Most of the time I've been online, I've used web servers running Linux. The main reason stemmed from the fact that Apple has never been that much of a player in the server space. Also, Linux servers were plentiful, cheap, speedy, reliable and not subject to much in the way of malware. They were also predictable, and though management wasn't always easy, my sites rarely went offline.
Well, this weekend, I decided to take a huge plunge. It wasn't a casual choice. Some weeks back, I read a short article about an Atlanta-based host, MacStadium, which, as the name implies, specialized in Macs. While they have recently begun to deploy the super fancy and super compact — and super expensive -- Apple Mac Pro, their main stock in trade was the super small Mac mini.
Today's Mac mini sells for a starting price of $499, but some web hosts have found them ideal for low-cost server farms. They aren't as robust as those huge and costly blade servers, but they can manage a small office and several sites without difficulty.
But what about my sites?
Early on, my first radio show, The Tech Night Owl LIVE, was hosted on a Mac, but I moved away from that setup when I quit a small online network where the show was established and went out on my own.
Well, I was offered two options to evaluate on MacStadium. One was a souped up Mac mini, with a quad-core Intel i7 processor (this configuration is no longer offered by Apple), and the other a traditional blade server. Since I love to live dangerously, I chose the former, and thus, as of this weekend, most of our sites are now hosted on that tiny Mac mini, a computer that weighs less than three pounds.
So far as I can see, it's working, and performance still seems pretty good based on early measurements.
What do you think? Yes, for a while at least, The Paracast and The Tech Night Owl are hosted on a Mac!
Well, this weekend, I decided to take a huge plunge. It wasn't a casual choice. Some weeks back, I read a short article about an Atlanta-based host, MacStadium, which, as the name implies, specialized in Macs. While they have recently begun to deploy the super fancy and super compact — and super expensive -- Apple Mac Pro, their main stock in trade was the super small Mac mini.
Today's Mac mini sells for a starting price of $499, but some web hosts have found them ideal for low-cost server farms. They aren't as robust as those huge and costly blade servers, but they can manage a small office and several sites without difficulty.
But what about my sites?
Early on, my first radio show, The Tech Night Owl LIVE, was hosted on a Mac, but I moved away from that setup when I quit a small online network where the show was established and went out on my own.
Well, I was offered two options to evaluate on MacStadium. One was a souped up Mac mini, with a quad-core Intel i7 processor (this configuration is no longer offered by Apple), and the other a traditional blade server. Since I love to live dangerously, I chose the former, and thus, as of this weekend, most of our sites are now hosted on that tiny Mac mini, a computer that weighs less than three pounds.
So far as I can see, it's working, and performance still seems pretty good based on early measurements.
What do you think? Yes, for a while at least, The Paracast and The Tech Night Owl are hosted on a Mac!