Thinking About the Switch

My household has been primarily a PC household for a long time. I run a Windows Home Server at home, with a few Windows 7 clients that back up to it. I stream from the WHS to my PS3, and I use the server to access my files from work. The built-in Dynamic DNS is nice for the remote access piece.

Over the last 6 months, my household has slowly gone mac. My wife and I both have iPhones, we each have iPads, and I now have a Macbook Air instead of my Windows 7 Laptop. We only have 1 Windows 7 machines left, and it will probably be replaced when my wife gets a new laptop (which will be another Macbook Air). So now, I need to replace the WHS with something more Mac compliant. Having JUST got my first Mac, I have little knowledge in this arena. What would you all recommend? I was thinking of maybe switching my WHS over to a hackintosh and trying to rebuild the features I use, which would be Remote Access with Dynamic DNS (VNC with DynDNS client), DLNA Streaming (Plex), and Centralized backup with bare metal restore (Time Machine).

My WHS could mostly be reused. I could swap my motherboard and CPU and have a pretty decent hackintosh I think. Is that the best way to go? Or would it be better to hack the WHS somehow for use with Time Machine?

Does anyone fulfill these requirements on a Mountain Lion Server?

As Hackintoshes are illegal, we do not discuss nor condone anything to do with them.

Personally I think an Apple TV will meet or exceed 95% of what people use a home server for, and does it a lot more elegantly.

chas_m said:

As Hackintoshes are illegal, we do not discuss nor condone anything to do with them.

Personally I think an Apple TV will meet or exceed 95% of what people use a home server for, and does it a lot more elegantly.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I just assumed you could buy the OS and run it on whatever you want, like PC. Thanks for letting me know. The Mac Mini would work just as well, I just have the parts laying around which is why I suggested that.

Apple TV can only stream a few file extensions though right? It also would not solve my remote access requirement or centralized backup.

I can give you my setup, which is simple enough to get running.

1. Primary computer - MBP
2. Media center - MacMini w/ iTunes running all the time, I have all my movies and shows converted and imported (over 400 movies and more than 40 shows) hooked up to main TV in main room.
3. 1TB HDD for MBP Time Machine Backup hooked up to my router (Apple Airport Extreme)
4. 4TB HDD connected to MacMini for iTunes only
5. 1TB HDD connected to MacMini for its Time Machine
6. Apple TV2 on my bedroom TV for streaming from MacMini

Once home sharing is set up, you can serve from one single point to all apple devices (computers and iOS devices).

Deckyon said:

I can give you my setup, which is simple enough to get running.

1. Primary computer - MBP
2. Media center - MacMini w/ iTunes running all the time, I have all my movies and shows converted and imported (over 400 movies and more than 40 shows) hooked up to main TV in main room.
3. 1TB HDD for MBP Time Machine Backup hooked up to my router (Apple Airport Extreme)
4. 4TB HDD connected to MacMini for iTunes only
5. 1TB HDD connected to MacMini for its Time Machine
6. Apple TV2 on my bedroom TV for streaming from MacMini

Once home sharing is set up, you can serve from one single point to all apple devices (computers and iOS devices).

Click to expand...

Nice setup. What do you use to convert? Roughly how long would you say it takes to do a typical 2 hour movie on your mac mini?

I use DVDFab and it takes about 30-45 mins.