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21 Février 2021
Where Do I Begin?
So you have a MacStadium hosted server and you're all ready to do something with it. The first question on your mind is probably 'How do I control this thing?'
My Mac mini runs OS X Server ($20, or free with a paid Apple developer account), which allows me to use it for such things as caching software updates, and storing Time Machine backups of other Macs. If you allow a Windows PC to access your Snow Leopard files, you'll also probably want to putter around with files on a Windows PC. Accessing files on Windows computers relies on the Samba component (a part of the UNIX foundation of Mac OS X). Follow these steps: Choose Go→Connect to Server.
Nearly all modern servers are 'headless' (meaning they have no dedicated monitor, keyboard or mouse) and are controlled over a network using remote desktop software. This article will cover four popular (and free!) remote control programs as well as the pros and cons of using each of them.
VNC, Generally SpeakingMac OS X comes preinstalled with a remote control package called VNC (for Virtual Network Computing). In a just-out-of-the-box Mac Mini this feature is disabled, but since you need a way of connecting to your server to set it up, MacStadium has already enabled the screen sharing feature in the Sharing preferences panel which allows you to make a VNC connection from the get-go. All you will need are a VNC client, the IP address of the server and the password. The last two are supplied in an e-mail from MacStadium after you sign up.
VNC was originally developed for use on Unix systems but has now expanded to include a client and server version for virtually all popular computing platforms. This makes cross-platform remote control a simple matter, since a VNC client running on a PC can easily connect to a VNC server running on a Mac, for example. Of course, the devil is in the details and not all VNC implementations are 100% compatible. Mac to Mac sessions are probably going to be pretty reliable due to the same version of VNC code being used on both sides of the connection. PC or Linux to Mac connections have been known to occasionally exhibit buggy behavior but in most cases you will have no trouble getting it to work if your software is up to date.
Because it is based on an open-source project, VNC development was subject to 'forks' where different groups of programmers began with the same base code and then created different versions of the tool to suit their needs. This means that not only is VNC available on several different platforms, most platforms have more than one version with slightly different feature sets. Fortunately most of these features can be automatically negotiated during the connection process, so as a VNC user you usually do not care much which specific version of server you are connecting to - for the most part it Just Works. For this article I am going to discuss the two most popular VNC clients as well as two alternatives to VNC.
RealVNC
Time to get your data out of the back office or garage. Having your server in a data center will give you the benefits of security, speed and safety. Locations in Las Vegas, Dublin and Atlanta. Incredibly reliable. The Mac minis have proven very reliable with a long life as a server. There are ways to upgrade a Mac mini. We have them available. One such situation is when wanting to run Windows 10 natively on your Mac (in my case my Mac mini). The 'normal' method would be to use Boot Camp to repartition your internal hard drive to make room for Windows 10. However, in some instances, repartitioning may not be an option. For example due to disk size limitations.
RealVNC is the closest thing we have to a standard VNC client due its long history and close association with the original code base. Today there are three versions of it, one that is free and two more that are for sale. Because I am discussing only free software in this article I am going to gloss over the Personal and Enterprise versions of RealVNC and focus on the Free edition, but it's worth knowing that these other versions can be had for a nominal fee. External hard drive for mac not mounting.
Where the paid versions of RealVNC are capable of encrypting the session data, this is the not the case with RealVNC free. That means that unless you take additional precautions, RealVNC free will transmit your keystrokes and screen images across the network in an unsecure manner, which could in theory expose them to a hacker. In practice (and especially when connecting to another computer on your own local network) this is not such a great danger, but where data must be transmitted over the public Internet and where security is a primary concern this sort of unencrypted communication should be avoided. All connections to MacStadium will have to traverse the Internet.
In my testing I used the latest RealVNC client available from the website (5.0.1 at the time of this writing) and I had no trouble connecting to the Mac on the first try. With older versions of RealVNC some people have had trouble establishing the connection (usually with a 'connection refused' error) but most were able to get it working by clicking on Options and setting Colour Level to Full.
Video performance in VNC is pretty fast when connecting Mac to Mac, slightly less so when connecting from a PC. RealVNC is a good choice when you need a small, simple client just to make the initial connection to the server. For better security, performance and features there are plenty of other options that make this program seem a little outdated.
UltraVNC
UltraVNC is a newer fork of the original VNC codebase that adds video compression to improve performance, a nifty graphical toolbar and an optional encryption module. It also seems to be a bit more stable than RealVNC. If you don't already have the RealVNC client installed, this version is preferable to RealVNC just for these few additional features. Note that the encryption module will not work with the pre-installed OS X server though – you would need to install a different VNC server (such as Vine) on the Mac in order to take advantage of that feature. Check out the video below to compare the video performance of these two versions of VNC. The difference is small but noticeable. If you have to pick one or the other to download you might as well get the one that is slightly faster, right?
TeamViewer
TeamViewer is commercial software that is free for personal use. The developer has thoughtfully included numerous nag screens to make sure you remember that commercial use is not allowed, but they still operate on the honor system and they make no attempt to verify the nature of your use.
The standout features of TeamViewer include automatic firewall traversal, a contact list, and built-in video chat, but the feature that really sets it apart from the rest of the programs in this lineup is the end-to-end encryption of every keystroke, screen image and mouse movement that goes across the network. If security is a primary concern then TeamViewer is definitely the best choice for you. Unfortunately the additional CPU overhead of encryption makes the video performance of this tool visibly worse than the others, as you can see in the video. For applications that require high frame rates such as playing video or games, this program is not going to be ideal.
Splashtop
This brings us to the final program that we will discuss, Splashtop. This program is newer than the others and it concentrates on bringing excellent video performance, the likes of which have never been seen in a remote control program before now. With a solid network connection you can reasonably expect to see videos playing on the remote desktop with frame rates comparable to videos playing on your local machine. That's a pretty impressive trick at the moment.
Unfortunately there are a couple of downsides to this program. The first problem is a conspicuous lack of encryption, similar to my beef with the free VNC apps. The second problem is that the developer seems to be in the process of publishing a new version and has for some reason removed the old Windows client [edit - it's back now] from their own web site without adding a new one. The iPad client is there for download, no problem. The server side app, or as Splashtop calls it 'The Streamer' is also available from their site, but the Windows client is nowhere to be found on splashtop.com (this may have changed by the time you read this). Not to worry though, dear reader, because we have located a link for the Windows client so you can download it right here.
Conclusion
To summarize, you will need a VNC client of some type to establish the initial connection to your Mac Mini, but once you are connected you can take the opportunity to install a server for any other remote control product that suits your taste. Our recommendation is to use UltraVNC initially and then install either TeamViewer (if security is you primary concern) or Splashtop (if performance is more important). Once this has been set up you will probably want to disable screen sharing (aka the VNC server) in the Mac system preferences so that no one is tempted to try to hack your VNC password.
I hope you are now feeling more familiar with your options for connecting to your MacStadium server. This is by no means an exhaustive list of remote control clients – there are tons more available of varying quality and weight and new remote control programs are being written all the time. It is probably worth trying a new one every once in a while to see if the state of the art has advanced since the last time you installed one, because these utilities are improving by leaps and bounds every day.
If you have any questions about remote controlling your MacStadium server please feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading, and be sure to come back for more tips on how to get the most out of your hosted Mac!
Apple is crazy, right? The Mac just had its best year of sales ever, and Cupertino is hitting the platform with a shock like it hasn't had in nearly 15 years—back in a time when the Mac was not having such a good year. Apple is beginning the process of replacing industry-standard Intel chips with its own, custom-designed silicon.
In a way, we're not just reviewing the new Mac mini—a Mac mini is always a Mac mini, right? We're reviewing an ARM-based Mac for the first time. And this is not exactly the same story as all the other ARM machines we've looked at before, like Windows 10 on ARM—a respectable option with some serious tradeoffs.
Sure, longer battery life and quick waking from sleep are already out there on other ARM computers. But as you may have seen in our hands-on earlier this week, what we're encountering here is also a performance leap—and as you'll also see in this review, a remarkable success at making this new architecture compatible with a large library of what could now, suddenly, be called legacy Mac software.
Not everything is perfect; we'll talk about iOS apps on the Mac and some other problems, too. But if this Mac mini proves anything, it's that Apple was not, in fact, crazy. The M1 makes Apple's strategy seem soberingly sane.
Based on an ARM instruction set, it's the first Apple-designed CPU and GPU for the Mac. For well over a decade, Apple's laptops have had Intel CPUs and either Intel, Nvidia, or AMD graphics. The transition away from that status quo starts here. There's much more to talk about on that front, of course—but let's get the other specs out of the way first.
By default, the Mac mini ships with 8GB of RAM, but that can be upgraded to 16GB. That's a lot less than the 64GB cap in the Intel Mac mini, but, for now, that Intel Mac mini still exists in Apple's lineup.
Currently, Apple has only replaced its very bottom-end machines with Apple Silicon variants. It looks like we're going to be waiting a while before we get beefier versions with more RAM and more ports (the M1 Mac mini and 13-inch MacBook Pro each only have two Thunderbolt ports, rather than four)—which is a very real bummer for a lot of people.
Likewise, solid-state storage starts at 256GB, but you can go to 512GB, or even 1TB or 2TB. Doubling the RAM adds $200 to the purchase price, while going to 2TB of storage from the base 256GB configuration more than doubles the cost of the device. That storage bump is the main reason our review unit's purchase price is so much higher than the base.
| Specs at a glance: 2020 Mac mini | |
|---|---|
| OS | macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 |
| CPU | Apple M1 |
| RAM | 16GB |
| GPU | Apple M1 |
| HDD | 2TB SSD |
| Networking | Wi-Fi 6; Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Ports | 2x Thunderbolt 3, 2x USB-A, 3.5mm headphone, HDMI, gigabit Ethernet |
| Warranty | 1 year, or 3 years with AppleCare+ |
| Price as reviewed | $1,699 |
The Mac mini has a built-in speaker—which might be a little surprising for a computer like this—but it does not have a built-in microphone. The speaker is bad, frankly; it sounds like an old MacBook Air speaker with the lid closed. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack, though. Other ports include two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4.0, two USB-A, Ethernet, and HDMI.
AdvertisementIn terms of wireless, you get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
The box doesn't include much—just a power cord and the computer itself. You'll obviously need to buy a display, a keyboard, a mouse, a microphone, and headphones separately. Again, the Apple adage that the cost balloons as you add essentials holds true here as ever.
As the name suggests, the Mac mini has a very low footprint. It measures 1.4×7.7×7.7 inches (3.6×19.7×19.7 centimeters) and weighs 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms).
It comes in two default configurations. The first starts at $699 and includes 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The second ups the starting price to $899 and simply boosts the storage to 512GB.The base configuration here is $100 less than the previous Mac mini, which is nice to see. Again, Apple still sells an Intel-based Mac mini alongside this one, with a 6-core 3.0GHz Intel Core i5, Intel UHD 630 graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of solid-state storage. Nothing has changed for the Intel version of the device this year, though, so we won't be going into that.
If you liked how the last Mac mini looked, you'll like this one, too: nothing has changed. For that reason, we won't spend too much time on the aesthetics in this review. As before, the Mac mini prioritizes a very low profile. It's essentially a laptop without a screen inside a 7.7×7.7-inch square.
It looks nice but unassuming. It has that classic Mac silver color, whereas its predecessor was gray. The ports are all on the back, so it should play nice with most cable management solutions.
Before we get into the good news—basically anything related to M1 performance and software support—let's go over some really frustrating choices Apple has made regarding ports and peripherals.
As noted above, the RAM and storage configurations don't reach as far as the Intel Mac mini's do, and that also extends to ports. Two Thunderbolt ports is just okay, to be honest, even though there are also two USB-A ports on top of that. At least it's not the new M1 MacBook Air or 13-inch MacBook Pro, which are both limited to two Thunderbolt 3 ports total.
The Mac mini can only drive two displays at a time, and one of those has to be over HDMI. Crop photo mac. Since that HDMI port is HDMI 2.0, it doesn't have the throughput to handle 4K at 120Hz, or 8K at 60Hz. There aren't many monitors like that now, but there increasingly will be over the next few years. Generally, we like our machines to stand the test of time.
Neither the Mac mini nor any of its M1 brethren supports external GPUs. That's pretty disappointing, and it calls into question Apple's push for eGPUs over the past few years.
It wasn't long ago at all that Apple was signaling that eGPUs were the future of Mac graphics performance. Now it's not clear that they'll be part of the Mac experience at all.
Additionally, some people have used the Mac mini as a file server. Many of them are probably going to want to stick with Intel for now, as the M1 Mac mini only has a gigabit Ethernet port, whereas the Intel Mac mini is configurable to have a 10Gb port.
AdvertisementApple sees this initial volley of Apple Silicon devices as the bottom end of its lineup. So we're in a very odd situation right now where if you want the cutting edge of performance, you have to choose low-end Mac configuration options. If you want lots of ports and RAM, you have to stick with Intel for now. That's very likely going to change with the introduction of more expensive Macs with a faster, hypothetical M1X chip or something like that—but we have no idea yet when that's going to happen. We only know that, eventually, it will.
With that out of the way, it's time for the good stuff.
As noted above, the Mac mini (and its new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro siblings) has Apple's M1 system-on-a-chip, which includes an 8-core GPU, a CPU with four performance and four efficiency cores, a 16-core neural processing unit (NPU) called the Neural Engine, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Built on the ARM Instruction Set Architecture (ARM ISA), the M1 features 16 billion transistors and was manufactured in a 5nm process. According to Apple, each performance core in the M1 qualifies as the world's fastest CPU core to date, while the efficiency cores match the performance of some recent Intel Macs.
We read each of the four performance cores as having a clock speed of 3.2GHz, and while the iPhone and iPad's A14 chip has 8MB of L2 cache, the M1's performance cores get 12MB. Unlike some previous chip designs, all the performance and efficiency cores can be utilized at once, though there are signs that it gets a little more complicated when it comes to the cache.
Apple claims that the M1 can achieve its strong performance in part because of its unified memory architecture (UMA), which allows the CPU and GPU to both easily access relevant data without having to slow things down by copying it around.
We'll talk specific performance testing and results soon, but spoiler alert: the M1 is quite fast. That's especially true for graphics compared to Intel's graphics solutions (which seem unworthy to even be mentioned in the same category as what the M1 offers). These improvements are thanks to all of the above, plus techniques like tile-based deferred rendering and Apple's proprietary Metal graphics API, which has been designed to take advantage of this architecture.
This has gotten less attention, but the M1 contains a bunch of other stuff besides the elephants-in-the-die that are the CPU, GPU, and NPU. It has the Secure Enclave, Apple's encrypted tool for handling sensitive data on device. It has an image signal processor, which isn't super relevant on the camera-less Mac mini, but it reportedly improves FaceTime camera quality on the laptops. The M1 also includes a storage controller and hardware for driving encryption, among other things.
In 2017, Apple introduced the T2 chip on the iMac Pro, and it went to most other Macs over the next couple of years. The T2 handled security features and various other things like some of what we just listed above, and we speculated when it was first introduced that it might be a predecessor to Apple's eventual Mac SoC plans.It turns out we (and everyone else who picked up on that pretty obvious clue) were right. As such, the new M1 Macs don't have T2 chips. It's all on the M1 now.
How to download mac os x 10 7 for free. Of course, a change in architecture suggests all sorts of compatibility headaches with older software, to say the least. The M1 can't natively run apps made for Intel-based Macs. But surprisingly, that ends up not really mattering in most cases. A lot of buyers of the M1 Macs will never even realize anything changed under the hood.
To explore that point, let's go over the software the M1 does run.
I've been working with Mac hosting for about thirteen years. I tell people about using a Mac mini as a server and they just love the idea of it. There are a lot of great hosting options out there these days, but it's nice to work with a server where the OS is familiar and you know you control the whole stack of hardware and software. Our base Mac mini subscription starts at just $79/mo (that includes the server) so it's much easier to get started.
Five years ago today, I wrote a post about ways you might use a Mac server. I've decided to update that list and add some new ones that have come along in the last little while. It's a mix of Mac apps, open source projects, and iOS tools. Now when you say to yourself 'I'd love to try a Mac server but I just don't know what I'd do with it' then you can take a look at this list. (Have more suggestions? Add them here.)
macOS server is in the middle of a big transition, but I'm still including it here. You'll want to be sure to read up on the future roadmap. It's a first party way to run a Profile Manager and Open Directory.
There are a number of ways to use your Mac as a build server. It's easily the most popular use here at MacStadium. You might look at Jenkins, Buildkite, Teamcity, Veertu, or Gitlab.
Xcode now includes Xcode Server. We have a guide for setting up Xcode 9 Server that may be helpful.
Resilio is a file sync server built on bit torrent technology. It's very good for large files. Here is a tutorial to setup a file server with Resilio on a Mac mini.
Selfoss is a web based RSS reader that is open source and free.
Screens will let you use a Mac from your iPad or iPhone.
NuoRDS is a scalable terminal server for Mac. Here are some setup instructions.
Hazel is an automation tool that can keep your Mac server clean. (I use it to offload things from Dropbox, make a copy of full resolution images, etc. Just set it up and let it run. It's especially useful for people who use an iOS device full time but want a Mac to do some heavy lifting in the background without much interaction.)
Sendy is a self hosted service to email your newsletters at a significant discount. Similar to MailChimp.
Guacamole is a client-less remote desktop gateway. You can control your machine without needing a client (and just a browser using HTML5.)
Yourls is a self-hosted URL shortener. It provides stats as well.
Pow lets you create a quick environment to build and test Rails apps.
Use Transmit to access your Mac as a file server. Here's a short tutorial.
Moodle is a CMS for education.
VirtualHostX lets you setup multiple websites quickly on a Mac. It comes with it's own self-contained Apache web server as well.
Owncloud is a replacement for Dropbox, but also provides calendar, contacts and so much more.
Plex lets you stream all your media to your phone/tablet/Macs/etc.
FileMaker is a powerful database server. Very Powerful. Run it for yourself or as a paid service for others.
Kerio is a powerful Mail server. A very good alternative to Exchange.
Run a Minecraft Server of your own.
uTorrent is a simple torrent client.
ServerPilot makes it simple and fast to create and maintain Wordpress installs. Built for DigitalOcean, but works great on a Mac mini with Ubuntu.
MAMP will help you setup a WordPress blog quickly with PHP and mySQL.
DNS Enabler lets you run your own DNS server.
BBpress is clean forum software from the makers of WordPress.
Discourse is a platform to build a community. It's modern and free for self hosted. We use Discourse for our own community site.
Simon is an application that will monitor all sorts of servers and services and notify you if they're down.
iStat Server will let you keep an eye on your Mac server.
Asterisk is an open source VOIP server.
Deep Freeze will let you really hack on your machine, and bring it back clean with a restart.
Nagios will keep an eye on your infastructure.
VMware ESXi will let you install and run multiple instances of OS X on the same server (and we'll install it for you when you start a Mac mini subscription.)
Pancake is a seller self hosted app for invoicing and billing clients.
GridRepublic or Warrior will let you put your extra server power to good use.
Do you have more software suggestions? Feel free to add them as a comment on our community forum. (And don't be shy about sending your own software. We're always happy to work with developers.)
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