To support your growing business from home to small business when you really require more people (employee) to help you run the business, you will likely require a well-managed computer networking environment. You will require managing your information business assets in a manner to meet your business security policy. For example, you require centralized business data that can be accessed by authorized users only. You need to create groups of users with certain access rights. For example, you create finance group that has read-write access rights to the finance directory while other groups are denied. That’s why you require server-based environment that helps you manage network resources based on the directory services.
To start your first server, many people are confusing which server should they purchase to build a server-based computer networking. Apple Mac Mini server is very popular mini server for home business or SOHO. But I see that the main target of Apple Mac mini is for server-based home entertainment. It is powerful for small offices with 10 or 15 people but for growing businesses, you should start your first server something bigger for example Dell Power Edge T110 or AMD-based HP Proliant N40L. How do you compare Apple Mac Mini Vs Dell Power Edge T110?
With Apple Mac Mini starts from $800 (you can start from $600 using AMD-based processor), you can build your small office (SOHO) with mini server but is powerful yet to support your business and full home entertainment. Even with HP ProLiant N40L with AMD Turion™ II Model Neo N40L processor you can start your server-based network with as low as $350.
To provide a better understanding if you should purchase an Apple Mac Mini server or Dell Power Edge T110 the following table shows you spec comparison between Mac Mini Vs Dell T110 Power Edge.
From the table, have a look at the “display” and “video” rows you can see that Apple Mac mini is designed for full home entertainment server. With AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory you can enjoy full HD video or any types of graphics-intensive applications and fast-responsive gaming experiences. But with Dell Power-Edge T110 or HP Proliant you do not find those HD video ports, just standard VGA adapter because they are not designed for entertainment network.
Communication ports, you see that Apple Mac mini includes three types of ports: Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless a/b/g and Bluetooth. Why on Dell Power Edge or HP Proliant they don’t include wireless adapter? No way, you must assure that your server connectivity to the network is really reliable. Wired connection is very reliable compared with wireless connection which is prone to signal interference. Therefore, you must connect the Gigabit Ethernet port to the network to assure the reliability and availability of your network resources.
Click here for Apple Mac Mini spec details.
Click here for Dell Power Edge spec details.
| Apple Mac Mini (start $799) | PowerEdge T110 II (starts $949.65) | |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB on-chip shared L3 cache. Configurable to 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 | Intel® Xeon® E3-1220 3.10 GHz, 8M Cache, Turbo, Quad Core/4T (80W) [Included in Price] |
| Memory | 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory. Configurable to 8GB – easy to upgrade with removable botton panel | 4GB Memory (4x1GB), 1333MHz, Single Ranked UDIMM [Included in Price] |
| Storage | Dual 500GB hard drives come standard. | 250GB 7.2K RPM SATA 3.5″ Cabled Hard Drive [$57.85] |
| Display | AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory | Standard VGA on-board |
| Video support |
|
N/A |
| Communication ports |
|
Onboard -Gigabit ethernet port |
| USB Ports | 4x USB 2.0 ports rear | 2x USB 2.0 ports front; 4x USB 2.0 ports rear |
| Controller | integrated | Add-in H200 (SAS/SATA Controller), 2 Hard Drives – RAID 1 [Included in Price]
PERC H200 Adapter Internal RAID Controller for 3.5 HDDs [Included in Price] |
| OS | OS X Lion Server (Unix-based OS): Includes unlimited-client license, as well as Server app, Profile Manager, File Sharing for iPad, Push Notifications, Wiki Server, iCal Server, Mail Server, and Xsan | Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Foundation Edition, x64 [Included in Price] – You require CAL (client access lisence) per user |
| Online documentation | enough | Comphrehensive online installing system components (Click here) |
By Ki Grinsing
See also the articles:
- Top 10 best seller table computers
- Various types of computer networking tools for technician
- Network security software – a better level of network security protection
- Server redundancy and clustering technology
- Symantec Backup Exec 2010 | Server Backup Software
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