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Just picked up two 2013 Mac Pro (Trashcan) any thoughts on what to do with them? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world
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Picked up a 12 core and an 8 core with 64gb ram, both with d700 GPUs for a steal (150 each). Was thinking of running the 12 core as a server and maybe another as a dedicated router running pfsense and connecting a thunderbolt raid array for local media and jellyfin? Havent done any home server/homelab stuff before so was wondering if there were any Mac server things worth running or if I should just format them to run Ubuntu or something.

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[–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Be cautious, I was using one as a server and my power bill sky rocketed. The idle consumption of these things is like 100w+, so I wouldn’t use it in an always on situation more of a workstation for artwork stuff like that.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Echoing that power concern... if it's just for home lab file server use there are more efficient choices. I've been running a Samba file server (Ubuntu 22.04) on an old Lenovo M93p machine with good results - at somewhere around a 10th of the power consumed by that Mac Pro. Seems like a those machines would be good for animation work.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    And if you want to stay with macOS there’s always the mini. Just upgraded my aging 2012 with an M2, idle even when powered on and not in sleep mode is like 2-4 watts it’s amazing. Not that the 2012 was that bad at 7-10w idle

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    • [–] 3 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    finding a server usecase that would justify the consumption is going to be a challenge, when most home server task can run on a pi

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    [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Plex server. Can it decode HEVC in real-time? I don’t know. But if so, congrats, this obsolete computer just got another decade off the scrap heap.

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