DIY Mac Mini Server Clone
Apple just released the awesome Mac Mini Server for $999. Pretty cool! Unless you want to - you know - add more drives. Aside from that, it’s actually a pretty reasonable deal: Snow Leopard Server retails for $499 by itself (with unlimited client licenses), so you’re really getting a Mac Mini with a pair of 500gb hard drives for only $499. 500gb laptop drives go for $85 to $100 a pop, so you’re getting a reasonably nice little machine for around $300 or so. Not bad, not bad…unless you decide to do better:
Come to the dark side, my friends! Muhahaha 
Okay, okay, having a little bit TOO much fun with the spirit of Halloween here. So just for fun, I spec’d out a similar Mac Mini on Newegg:
- Oddly-familiar Linkworld ATX case w/ 500w PSU: $37 link
- Gigabyte ES2L mATX motherboard: $54
- 2.6ghz Dual-Core CPU: $70
- 4 gigs of RAM: $72
- A pair of 500gb hard drives: $100
- Basic 7200GS video card: $24
- DVD burner, for fun: $35
- Grand Total: $399
Price differences? Not too much. $100 is nice, but it isn’t huge. The real benefit is in the expandability. With the Mini, you’d have to start daisy-chaining your Firewire externals and eventually end up with something resembling The Matrix, lol. With a Hackintosh, you can tuck as many drives as you want into it! If you want to get really crazy, you could pick up one of these spiffy 20-bay Hot-Swap Rackmount Server cases for only $299 and really go to town!
Another huge benefit is the ability to use RAID cards - you can get a RAID card with as many as 24 ports internally (or even more externally!) and do all sorts of RAID levels: RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, etc. A basic 4-port RAID card with Mirroring, Striping, and RAID 5 capabilities goes for less than $100 from HighPoint. Plus you get all the usual Hackintosh benefits - your choice of hardware, a cost savings, whatever case you like, easy maintenance & upgrade, all stuff that makes Hackintosh fun.
2 Responses to “DIY Mac Mini Server Clone”
Great! Keep up the good work!
nice little box. Man, I can’t wait until cases stop coming with floppy drive slots. I told myself I would never buy another case that has one. Nice looking, otherwise. Don’t know if I would trust the stock generic power supply that comes in there, though. I guess its only $50 more…
You’re getting me all excited about Halloween this year Weaksauce, and I don’t even know why!
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