[FX.php List] Mac mini Server

[Roger Moffat]

Hi Joel

On May 6, 2010, at 11:24 AM, Joel Shapiro wrote:

> Whether or not Mac Minis are suitable for FMServer is a fairly  
> common topic on FM lists.  I wouldn't recommend them for anything  
> really big or "critical", but I do have one non-profit client that's  
> been running a one-machine config FMS on a regular Mac Mini for 3-4  
> yrs without any problems.  The website is for Calif. state-wide  
> training registrations, although it doesn't get a huge amount of  
> traffic, and at most they've had 4 or 5 FMP clients at a time.   
> They've got a good backup system -- on- and offsite.

Thanks for that.

My situation is that most of the access is web access to the  
databases. Mostly they are "static" - ie they're not edited on the  
server. When updates are made to most of the databases it's done on  
another machine, then a new file uploaded to the Server using  
FileMaker Server Admin Console.

One exception is an Orders database that gathers up order details from  
people making purchases from several of the other databases. Total  
requests in a day are around 5,700 - this is the number of lines in  
the file stats.log created by FileMaker server for 5/5/2010 - about 1  
per 15 seconds it turns out to be.

I also host 2 membership files for non profit groups which are at most  
accessed by 2 different FM Client users - myself over the LAN and 1  
other person, with light access there.

Performance wise the eMac has been quite satisfactory - you can for  
example go to this page

http://data.wmgs.org/Newspapers/FMPro?-db=Orders&-lay=NewspapersOrders&-format=search.htm&-New

to perform a search in a database of over 888,000 records.

The WebPublishing Engine is on a Mac Pro, the Database Engine is on  
the eMac.

The need is to get to an Intel chipped machine for the Database Server  
so I can keep up with the versions of our maintenance agreement - the  
server is currently running FileMaker Server 9 while I have, but can't  
install FileMaker Server 11.

Roger