This is a completely different kind of server. Gorgeous in appearance, incredibly compact and quiet, very productive for its size (much more productive than NAS similar at the price), incomparably more functional, with a convenient, flexible and powerful operating system.
Percentage Intel Core 2 Duo with a frequency of 2.66 GHz, 4 GB DDR3 RAM (expandable up to 8 GB), NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor, two 2.5 "hard drives of 500 GB each (they can be combined into a RAID array), Gigabit Ethernet adapter, built-in Wi-Fi 802.11n, high-speed Fire Wire 800, four USB 2.0, two video interfaces (HDMI and Mini DisplayPort), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, SD slot and audio interface.
Looking at the hardware list, it is easy to guess that without any additional devices it will not work on a miniature Apple server to organize a voluminous fault-tolerant RAID array, similar to the one that allows you to create the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 6 when the disk bays are fully loaded with 2 TB drives. At the same time, no NAS or other compact computer dreamed of the capabilities of this server.
With the powerful platform and flexibility of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server, Mac mini can take on a wide variety of networking functions. File server with support for all current protocols, Internet mail and web servers, print server, routing and incredibly flexible Firewall, DHCP and DNS servers, MySQL and RADIUS server, Open Directory and VPN and much more. Everything that you might need at home or in a small office is either already available in Mac OS X Server, or exists as a separate application for this operating system.
A more powerful and universal server, so compact and quiet simply does not exist, and given the presence of an NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with hardware decoding of HD Video formats and two HDMI and Mini DisplayPort interfaces, another role just suggests itself - the role of a media center: to play and broadcast to the network the content contained on it or on external disks. And if you need a large, fault-tolerant disk array, connect external hard drives to your Mac mini Server, which are available in dual-disk configurations with FireWire 800 interfaces, and build the arrays with the reliability you need in the firmware.
