PowerMac G4 Home Server Questions

I am thinking about purchasing a used PowerMac G4 for a home server. I need it to stream a 200GB iTunes library around and to be one big Time Machine drive.

I have looked into NAS boxes but they all seem to expensive to me. A G4 can be found for about $125 on eBay or Craigslist. I have a copy of Leopard Server that is not being used and would like to put it on the G4. I am also looking for a RAID 5 card that will host 4 500GB SATA drives.

My questions are:
- Can a G4 do all of this?
- If so what specs does it need to have?
- Should I look for a specific model
- Are there any RAID cards that support RAID 5 and are relatively cheap?
- Is it worth my money to do this or should I invest in other stuff?

I am open to any recommendations, I have considered a PowerMac G5 but they only have 2 drive bays. I need at least 4. Budget around $300, don't need any drives.

Thanks in advance.

Suggest a RAID array from a G5 minimum.

The G4 may have too much processor limitation, although the dual 1.42 (2-last model produced, FW 800) might do it - lucky you if you can find one.

Wow, 4 drive bays, that's going to be a mighty busy server. How far are you planning to stream the audio - just a home audio scheme? I'm most interested.

hughvane said:

Suggest a RAID array from a G5 minimum.

The G4 may have too much processor limitation, although the dual 1.42 (2-last model produced, FW 800) might do it - lucky you if you can find one.

Wow, 4 drive bays, that's going to be a mighty busy server. How far are you planning to stream the audio - just a home audio scheme? I'm most interested.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick response, sorry it took me so long.

I have considered a G5 but they seem expensive and only support 2 hard drives. Another option I have been pondering is an Intel Atom build running either Ubuntu Server (because I know it) or OpenSolaris (because of the ZFS file system). If you could give me an easy way to fit at least 4 hard drives in a G5 for about $300-$400 then I would consider it.

For now the audio will stay in my household however I have been contemplating a larger scale using something like Simplify Media.

What about 4 drives - two external (daisy-chained FW800) + two internal drives, hooked to a G5? Or even a G4, but it must have FW800.

If it's not an impertinent question, what's your planned budget for a Mac purchase? [A quick look at craigslist.com > Detroit (random choice) showed a dual 2.0 GHz G5 PwrMac for US$500.]

hughvane said:

What about 4 drives - two external (daisy-chained FW800) + two internal drives, hooked to a G5? Or even a G4, but it must have FW800.

If it's not an impertinent question, what's your planned budget for a Mac purchase? [A quick look at craigslist.com > Detroit (random choice) showed a dual 2.0 GHz G5 PwrMac for US$500.]

Click to expand...

I actually think that I am going to go with an Intel Atom 330 based system. $500 seems a little high and I'm kinda leery of purchasing a G4 now.

Sorry if I wasted your time. But I can build an Atom server for about $250, with RAID 5 on 4 500GB drives, a dual core 1.6Ghz, and 2GB of RAM.

Thanks for all the info, if I decide to buy a Mac in the future for a server I'll let you know.

Why not just get a G4 for about $50 and add a SATA PCI card that supports RAID configurations? That'll be cheaper than any of the other solutions.

Jamie-Jamie said:

Why not just get a G4 for about $50 and add a SATA PCI card that supports RAID configurations? That'll be cheaper than any of the other solutions.

Click to expand...

I think that they Atom Server will better suit my needs. It will have a faster processor, more RAM, and gigabit ethernet.

Plus I am researching about installing Mac OS X Server 10.5 on it.