Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

scaleway.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 106 posts

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#81

Post by jsheard »

schmuckonwheels wrote: post #76

Continuing to act like these ugly hacks are a normal way of doing business, is a continual signal to Apple that they don't need to build a rack-mount PC or server ever again. If their developer community grew a pair and made themselves heard, then maybe the billion dollar company would do their effing job and provide a proper rackable development platform. Which they had many years ago, before they morphed into a com…

> Continuing to act like these ugly hacks are a normal way of doing business, is a continual signal to Apple that they don't need to build a rack-mount PC or server ever again.

They technically still have the Rack Mac Pro, but that's such a half-assed offering that it's easy to forget it exists. It's a huge 5U chassis but if you look at the internals it's comical how little of the space is actually used for anything, because they kept the same layout as the Intel version which was designed to host multiple high-power GPUs, but dropped dGPU support in the Apple Silicon transition.

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#82

Post by keeda »

Hah so, I have a couple of old Mac Minis in my homelab that I use very occassionally but would like to access over the Internet (say, via Tailscale etc.) Ideally they'd be sleeping most of the time to conserve power, and only be kicked awake when needed, e.g. by a Wake-on-Lan packet.

Unfortunately I would need another device active at all times to listen for commands and send that packet on demand. I was toying with the idea of using a Raspberry Pi connected to the router to perform that specific function, but I never got around to it.

Funny to see that idea scaled up to a server rack!

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#83

Post by schmuckonwheels »

jsheard wrote: post #81
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #76

Continuing to act like these ugly hacks are a normal way of doing business, is a continual signal to Apple that they don't need to build a rack-mount PC or server ever again. If their developer community grew a pair and made themselves heard, then maybe the billion dollar company would do their effing job and provide a proper rackable development platform. Which they had many years ago, before they morphed into a com…

> Continuing to act like these ugly hacks are a normal way of doing business, is a continual signal to Apple that they don't need to build a rack-mount PC or server ever again. They technically still have the Rack Mac Pro, but that's such a half-assed offering that it's easy to forget it exists. It's a huge 5U chassis but if you look at the internals it's comical how little of the space is actually used for anything,…

Yes polished stainless steel furniture.

At 38 lbs and low starting price of $7,500 who can resist?

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#84

Post by itrash »

schmuckonwheels wrote: post #80
itrash wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me, at our scale ... Apple didn't care at all about us, even if Scaleway is one of the biggest cloud provider in France. And actually the project was made to be faster on the market than AWS on their M1 offer, not to be industrialized at first.

I get it, you did what you had to do, but you're not the only example. They have the knowledge and it's existed in the past (Xserve) but they will never do it again because they design and sell furniture now. Tell me they couldn't design a Mac Mini with holes for rack ears, built in BMC or serial console.... even if it was a specialty product people would pay a premium

I totally agree on your comment by the way, it's not ideal at all, I'm not even working on the project anymore, every update, every feature is always a pain as we had to do reverse engineering.

Everything on this project is "hackie", it is not a solution for the future, the day Apple will change their license or break retro compatibility, the project will have no chance to survive.

So yes, the mac mini is absolutely not designed to be placed in a DC, a special product for that purpose would be better. So it's a risky bet from a technical point of view.

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#85

Post by averageRoyalty »

mikepurvis wrote: post #13

Unlike the old rack mount options for the trashcan Mac Pro units (eg https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros ), it doesn't seem like much thought has been given here to a front-to-back airflow. I'm also surprised they're touting the density of this solution— seems like the obvious thing would be to put the Minis on their sides. A 4U chassis has 17.5cm vertical space in it, and a Mac Mini is 17cm wide. With the Mini…

For anyone reading along at home, 2 inches is just over 5cm.

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#86

Post by rcmore0 »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #39
jitl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also hot air rises, and the vent is on the bottom

Why are they still even in the cases? I would assume that shucking them would ever so slightly improve thermals.

Had a similar problem in T43 HDD.

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#87

Post by mikepurvis »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #85
mikepurvis wrote: post #13

Unlike the old rack mount options for the trashcan Mac Pro units (eg https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros ), it doesn't seem like much thought has been given here to a front-to-back airflow. I'm also surprised they're touting the density of this solution— seems like the obvious thing would be to put the Minis on their sides. A 4U chassis has 17.5cm vertical space in it, and a Mac Mini is 17cm wide. With the Mini…

For anyone reading along at home, 2 inches is just over 5cm.

Yeah sorry for mixing units like that. I think of it as a 19" rack and know that refers to the width, but I had to look up the height of a 4U chassis and Google told it to me in cm, so then I went with that for that dimension.

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#89

Post by ey3ball »

itrash wrote: post #67
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because the power button is on the bottom.

Actually the power button is pretty useless, they set it up like this for the airflow as the mac mini fans are on the back.

Also, it's useless during the lifecycle but it simplifies operations a lot during the initial install & any kind of servicing.

We're actually thinking about features which will that power button to good use in a near feature, stay tuned !

Re: Scaleway turns Mac Minis into high‑density, Raspberry Pi–managed servers

#90

Post by ey3ball »

hinkley wrote: post #9

https://www-uploads.scaleway.com/Mac_mini_rack_1_e31ad1da6e.... This is not the image I expected to encounter under the title, “high density”. Make those sleds taller and do three, maybe four per sled with a pair of large diameter fans. That’ll would be high density. This is medium at best.

I agree the picture doesn't do it justice, it doesn't show the full cabling, we might share a new one.

Also keep in mind that these SLEDs are compatible both with the M2 & the M4. M2 require more surface area & cover the whole free space on the SLED

Post reply on HN