Mac Mini as web server?

[ripeBanana]

It seems to me the Mac Mini might make a perfect web server. I'm not looking to spend much money but want to get the full power of Mac OS X Server. Is there any reason why I wouldn't want the Mac Mini?

[Turboladdade]

You're absolutely right. In fact, you can take that one step further, save more money and just pick up a used G4 or something. For most people's web serving needs, older hardware can typically fit the bill. Just give it a bigger hard drive, and you're good to go. For most people, a new dual-core Intel is not only overkill, it's a waste of a perfectly good computer.

[kriegvision]

Depending on your serving needs, you'll probably be just fine with an inexpensive used Mac. The only real upgrades you'd probably want to perform is replacing hte hard drives, and maybe tossing in a SATA controller if it is an older G4 tower or something. If you look at some of the specs of some commercial "dedicated virtual hosting" packages, they only give you about 300 MHz of processing power and 256 MB of memory.

Web serving is not resource-intensive unless you have one of the most popular sites on the internet.