[preformalover]

I am in a transition period from the dark and dingy Micro$oft side to the clean beautiful Apple side but there is one thing that still lives from the dark side. I bought my self a dell poweredge 2650 rack mounted server from a auction a year or so ago to run MS Server, I do basic things with it Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and host a game server on the LAN but I am wondering if I should sell it and see if I can get a powermac and run OS X Leopard Server on it. Would it be worth it I could probably get $200-300 for the dell right now and on craigslist I could probably get a dual processor 1.8GHz G5 with about 2 GB of RAM, HD space not being a problem as I have a coupe 1 TB I can put in it as it is. No my dell specs are Dual 2.8 GHz Xeons with hyper treading (Arguably 4 cores total) and 4 GB of ram and a 80 GB HD (Small HD because it only supports SSCI and anything over 80GB costs more that what I want to put into it). So I guess in the end the question is should I sacrifice some specs to trade up to Mac Server.

PS
How loud are the G5's, loudness is one of the main reasons I am consider changing because this industrial grade server vibrates my house its so loud.

 

[monokitty]

Apple (Canada) - Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server..

 

[preformalover]

Apple (Canada) - Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server..

I about the mac mini I am just not looking at anything above lets say $300 for my server needs as they are basic and only for my home for myself.

 

[BlackViper]

If noise is an issue and performance is not(since you are looking at an over 5 year old Power Mac) have you considered the MacMini Server? Or any mac mini upgraded to Lion server next week. Not sure what you plan on spending but the Mini would come with warranty/support and likely be useful further into the future. It'd be a shame if you got "new" hardware and it prevented you from taking advantage of newer software.

You might find a used Mini in your price range

 

[preformalover]

If noise is an issue and performance is not(since you are looking at an over 5 year old Power Mac) have you considered the MacMini Server? Or any mac mini upgraded to Lion server next week. Not sure what you plan on spending but the Mini would come with warranty/support and likely be useful further into the future. It'd be a shame if you got "new" hardware and it prevented you from taking advantage of newer software.

You might find a used Mini in your price range

As Said above I am looking at $300 MAX and even the mac mini's performance is more than enough allot more than enough. Noise isn't an issue but its nice not to have my desk vibrating when its on also I like the powermac because it is expandable, allot more expandable then a mac mini.

 

[Rob]

The G5 only has two standard hard drive bays (SATA), and one optical drive bay. Not really that great for internal expandability.

It's super quiet though, and the prices are reasonable now.

 

[preformalover]

The G5 only has two standard hard drive bays (SATA), and one optical drive bay. Not really that great for internal expandability.

It's super quiet though, and the prices are reasonable now.

Well 2 sata hard drives is all I need, but it does have expandable graphics,as well as other pci and pci-x (Depending on which model) upgrade possibilities, and ram is cheap being a few generations back, I guess I sort of did not ask the right question what I should of asked is can it run leopard server and how well?

 

[pm-r]

Going on the 'Debating on buying a powermac G5' topic alone, I personally wouldn't even GIVE a friend or anyone a still 'working' G5 IF I had one to give them, unless they liked to tinker and fix and didn't need anything actually reliable!! They had to be one of the worst series of Macs Apple ever released.

I've even seen G4's, 1GHz and above towers out preform most G5's and were MUCH more reliable and available at a much lower cost, depending on your needs. But I sure couldn't recommend buying ANY G5 IMHO if you need something more reliable and don't like to tinker.

 

[preformalover]

Going on the 'Debating on buying a powermac G5' topic alone, I personally wouldn't even GIVE a friend or anyone a still 'working' G5 IF I had one to give them, unless they liked to tinker and fix and didn't need anything actually reliable!! They had to be one of the worst series of Macs Apple ever released.

I've even seen G4's, 1GHz and above towers out preform most G5's and were MUCH more reliable and available at a much lower cost, depending on your needs. But I sure couldn't recommend buying ANY G5 IMHO if you need something more reliable and don't like to tinker.

Well I actually want to get this because I never have had the opportunity to use let alone play with a G5, and in brutal honesty toward myself I want in just because it looks like a mac pro.

 

[Niteshooter]

Well 2 sata hard drives is all I need, but it does have expandable graphics,as well as other pci and pci-x (Depending on which model) upgrade possibilities, and ram is cheap being a few generations back, I guess I sort of did not ask the right question what I should of asked is can it run leopard server and how well?

I have two G5's and actually ram isn't as cheap as you think plus it's getting harder to come by. Also do you have Leopard server? It wasn't cheap while a Mac Mini server would basically cost the same as just the sw and you nearly got the hardware for free.

I would really wait and see what the much rumored Mac Mini upgrade will bring and pricing of the app store upgrade to Lion server.

 

[Niteshooter]

Going on the 'Debating on buying a powermac G5' topic alone, I personally wouldn't even GIVE a friend or anyone a still 'working' G5 IF I had one to give them, unless they liked to tinker and fix and didn't need anything actually reliable!! They had to be one of the worst series of Macs Apple ever released.

I've even seen G4's, 1GHz and above towers out preform most G5's and were MUCH more reliable and available at a much lower cost, depending on your needs. But I sure couldn't recommend buying ANY G5 IMHO if you need something more reliable and don't like to tinker.

Depends on the G5 and G 4. We threw out a number of dead g4 mdd's recently all with bad motherboards or ps. There were some issues with certain G5's but we have 2.0 and 2.3 's still in use that have been trouble free. I thought the 1.8 did have issues and one did have ps issues but in my experience they have not been a problem. Under heavy load the fans all kick in and they do get loud.

 

[screature]

The G5 only has two standard hard drive bays (SATA), and one optical drive bay. Not really that great for internal expandability.

It's super quiet though, and the prices are reasonable now.

G5 PowerMac tower super quiet?? Certainly not in my experience of them. When I upgraded to a Mac Pro I couldn't believe how much quieter and cooler it runs.

 

[screature]

Going on the 'Debating on buying a powermac G5' topic alone, I personally wouldn't even GIVE a friend or anyone a still 'working' G5 IF I had one to give them, unless they liked to tinker and fix and didn't need anything actually reliable!! They had to be one of the worst series of Macs Apple ever released.

I've even seen G4's, 1GHz and above towers out preform most G5's and were MUCH more reliable and available at a much lower cost, depending on your needs. But I sure couldn't recommend buying ANY G5 IMHO if you need something more reliable and don't like to tinker.

Certainly not my experience, I don't know what G5s you are referring to but when we upgraded one of our G4's to a dual 1.8GHz CPU G5 in the marcom department I was working in at the time the speed increase was immediately noticeable to everyone. As I was the one who got to use it I was the envy of every one in the department.

Regarding reliability all I can say is that we ran it hard for 4 years without any hardware issues whatsoever. We had it only for 4 years because we then moved to Intel Mac Pros.

 

[preformalover]

I have two G5's and actually ram isn't as cheap as you think plus it's getting harder to come by. Also do you have Leopard server? It wasn't cheap while a Mac Mini server would basically cost the same as just the sw and you nearly got the hardware for free.

I would really wait and see what the much rumored Mac Mini upgrade will bring and pricing of the app store upgrade to Lion server.

I do have leopard server my company upgraded there servers and gave everyone that wanted one a leopard server license. And does anyone have how loud the G5's are in dB's?

 

[screature]

I do have leopard server my company upgraded there servers and gave everyone that wanted one a leopard server license. And does anyone have how loud the G5's are in dB's?

I just did a quick search for you and couldn't come up with any numbers for you, however I can tell you this from my own anecdotal experience when the G5s are under load they produce significant fan noise much more than a Mac Pro.

When you are doing light work they are obviously much less noisy but start doing some Photoshop or video work, even moving big files around and the fans make quite a noise.

The reason why they are making the noise is the significant factor (it the reason why a G5 was never put into a laptop)... the G5 CPUs run very hot and that heat gets released into the room. So if you need some spot heating in addition to a computer a G5 is for you.

 

[pm-r]

Certainly not my experience, I don't know what G5s you are referring to but when we upgraded one of our G4's to a dual 1.8GHz CPU G5 in the marcom department I was working in at the time the speed increase was immediately noticeable to everyone. As I was the one who got to use it I was the envy of every one in the department.

Regarding reliability all I can say is that we ran it hard for 4 years without any hardware issues whatsoever. We had it only for 4 years because we then moved to Intel Mac Pros.

Actually I was a bit misleading with my overly generalized remark about the Mac G5, and I was just thinking of the iMac G5 models that were not exactly reliable rather than the Power Mac G5 towers.

 

[preformalover]

Actually I was a bit misleading with my overly generalized remark about the Mac G5, and I was just thinking of the iMac G5 models that were not exactly reliable rather than the Power Mac G5 towers.

I remeber my friends iMac G5 he complety destroyed it trying to change some capacitors, but back to the noise element, like I said this is a server running light wait things DNS, DHCP, and maybe a directory service not an extreme processor sucker (atleast I think). But also if you have ever heard a poweredge server they run at high 70 to low 80 dB and you think a G5 is a spce heater 20 minutes with this thing on in december and the office its sitting in is a sauna.

 

[garf1108]

No problems with my old G5 although not used as much since I got a Mac Pro

 

[Northweldor]

One thing you should do is search logic board failure for PM G5's. There's a pretty high incidence, and mine died of this exactly at the 5 year time period. I was told that I was lucky I got 5 years out of it!

 

[preformalover]

One thing you should do is search logic board failure for PM G5's. There's a pretty high incidence, and mine died of this exactly at the 5 year time period. I was told that I was lucky I got 5 years out of it!

I heard there were only significant problems with the water cooled ones with the higher clock speed is that right?