Showing posts with label redundancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label redundancy. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

How to Set Up a Server for a Mac


Install the hard drives in the server Mac. Mac Pros have four hard drive bays, so you can set up a variety of combinations. To use it as both a data server and a backup server, install two independent hard drives and two RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) hard drives. The separate hard drives will be used for central data storage--things like photo collections--while the RAID drives will back up the system.
Install the RAID card into the Mac Pro. This will allow two of the hard drives to mirror each other, thus creating redundancy in data backup. Everything stored on one of the hard drives also will be stored on the other, so if one fails or develops a fault, the other will keep your data safe.
Set up the network. Macs usually have Airport Extreme (just Airport on older Macs) cards in them already. Mac Pros offer it as an option during purchase, but you can add one later, too. You will need a wireless router. Apple's Airport works best, but you can use less expensive models, such as those made by Belkin. Some routers don't work as well with Macs, such as Linksys and Netgear. If you have one of these already, try it, but if you don't, go with an Airport or Belkin.
Install Mac OS X Server software on the Mac Pro. Once installed, you can set up user groups, determine access and create the server itself using the two independent hard drives. You can add new Macs as you acquire them and give them access to the central data in the server.
Use Time Machine as your backup software for the server. Time Machine started shipping with Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, and continues to ship with Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. It's a very basic backup program that will activate when you tell it to and only back up what's new on the system. You can set it up for different times on each Mac, so they don't conflict.
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