Advice on upgrading company OS X server

[PinkyMacGodess]

Because it's old. As an IT Consultant for for the last 15 years, my general rule of thumb is to look at upgrading a company's server every 3-5 years, depending on growth of the company and the performance of said server after 3-5 years. From a reliability standpoint, an aging server is more prone to failure and from a performance standpoint, a new server is faster and has newer technology. Most of my clients have always agreed and like to stay ahead of the curve.

In this case, we have a budget for a newer, faster server with more/faster storage, so we're not looking to recycle an old piece of hardware. While I agree that (for some smaller companies) taking a Mac Pro 2009 and loading it with Mavericks and some newer storage might work, that's not the direction we are looking for.

If, as has been said here, that a new Mac Pro won't give us any better performance than a new Mac Mini, then that extra $3000 can be better spent elsewhere, and that kind of advice I appreciate. Maybe with the savings one of the graphics Mac Pro's can be upgraded to a new Mac Pro!

I've run servers for clients out to 5 to 6 years. As long as parts were available, and a contract of some kind to provide at the least next-day coverage, we'd run them out older.

Given Apple's '3 years and done' hardware support, there is a big question on just getting parts. A 5 year old Mac Pro is going to be a relative headache to get fixed in a hurry if it's your main server. Even with a good backup, it's going to take time to get back up and running... I wish Apple would recognize that people running servers need better, and longer, support. Especially when you consider using an expensive Mac Pro for a server. 3 years isn't long enough, especially if they keep the thing(s) for longer than 3 years.

I've had clients that only upgrade servers every 4 to 5 years to fully depreciate the hardware. That's an issue on a server that can't get support past three.

At least with their old and killed server line, you could buy spares kits for them. Now? Hah... At least a Mac Mini server would be easier to change out...

 

[Silencio]

I've run servers for clients out to 5 to 6 years. As long as parts were available, and a contract of some kind to provide at the least next-day coverage, we'd run them out older.

Given Apple's '3 years and done' hardware support, there is a big question on just getting parts. A 5 year old Mac Pro is going to be a relative headache to get fixed in a hurry if it's your main server. Even with a good backup, it's going to take time to get back up and running... I wish Apple would recognize that people running servers need better, and longer, support. Especially when you consider using an expensive Mac Pro for a server. 3 years isn't long enough, especially if they keep the thing(s) for longer than 3 years.

I've had clients that only upgrade servers every 4 to 5 years to fully depreciate the hardware. That's an issue on a server that can't get support past three.

At least with their old and killed server line, you could buy spares kits for them. Now? Hah... At least a Mac Mini server would be easier to change out...

2009 Mac Pros are plentiful and have gotten quite inexpensive. We have a couple of cold spare units ourselves. Not as easy to stick on a shelf as a Mac mini, but still.

No, Thunderbolt storage won't work with an old Mac Pro. You could instead get a Fiber Channel PCIe card and external storage chassis for now, which you could migrate to a theoretical new Thunderbolt-equipped Mac down the road with a Promise SANLink2. There are a lot more options for 16-bay rack mount SAS or Fiber Channel DAS than for similar units with Thunderbolt at this time.

Snow Leopard Server is getting long in the tooth and any problems with an install are less and less worth fixing, as opposed to starting fresh. Your server currently has its own users / directory, not bound to your Windows Servers' Active Directory? We just have our Snow Leopard and Mavericks Servers bound to our AD and haven't had any problems with user accounts or permissions or anything.

What unplugme71 means by "1GB pipes" is Gigabit Ethernet network connections. Half a dozen users shouldn't overly tax the two Gigabit ports in a Mac Pro set up as a link-agg, unless they're doing heavy uncompressed / high resolution video work over the network. Our edit server is a 2009 Mac Pro with 4x Gigabit LAG and a 26TB SAS RAID, and we never have a problem with insufficient bandwidth.

I don't think a 6 core Xeon is really necessary for the described load. A mid-range 4 core Xeon (2.93 - 3.33GHz) is plenty powerful enough.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

2009 Mac Pros are plentiful and have gotten quite inexpensive. We have a couple of cold spare units ourselves. Not as easy to stick on a shelf as a Mac mini, but still.

No, Thunderbolt storage won't work with an old Mac Pro. You could instead get a Fiber Channel PCIe card and external storage chassis for now, which you could migrate to a theoretical new Thunderbolt-equipped Mac down the road with a Promise SANLink2. There are a lot more options for 16-bay rack mount SAS or Fiber Channel DAS than for similar units with Thunderbolt at this time.

Snow Leopard Server is getting long in the tooth and any problems with an install are less and less worth fixing, as opposed to starting fresh. Your server currently has its own users / directory, not bound to your Windows Servers' Active Directory? We just have our Snow Leopard and Mavericks Servers bound to our AD and haven't had any problems with user accounts or permissions or anything.

What unplugme71 means by "1GB pipes" is Gigabit Ethernet network connections. Half a dozen users shouldn't overly tax the two Gigabit ports in a Mac Pro set up as a link-agg, unless they're doing heavy uncompressed / high resolution video work over the network. Our edit server is a 2009 Mac Pro with 4x Gigabit LAG and a 26TB SAS RAID, and we never have a problem with insufficient bandwidth.

I don't think a 6 core Xeon is really necessary for the described load. A mid-range 4 core Xeon (2.93 - 3.33GHz) is plenty powerful enough.

Silencio -- I appreciate your opinion. Our Mac users directory is not tied to the Windows AD...they are separate. The Windows server went in way later and so we just duplicated usernames and passwords for the few Mac users on the Windows server. For what we do, it seems to work OK.

I do look forward to starting fresh. That does mean, unfortunately, new hardware so the existing server can continue to work while we build and migrate. We do currently have a FC card in our Mac Pro, connected to the Apple RAID box full of older 400GB SATA drives, and that is what I want to get away from.

So TB is our only option, and that means not keeping with an aluminum Mac Pro.

I was confused by the usage of "1GB pipes" and TB in the same sentence (above) as I didn't understand why I'd want a TB enclosure with Ethernet ports! I guess the "pipes" would be in a NAS connected only to the network.

I found a 16-bay TB enclosure that I could start with 8 x 1TB SSD's and have 8 empty bays for expansion. That's only about 4Gb (or less) of the 10Gb Thunderbolt is capable of, and way faster than the current 400MB SATA drives we have now.

Thanks.

 

[Silencio]

You say you have half a dozen Mac-based designers who are connecting to the server. What kind of design work do they do? What applications do they use? If they're working with Photoshop or video editing / 3D apps, what kind of file sizes are they typically working with?

On the surface, it feels like a SSD-based RAID will be serious, serious overkill for your needs. Your network connection will be a bottleneck unless everyone's connected via 10-GB ethernet or a fiber based SAN. If not, 2-4GB enterprise SATA drives from Western Digital or Hitachi are fine.

Whatever you do, starting fresh will be a good time to integrate the Mac-based server into your company's Active Directory. No more duplicate user accounts, less chance for inconsistency.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

You say you have half a dozen Mac-based designers who are connecting to the server. What kind of design work do they do? What applications do they use? If they're working with Photoshop or video editing / 3D apps, what kind of file sizes are they typically working with?

On the surface, it feels like a SSD-based RAID will be serious, serious overkill for your needs. Your network connection will be a bottleneck unless everyone's connected via 10-GB ethernet or a fiber based SAN. If not, 2-4GB enterprise SATA drives from Western Digital or Hitachi are fine.

Whatever you do, starting fresh will be a good time to integrate the Mac-based server into your company's Active Directory. No more duplicate user accounts, less chance for inconsistency.

Mostly Photoshop and InDesign CC. No video or 3D at all (but would not rule out in the future). I think we currently have about 4TB of client data.

While SSD's may be overkill, what I want is fastest access to loading and saving files, not for saving video, etc. SSD's really aren't that expensive anymore so a bunch of SSD's in a Thunderbolt box attached to a Mac Mini might be a good combination for our budget. At least that is what I am trying to figure out!

 

[bennibeef]

Mostly Photoshop and InDesign CC. No video or 3D at all (but would not rule out in the future). I think we currently have about 4TB of client data.

While SSD's may be overkill, what I want is fastest access to loading and saving files, not for saving video, etc. SSD's really aren't that expensive anymore so a bunch of SSD's in a Thunderbolt box attached to a Mac Mini might be a good combination for our budget. At least that is what I am trying to figure out!

Yes SSD's are cheaper nowadays but its really really overkill. Keep in mind your connections to the macs are gigabit connections which means 1Gbit relate to about 128 MegaByte through the network.

A normal hard drive, a WD red for example alone can read more than 128MB/s
and if you raid them together even in a raid 5 you get for some operations even faster speeds.

Sticking a bunch of SSD's in there which read for example 400 MB+/s your network will be the bottleneck and you cant change that easy for now.

And really for PS or Indesign files who needs more. The only way its getting faster to put 10Gb NICs to the macs (which is itself a very expensive idea) and there is no real gain for these small (even if they are 1GB big sometimes) files



And about Minis as a server? There are a lot of people which are putting minis in datacenters and they do their job just fine. To feel safe get 2 minis think about a good backup strategy plan for the files and the system of the mini, clone the mini's system regularly to if there is a problem with one mini just clone it to the drive of the second mini, connect everything and fire it up.

 

[pmgrnvl]

Server

I've done this sort of thing for years, working with Mac servers and users in Mac and mixed environments, primarily with printers, graphic arts and related industries. While I understand your concern about a 2009 Mac Pro, I agree, too, that the machine -- unless it's causing issue -- is likely sound.

Server 2009 is not bad at all. Server 2007 was definitely dumbed down; 2008 added more functionality back; and 2009 is even more improved. Why move to it? For me, the better connectivity to AD. Quite simply, it works more reliably than Server 10.6. For that matter, so did 10.7 and 10.8. Me, I'd upgrade to Server 10.9, especially if you bind to AD. It makes life easier.

That said, if I were in your shoes, I'd consider the following options:

1. Upgrade current Mac Pro 2009 with new drives and more RAM if needed. I'd opt for an SSD for my boot drive, and then three large drives for data. Optionally, I'd look for an external RAID solution, either E-SATA or Firewire 800 (despite what you think, in real world it works quite well). OWC makes several Mercury series RAID devices that have served me well in production environments a good bit larger than yours.

2. Buy a refurbished "old style" Mac Pro -- these still come up on Apple's site from time to time. That's a new, Applecare-coverable machine, and you can buy it, then add an SSD for boot and three large drives as above. And, if you want RAID or more storage, go with the OWC Mercury solution.

3. Buy a Mac mini server. Max it out with the quad-core i7, 16 gb RAM, and two SSDs. I'd use one SSD for boot, then mirror or RAID the other, or use it for a very fast sharepoint. Then, if I wanted to rack mount the thing, I'd get a Sonnet xMac rackmount/expansion or (for less) another rack bracket system. If you get the xMac solution, throw an eSATA card if you want to connect to external storage, or get a Thunderbolt RAID solution (the OWC ThunderBay 4 is a great option, with up to 20 TB of capacity). You also can use Firewire 800 to an OWC Mercury rack mount RAID. Again, don't hang up on specs and so forth. In day-to-day use I've seen that exact configuration -- a Mini with an OWC Mercury via FW 800 -- serve a commercial printer with 50 users, 10 of whom were doing design and graphics work. We'd time test file transfers, and always meet -- and often beat -- times to a beefy Windows box.

Now, the mini may seem like a "weak" option, but don't fool yourself. Another example: An older i7 mini that only has 4gb RAM serving a staff of 30 across three locations; it handles file serving and VPN. And it does it well.

The weak point with the mini is the loss of the perceived robustness. That's fair. But, for the price, buy a basic second mini, and mirror the drive from the primary server to the second mini. Put it on a shelf. Lock it up. Whatever. You literally would have drop-in redundancy for the whole machine for potentially $600 or so.

Would I buy the new Mac Pro? Not for 10 users. I just don't think there's the need for that. Save the money and buy a user a speedier iMac or something. Really.

Hope these ideas help,
Pete

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Pete -- Good advice. I think, instead of Server 2007/2008/2009 you meant 10.7/10.8/10.9??

From everyone's advice, I am gathering that I don't need a lot of horsepower to run the new Mac Server. As a "tech guy", if we're spending money, I want the latest/greatest technology (at least so we have it going forward) and for me that's Thunderbolt-based storage.

Whatever I wind up doing, I'll be going that route. I think.

Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion. And same to everyone here who had something to add.

 

[Altemose]

Two factors that, apart from the overall age of the hardware, push me to buy new hardware and start new is 1) Something is wrong with our OS X (10.6.7) and the directory service is broken such that we can't add or delete users, modify passwords, or really do much of anything with respect to accounts and groups without getting an error and the operation failing. Hence, we're currently stuck with the user accounts that are on it now. 2) We have an XServe RAID box full of old drives, and that scares me the most. I want to move on to SSD and Thunderbolt, and we can't do that on a old-style Mac Pro. I don't believe I've seen a TB PCI-e card yet.

Since the server is a 2009, I can easily flash it and put in a 6 core XEON very cheaply. Instant performance boost. But, I need to address the storage. The old RAID card and low capacity SATA drive array isn't really where we want to stay. A 8 or 16 bay TB or TB2 rack mount box would be perfect.

Something like a xMac mini Server looks like a very intriguing way to add expansion (ie. slots) to a Mac Mini. Not sure how well it works, but feature-wise, it looks nice.

Thanks.

I totally understand why you would want to upgrade. The Mini and some sort of Thunderbolt array will be your best and most affordable option.

 

[pmgrnvl]

I did mean the 10 7, 10.8 or 10.9 with server installed (either as OS or as app now). You do need that. Besides, it's only $20. Or, it'll come with a new mini server.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

...

Thanks for the reply, glad dmylrea got it.

I've got a 'coming to Jesus' moment in the future here. We have an old SunFire server that we had been paying support on forever, and just dropped. The price was slightly higher than buying the same model on ebay.

The idea of using my Mac Pro as a server was what brought me to this thread. It's an early 2009 4,1 that I've been toying with upgrading the processors and adding more memory. I guess either way, I'm going from a box with no warranty to a box with no warranty, but the Mac Pro seems like a better bet. I do have a very old Mini that won't run Mavericks, but has SL server on it.

Similar circumstances... I'll probably go with a new Mini server. It's only money.

We do need to carry our old data from the Exchange Server. Anyone have any experience converting that?

It's been good reading the comments here. Thanks...

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

We do need to carry our old data from the Exchange Server. Anyone have any experience converting that?

Converting to what? I might have some ideas.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Converting to what? I might have some ideas.

To the Mavericks Server email system.

Taken off thread to not hijack this one...

 

[Silencio]

To the Mavericks Server email system.

Taken off thread to not hijack this one...

Hmm, I wouldn't. Not a big fan of Apple's mail server.

If you want to host your own mail server internally, I'd recommend buying Kerio Connect, which is a more like-for-like replacement for Exchange Server and IIRC does have the capability to smoothly migrate mailboxes from Exchange.

More back on topic myself: we have our own thinking to do WRT our server setups. I think we will be paring down our number of Mac Pro servers eventually, moving more of our networked storage to our fast, expensive enterprise-grade storage cluster as soon as we buy a couple more nodes for it. I also need to start going down the virtualization road for all the various services we want to run. A whole lot to think about and read up on!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Regarding SSD's, I was at a conference where EMC had a display. It was a tall rack SAN FILLED with SSD'd. Top to bottom, every slot filled, and they were active too, or were faked really well. The 'booth babe' was randomly pulling out drives to simulate the redundancy of the system, and they 'looked' real enough.

Someone asked, after joking that they would LOVE to have that in their house, how much it cost. The best guess estimate from the man behind the booth babe was $200,000+, but the cost would vary by how many, and what size, and he wasn't sure if that was this model. I'd probably think not after getting quotes of $300,00 and up at the time...

But, yeah, fast, warmish, surprisingly, and expensive.

It looked something like this:

Envious?

 

[Silencio]

View attachment 486764

Envious?

I'll take three.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I'll take three.

Sure...

In high school I had a car that had a stereo in it that was worth more than the whole car... But, I could blow the damn doors off!

 

[irnchriz]

Option 1:
Mac mini server with 16gb ram and a Drobo DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box

Option 2:
Windows server running server essentials. Roles: AD and file server
Stick a nice hardware raid in it and it's all good for up to 25 users

Option 3:
Synology NAS

----------

Hmm, I wouldn't. Not a big fan of Apple's mail server.

If you want to host your own mail server internally, I'd recommend buying Kerio Connect, which is a more like-for-like replacement for Exchange Server and IIRC does have the capability to smoothly migrate mailboxes from Exchange.

More back on topic myself: we have our own thinking to do WRT our server setups. I think we will be paring down our number of Mac Pro servers eventually, moving more of our networked storage to our fast, expensive enterprise-grade storage cluster as soon as we buy a couple more nodes for it. I also need to start going down the virtualization road for all the various services we want to run. A whole lot to think about and read up on!

Having run a kerio server for 20+ companies over the last 5 years I can offer the following advice.

Do not use kerio with OSX unless you have tiny mailboxes or are using outlook 2011.

Any OS, kerio is quite simply rubbish with mailboxes over 10GB and the outlook connector is extremely long in the tooth now.

We have started to move all of our kerio customers over to hosted exchange as the TCO is much better and it works far better with osx than kerio. It's not perfect but it solved a hell of a lot of issues by dumping kerio.

Had I been asked 2 years ago I couldn't see past kerio but they have just been dropping the ball recently.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Option 1:
Mac mini server with 16gb ram and a Dropbox DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box

I can't figure out what a "Dropbox DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box" is?

Who makes it?

Thanks.

 

[bennibeef]

I can't figure out what a "Dropbox DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box" is?

Who makes it?

Thanks.

Maybe a drobo DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box

I have one of these and love it

 

[irnchriz]

I can't figure out what a "Dropbox DAS 5 bay thunderbolt box" is?

Who makes it?

Thanks.

Whoops, didn't notice it had autocorrected DROBO to dropbox.

 

[unplugme71]

I'm a little confused what you mean by "1GB pipes". If the storage box connects with Thunderbolt to the server, what are the 1GB pipes referring to?

And, you are correct, our budget is a bit shy of $1.3M.

1GB pipes (copper ethernet).

Some storage arrays connect with multiple copper ports.