If you assume the person utilizing this setup will stream 3 broadcast MPEG-2 files, that still only tops out at roughly 60Mbps. Most MPEG-4 encoded video files are streaming at a bitrate FAR below 1Gbps (the most generously encoded 1080p stream I've seen tops out at around 10Mbps), and MPEG-2 will top out at 19.2Mbps for a broadcast 1080i/720p stream.

Fusion drive will also be rather worthless for large video libraries, since the flash cache is only 128GB. Since network cards use DMA transfers, there should be little CPU overhead. Even the slowest modern SATA platter drive can serve up 1Gbps sequential reads all day long, and they can easily handle 3 reads simultaneously (especially with caching). Practically, I'd restrict server use to only the high-end Mac mini model.Ĭould you explain how you think that streaming data over ethernet or Wi-Fi is a CPU or memory intensive process? The network will always be a bottleneck. Of course, technically any Mac mini can act as a server. That makes the current model a little less suited for server use than its predecessor - especially in environments where multiple users will be demanding the server's attention, as in L.C.B's case.

Unfortunately, with the 2014 refresh, Apple made a crucial change to the Mac mini: High-end models are no longer available with quad-core processors, which are better at handling multiple-threaded applications and multiple media streams than dual-core processors.

$999 gets you a 2.8 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM, and a 1 TB Fusion drive - Apple's name for a hard drive paired with a 128 GB SSD - providing a nice balance of speed and storage capacity. But if you really want to use it as a high-powered server, I'd recommend the even faster system. The mid-range model, priced at $699, sports a considerably faster 2.6 GHz processor, twice the RAM (8 GB), and a 1 TB hard disk drive.

Plex media server mac