Mac Mini M1 using as a server with multi-users?

[denibg]

Hi there I'm new to Apple computers and I have a question about the Mac Mini M1 because it impressed me a lot. I would like to use it as a server for online work, but to be able to work 2-3 people simultaneously with a desktop environment (in general, Safari and Photoshop will be used the most) as a Windows Server. Is it possible to use it this way?

 

[chrfr]

Hi there I'm new to Apple computers and I have a question about the Mac Mini M1 because it impressed me a lot. I would like to use it as a server for online work, but to be able to work 2-3 people simultaneously with a desktop environment (in general, Safari and Photoshop will be used the most) as a Windows Server. Is it possible to use it this way?

No, macOS doesn't support being used as a terminal server. You could connect to file shares on the Mini from other desktop computers, however.
You can do screen sharing but only to one user at a time.

 

[ChrisA]

Hi there I'm new to Apple computers and I have a question about the Mac Mini M1 because it impressed me a lot. I would like to use it as a server for online work, but to be able to work 2-3 people simultaneously with a desktop environment (in general, Safari and Photoshop will be used the most) as a Windows Server. Is it possible to use it this way?

The Mini could be used as a kind of server but it will never run Windows virtual machines. Any kind of back-end service could be hosted on a Mini, Like a database or a web server. The limitation is RAM but you say for only 2 or 3 users, so 16GB would work.

If you are looking for a VM server at very low cost, you can buy computers that have just come off-least for even less than the pricw of the Mac mini.

 

[Gnattu]

macOS doesn't support being used as a terminal server.

Not natively, but commercial solution do exist, and Apple added paravirual graphics to macOS 11 which enables macOS 11 VMs to have GPU acceleration, but all of above only have working solution on Intel for now.

 

[chrfr]

Not natively, but commercial solution do exist, and Apple added paravirual graphics to macOS 11 which enables macOS 11 VMs to have GPU acceleration, but all of above only have working solution on Intel for now.

Apple's license terms also prohibit terminal services, so that is a factor that should be considered as well. The commercial options don't allow multiple users to be doing screen sharing to a single computer, likely due to this restriction.

 

[Gnattu]

Apple's license terms also prohibit terminal services, so that is a factor that should be considered as well. The commercial options don't allow multiple users to be doing screen sharing to a single computer, likely due to this restriction.

I'm not a lawyer, does VM's running on one hardware with remote access to each applies to "terminal service"? Maybe we could use the VM approach to workaround licensing.

 

[FlyingTexan]

Does macOS have a remote desktop connection like Windows Does? For me that's pretty essential.

 

[ChrisA]

Does macOS have a remote desktop connection like Windows Does? For me that's pretty essential.

Yes, of course. There are several ways to access the Mac remotely.

 

[SecuritySteve]

Does macOS have a remote desktop connection like Windows Does? For me that's pretty essential.

You can press Command-K when in a finder window to connect to a remote server, then type vnc://server-address.

This will initiate a VNC remote-desktop connection to the Mac server. You will of course have needed to have set the sharing preferences to include Screen Sharing and possibly Remote Management.

If you want console access as well, you can turn on Remote Login, and use terminal to SSH into your Mac server.

 

[chrfr]

Does macOS have a remote desktop connection like Windows Does? For me that's pretty essential.

You can share the screen but it shows exactly what’s on the actual screen. It’s not as fast as Windows Remote Desktop and you can’t have multiple users seeing different screens simultaneously.

 

[udance4ever]

you can’t have multiple users seeing different screens simultaneously.

I know this is an older thread but I wanted to make sure we‘re talking about the same thing here.

I am currently using Screens on my iPadPro to remote into 2 separate users into macOS Monterey on an old headless (the LCD screen is detached) 2015 MacBookPro and have a 3rd user seeing their remote desktop from their iMac using the built-in Screen Sharing.app.

If an ancient 2015 MBP can handle 3 independent desktops simultaneously without any issues, I can’t see why an M1 [or M2] mini couldn’t do it!

 

[renewingmind]

So much bad information out there…

MacOS supports up to five simultaneous users. I have an older Mac, and I use screen sharing to login to my wife’s M1 MacBook as a second user. we can both work on different things simultaneously without interfering with each other. I use her Mac remotely because it’s vastly faster than my 2012 iMac and also it can run software that my old iMac cannot.

When you login with screen sharing it will ask if you want to create a new session.

 

[clv101]

So much bad information out there…

MacOS supports up to five simultaneous users. I have an older Mac, and I use screen sharing to login to my wife’s M1 MacBook as a second user. we can both work on different things simultaneously without interfering with each other. I use her Mac remotely because it’s vastly faster than my 2012 iMac and also it can run software that my old iMac cannot.

When you login with screen sharing it will ask if you want to create a new session.

Sorry for dragging up this old thread. Given the power of the Mac Studio, M2 Max, 64GB etc... would it be plausible for a household to have one Mac Studio with up to five users, parents, kids etc all using remotely and simultaneously from random old Macbooks, Windows machines, even Chromebooks? What's the performance like for web, office apps? For streaming video etc with a few simultaneous users? What like of local network speeds are required?

 

[ChrisA]

So much bad information out there…

MacOS supports up to five simultaneous users. I have an older Mac, and I use screen sharing to login to my wife’s M1 MacBook as a second user. we can both work on different things simultaneously without interfering with each other. I use her Mac remotely because it’s vastly faster than my 2012 iMac and also it can run software that my old iMac cannot.

When you login with screen sharing it will ask if you want to create a new session.

I do it the other way. I have an M2-Pro mini that I use for most work. I used 3D CAD several hours a day. But still I have a 2014 vintage mini with Intel i5, 8GB RAM, and SSD. I use it as a small server. It runs some services on MacOS and another on virtual Linux machines. I use Apple's screen sharing to access it. The old Mini is fast enough to do multiple things at once. The bottleneck is the Ethernet speed.

The M2 is usable over WiFi. There is some lag because it is over WiFi. So I'd say you don't need a way-powerfull Mac to share it because the weak link is the network

 

[renewingmind]

Sorry for dragging up this old thread. Given the power of the Mac Studio, M2 Max, 64GB etc... would it be plausible for a household to have one Mac Studio with up to five users, parents, kids etc all using remotely and simultaneously from random old Macbooks, Windows machines, even Chromebooks? What's the performance like for web, office apps? For streaming video etc with a few simultaneous users? What like of local network speeds are required?

It is plausible with Mac clients. I have not tried others with the exception of a VNC server on my iPad. Network speed is your big issue though. If that was what your plan was, I'd suggest a switch with a 10Gbps connection to the Mac Studio, and then each of the five users would need to be connected via ethernet. I now have an M2 mini that I use, and I've found that if I connect to it over wifi I occasionally notice some degradation of the image quality on my display, whereas over ethernet it always feels snappy and everything stays sharp.

There is one untested piece of this puzzle that may be a deal breaker. I am not sure how audio works in this application. I have never cared because I'm using it for super exciting things like doing my taxes while my wife is using her laptop (or I was before the M2 mini arrived which is my Plex server and I login to it remotely over my network using screen sharing). I notice when I am logged into the media server account and I am working with videos that are going to live on my Plex server that the sound is coming out of the mini, not my local machine. I've never tried to fix it because it simply wasn't relevant. This would be something you wanted to test before going all in on this five person machine idea...