The Mac Mini also performed roughly on par with both the current 13-inch MacBook Air and the 21.5-inch entry level iMac all-in-one desktop. Note that our Pavilion Mini was a $479 configuration with an upgraded CPU and hard drive, rather than the $319 base model, making for a closer price-to-spec comparison. Both the Alienware and HP models have Core i3 processors, but offer other extras, such as the custom graphics card in the Alpha (which led to a much better gaming frame rate score) and the larger 1TB hard drive in the Pavilion Mini. The Mac Mini performed competitively with the two other small desktops in the same price range we tested recently, the Alienware Alpha and the HP Pavilion Mini, trading first place between them in multitasking and single-app tests, but not blowing each other out of the water. And they're not cheap: a simple jump from the base 4GB to 8GB is an extra $100, and adding a 1TB Fusion drive (with both SSD and HDD hardware) costs $250 over the slower 5400rpm 500GB hard drive in the least-expensive configuration. Instead, you need to plan your upgrades at the time of purchase. In other words: no more post-purchase upgrades.
The late 2014 update adds dual Thunderbolt ports and faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi (as found on the rest of the current Mac line), but the RAM, which was previously user-accessible, is now permanently soldered to the motherboard.
But if you go back to the last major Mac Mini update from 2012, you'll find quad-core Core i7 chips, a more powerful option now missing.
Two more-expensive base configurations include faster Core i5 CPUs, with a dual-core Core i7 as a extra-cost add-on on top of that. The processor in the $499 model (£399 in the UK and AU$619 in Australia) is a dual-core, low-voltage fourth-generation Intel Core i5. You will be able to enjoy all the benefits of dedicated hosting and manage any number of websites through the interface of, underneath the matte aluminum chassis, there are a few areas where the current iteration of the Mac Mini may not work for you. You can easily set up a macOS FTP server and access all of your files from any location.įinally, Mac server rental is a great solution for any business that requires macOS hosting. Mac servers work quite well for file sharing and storage due to the fact that macOS supports this function by design.
You will be able to create apps using your preferred OS while only having to modify a small portion of code for each platform.
Mac dedicated servers are also a convenient solution for cross-platform Xamarin development through the use unified code base for Windows, Android and iOS.
The same can be said of XCode development: if your company needs to provide its employees with access to the environment, the most cost-efficient option would be to rent a Mac server. Mac dedicated server rental handily solves this issue by providing the necessary infrastructure with the pay-as-you-go model. It is easily understandable that buying an Apple computer (or even multiple) solely for the purposes of testing may not be the right choice for your IT budget.
The macOS server works perfectly as a testing environment for any software meant for use with macOS or iOS. MacOS servers offer all the advantages of Apple applications while ridding you of the need to buy their machines. Apple offers a variety of tools that will be of benefit to any developer or business owner however, their computers can get quite expensive and purchasing them may not be the most cost-effective solution for you.