mount them properly (say a plate) and that plate would need to be mounted on the rack mount. All in all, I would say major PITA.
Blogger, consultant
http://www.netharuka.com
Oh, I wouldn't suggest drilling holes or making that kind of drastic modification for the chassis...that would be bad. That would be a pita indeed; that I agree with you. What would be ideal is for the mini to come out with a chassis that can be better mounted or as Bard suggested, a specialized rack be developed...maybe using clamps instead of having the servers screwed in.
I think it's pretty clear that the mini Mac wasn't intended to be a data center type machine, though it is used as such.
Student artist
http://www.requestview.wordpress.com
How much does it cost to make a sever at home? and why?
Blogger, consultant
http://www.netharuka.com
It depends on what you consider a server. I don't know Mac prices, but if you wanted to go cut rate, a decent PC-based server would cost no more an expensive consumer PC. The difference between a server and a client machine, apart from their function, is the level of redundancy they happen to have and that they are optimized in serving content or doing computation functions rather than serving up graphics like a gaming rig.
Having a home based server if you have a network at home is convenient. A home based server can serve as your print server (no need to attach a print/usb cable to your wireless laptop to print), can act as remote storage (your laptop can have a small hard drive, but you can backup large files to your server), and can run shared applications if you're using the network with another person (e.g., a calendar application, an expensive graphics application like Photoshop).
Marketer
that's really impressive
i didn't know that it was possible to create a cluster with lots of mac mini
they have added a couple of external HD, see the 2 western digital passport on the top right with their blue circle :)
http://www.marvinryan.com
I was wondering about the blue circles. ^^ thought they might be a few assimilated pcs. ^^ thanks for that comment froggy. ^^
Wow when I saw a server they just use ordinary (not mac mini) pc and there were around 50 - 70 and it was a hot place to stay !
part time illustrationist, doll clothing seamstress
http://puppy52art.com/
I read farm, I think MOOOO ^^;
Troubleshooter, Universal Exports
http://funkyblueame.tumblr.com/
^o^
http://www.marvinryan.com
lol but it's an apple farm. ^^
Dance Trooper: DCX-001 O.D.E. (Order of the Dancing Empire)
http://dannychoo.com.my
Apple Milk, I'm game.
Student.
http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/profile/Yuusuke-kun/
uhmm... *cough* O.O"
Half Engineer, Half Student, All Robot
http://discombobulatedyouth.blogspot.com/
Excellent. This minimizes the area, but doesn't it maximize cost? Although it depends on the type of servers this guy's running, but I don't believe the Core 2 Duo architecture is suited for this sort of application as compared to say a Xeon. Just my opinion, but this seems like another case of pee'ing your money away for something that looks cool (Apple).
Half Engineer, Half Student, All Robot
http://discombobulatedyouth.blogspot.com/
As for servers at home. I run a small media server / VPN server that I use as a centralized location for my media and personal files. This also lets me get onto my secured home network to remotely maintain / support my family's computers. Too bad it's really crippled because my home connection sucks, but whatever. I used to run a shell server, shoutcast, and CS1.5 from a recommissioned Pentium box, but found that supporting something like that isn't worth it if you're doing it unpaid.
Pretty amazing! O:
Troubleshooter, Universal Exports
http://funkyblueame.tumblr.com/
This photo is from the Macminicolo http://www.macminicolo.net/ facilities at Switch Communications in Las Vegas. Currently they have over 400 minis at their facility according to their numbers. To make a long story short, they offer hosting to clients in a unique way. You can either buy a mini from them or send one to them to host your site. It's a very interesting setup...
Yes, I do have an older Pentium PC running Windows that I use for files and entertainment media. I really want to upgrade it to a mini or two with a RAID array for the data.
Student
ah~ s-s-servers! glorious server! server sweet server!
IT Architect
Holy power consumption batman!
NEET part-time - Technical Support Officer - Network security engineer
http://burugureibi.blogspot.com/
I have a server in the 'office' (really a converted spare bedroom) at home - It usually stores most of my anime, manga and movies and also handles all my torrenting
But i recently got myself a 1TB ext drive for my desktop and now i rarely run my server
im thinking of converting it into a smoothwall to go in between the demarc point and my router
Impressive, but set up seems bad.
I don't run a server at home because I never really needed to and you can actually save quite a bit of money on electricity ^^
DSL Tech Support T____T, Kita-Kon Chairman
http://www.kita-kon.org
I run a simple NAS storage on my network. I also have a Server box for LAN parties but its never plugged in.
Delivery Driver | Semi-student
http://www.soulfringe.com/
Seeing all those led lights reminds me of some of the tokyo at night pictures I see around here.
Writer
And here we see the exact location from which the Macbot self-assembled and took over the world. *shiver*
College student, Mech programmer and striving photographer.
http://moeforme.blogspot.com
Servers for what exactly? The apple company or something else?
Student
Woooooow. I seriously think I've been there if that's at Switch. :D Super cool, never thought I'd see a picture posted here that I've actually seen.
http://www.marvinryan.com
wow! that's a lot of mac minis...
hey look over there, it's Steve Jobs!
*pockets a mini under his jacket*
Dance Trooper: DCX-001 O.D.E. (Order of the Dancing Empire)
http://dannychoo.com.my
where? where?
*searching for Steve Jobs*
http://www.marvinryan.com
lol ^^
Dance Trooper: DCX-001 O.D.E. (Order of the Dancing Empire)
http://dannychoo.com.my
O_O
That's really a lot of Mac Mini~~~~~~~~~
I think it's becuz of the small form-factor that people chose Mac Mini to use as a server, but why not get a single powerful server instead? Probably due to pricing.
Saber's Knight of One
http://www.ultima-i.com
I have been researching hosting my own mac mini server for the last few weeks. Still curious just how big of a server load the little box can handle though. It would be nice to be able to do my hosting for my site, but worry if it would be able to handle traffic growth. (Not that I have to worry about that issue for a while)
Bounty Hunter
http://myanimelist.net/profile/andrewgk
LOL....
???Confused???
That's a lot of mini's...
MS pilot
thats cool but also ridiculous...for the cost of getting 400 mac minis you can get a really good server thatz probably more powerful too XD
Aeronautical Engineer
http://www.deranged-minds.com/blog/
Lol... was wondering if I could stack a load of them like this... well this answers my question. XD
Dog of the Country
it looks kinda exp..@_@
Mechanical Engineering student
http://sabekujikaneda.multiply.com/
One EMP blast and it's all over... O_o
Otaku
http://imperiomoe.wordpress.com
My servers are in Linux but I usually moving things around all the time
anime/cosplay events organizer
http://www.cosplay.ph
wow! that's some server farm there
i wonder what are they using this mac minis for?
former Emperor of Britannia
http://reflectiarx.wordpress.com/
Minis in stacks XD
Otaku / Student in Networking
http://hayasaki-kun.blogspot.com/
Nah..Too much things to setup a server
Student, part-time Haruhi wannabe (that bit about godhood etc)
http://www.aprilius20.wordpress.com
Don't tell me you're gonna get the winners to count the number of servers in there this time? ^^;
Wouldn't mind having that in my backyard though...
Student
http://mizunoyuutsu.wordpress.com/
wow, nice...
Student
http://shockerz.wordpress.com/
Lot's and lot's of mac minis. Wonder how much would that cost?
graduate studant (TV & Cinema )
NO BUT I WISH..... i'm just a beginner in the server, PHP, CSS stuff...
buy the way, Danny what's the best way to have a good set-up like that? Could you do a segment or a series of that? Like best systems, price, odds and evens, etc...
Thanks ^_^
Student
http://anime.tedfox.com/
gotta take my hat off to him, he must be a real mac fan!
Student
http://anime.tedfox.com/
gotta take my hat off to him, he must be a real mac fan!
Student, Uncle & hopfully a good husband..
Imagine you are the one in charge of maintaining it...
浦の引き篭り
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3219/haruhimemew.gif
It looks like some type of secret evil headquarters...
Student
I don't run a server at home per se but I have one computer that has all the important documents and stuff in it. And it is almost always running...
Student
http://www.otakugen.com/blog/liddokun
servers are quite inexpensive now and they are quite convenient. i have a old p4 server running all my hds. i just keep slamming hds into that computer. its got over 2 TB of hd space in it and it works great. connected it to a gigabit switch and i can now get good throughput watch HD video and BT-ing at the same time. works great. + the extra desktop space cant hurt :P
Consultant
Wow that's a lot of em. That reminds me, I should get to setting up a server at home.
Student
http://twitter.com/minimumspecs
Makes my two Mac Mini server look pathetic. I would love to open my closet door to this, although like others have said, I would not want to be the one maintaining it all.
hw sw engineer
http://darkfader.blogspot.com/
This many Mac Mini's in a big stack would certainly fall over.
And you can't just replace one at a time in case it breaks (but they won't anyway ^^).
At home, it's a simple 2.6.24-gentoo-r8 on at Athlon. Too lazy to get firewall back up, so plz don't hack me.
Grocery Store Clerk
A few IBM blades would have been a better investment than those pieces of shit.
Pre-U Student
http://wakuwakusuru.zeroclipse.net
Must be expensive to get that many Macs running even though they are Mac Minis.
Student
But probably the best when factoring in their size.
That has got to be expensive
Otaku ^^
I'm planning to get the 2009 version of Mac Mini, to try out MacOS X. Since I have two 24" LCD monitor, I can use one for Windows and one for MacOS. =P
d@@b
part-time professional part-timer
http://artmusicanime.multiply.com
Holy crap! =P~
AMA Rookie
http://ppoppome.blogspot.com/
holy..