2010 mac mini server, good purchase?

[prvt.donut]

I was thinking of spliting my current setup into a Mac mini and mac book air combination.

Currently, I have a Snow Leopard m(h)ackintosh, Core i7 x980@4Ghz, 18GB Ram, Ati 5970 GPU, which is pretty awesome, but I barely get to use it any more. It is relegated to media duties hooked up to the TV and i don't get time to play games anymore (was dual booting to windows for the games).

So I thought that if I sell this, and get the 2010 mini server, transfering my 256GB SSD to it and enabling a fusion drive with a cheap 1TB drive, I should have lots of space for storage and still be nice and fast and also get a little 2011 Macbook Air for mobile usage.

Does this seem like a good idea? or just stupid?

 

[benwiggy]

All you get in the Mini "Server" configuration is 2 x internal drives and the Server OS.

The Server "OS" can now be bought in the App Store for $19.99, and you're going to replace the internal drives anyway. (In fact, you may not even need the capabilities of the Server OS.)
So a 2010 "non-Server" Mini (with the top-spec CPU) will do just as well for your purposes and probably be cheaper.

The same goes for a 2011 or even 2012 model. You will of course have to buy Mountain Lion to create a Fusion drive.

 

[marzer]

I was thinking of spliting my current setup into a Mac mini and mac book air combination.

Currently, I have a Snow Leopard m(h)ackintosh, Core i7 x980@4Ghz, 18GB Ram, Ati 5970 GPU, which is pretty awesome, but I barely get to use it any more. It is relegated to media duties hooked up to the TV and i don't get time to play games anymore (was dual booting to windows for the games).

So I thought that if I sell this, and get the 2010 mini server, transfering my 256GB SSD to it and enabling a fusion drive with a cheap 1TB drive, I should have lots of space for storage and still be nice and fast and also get a little 2011 Macbook Air for mobile usage.

Does this seem like a good idea? or just stupid?

Your current machine sounds pretty rockin'. Why not keep it, upgrade it to 10.8.3 for the fusion capaibility? Then just add the Air to your ensemble.

Otherwise, if you are going to get a new mini and swap its drives, don't waste the extra on a mini server edition. Get a standard mini and add the dual drives using the second sata cable you can pick up online. And any vanilla server functions you are performing through the server version are more easily managed in the client version anyway under system prefs (file, print, screen sharing, etc.).

 

[California]

I was thinking of spliting my current setup into a Mac mini and mac book air combination.

Currently, I have a Snow Leopard m(h)ackintosh, Core i7 x980@4Ghz, 18GB Ram, Ati 5970 GPU, which is pretty awesome, but I barely get to use it any more. It is relegated to media duties hooked up to the TV and i don't get time to play games anymore (was dual booting to windows for the games).

So I thought that if I sell this, and get the 2010 mini server, transfering my 256GB SSD to it and enabling a fusion drive with a cheap 1TB drive, I should have lots of space for storage and still be nice and fast and also get a little 2011 Macbook Air for mobile usage.

Does this seem like a good idea? or just stupid?

I have the 2010 Mini Server. I run it on the original 2010 Mac Mini software. You don't need to run it as a Server. It's a great machine, I'm running it with 16gbs of ram.

 

[blanka]

The 2011 and 2012 machines are much faster. 2010 is running dual core Core2Duo, where even the simplest 2011 machine already has a four-thread i5.

 

[oldhifi]

Mine runs pretty fast, no problems..