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apostacy · Apr 8, 2011, 10:04 AM

Would a G4 Cube be a good personal web server? I've always wanted a G4 Cube and they're going for ~ $100 on ebay ($200 w/monitor & keyboard). The advantage in my mind is that it doesn't have a fan and so would use less energy if it was always on. It also doesn't take up much space. Any thoughts?

Edit: I'm talking just a personal web server for my own low-bandwidth use.

P · Apr 8, 2011, 10:47 AM

The main issue would have to be that you're stuck with Mac OS X Tiger, which is no longer being updated and may be insecure. You're also limited to IDE drives of 120 gigs or less (technically 128GB).

Eug · Apr 8, 2011, 10:52 AM

You can use larger Firewire drives.

However, you're stuck with 100 Mbps network speeds. What do you mean by "low-bandwidth"?

Mind you, you could just buy a NAS device.

Also you're stuck with an older OS.

BLAZE_MkIV · Apr 8, 2011, 11:26 AM

The lack of a fan is a noise savings not a power savings, While the G4 chips use less power than the Pentium's of the day, the newer chips have dynamic frequency control. The cpu in my freenas box spends most of its time at the 800mhz minimum. I'd bet its power use at that setting is well below the G4s even at 450Mhz. I'd suggest looking into something like google sites instead.

hadocon · Apr 8, 2011, 01:44 PM

If it's for light http duties connected to the web from your home braodband... Yah, go for it!

Security is not an issue. Sure - there may be some slight insecurities, and I mean slight if any... why would a hacker target you anyways? The most insecure part would be you misconfiguring something, not the OS version itself.

What a great way to learn about web serving!

Think about buying a static IP for your home so that you can make your device reachable (and nameable) across the whole web. Otherwise you can use some sort of service like dynDNS. But I think it's worth getting a static IP.

Have fun learning!

GopherAlex · Apr 8, 2011, 05:23 PM

Waste of money and electricity. For static HTML development, a Cube will suffice, but so will your local machine. For anything dynamic, it will be slow. It will run simple PHP apps OK, but don't even bother with modern Java webapps. And since it's not receiving software updates anymore, the clock is ticking on compatibility.

Running a web server on your local machine will be faster, easier to configure and maintain. If you would like a more "realistic" web server setup -- seeing as how most web servers don't run Mac OS X -- you could always install Linux in a VM. This would have the advantage of not "polluting" your local machine with extra server-related software.

hadocon · Apr 8, 2011, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by GopherAlex

Waste of money and electricity. For static HTML development, a Cube will suffice, but so will your local machine. For anything dynamic, it will be slow. It will run simple PHP apps OK, but don't even bother with modern Java webapps. And since it's not receiving software updates anymore, the clock is ticking on compatibility.

Running a web server on your local machine will be faster, easier to configure and maintain. If you would like a more "realistic" web server setup -- seeing as how most web servers don't run Mac OS X -- you could always install Linux in a VM. This would have the advantage of not "polluting" your local machine with extra server-related software.

It's a hobby webserver for $100 that also looks cool. I doubt he's worried about running "modern java webapps"

OS X standard install is already "polluted" with software required to run a webserver.

driven · Apr 8, 2011, 09:00 PM

freenas ???

apostacy · Apr 8, 2011, 10:06 PM

Thanks for all the responses. Yea, I'm kindof looking for an excuse to buy this thing, and it would be nice to have a few files that I need at work and at home available 24/7 (although dropbox kindof fills this roll too). If I could get one for $75 + shipping off ebay....

GopherAlex · Apr 9, 2011, 01:30 AM

Originally Posted by hadocon

It's a hobby webserver for $100 that also looks cool. I doubt he's worried about running "modern java webapps"

He/she didn't say.

OS X standard install is already "polluted" with software required to run a webserver.

Exactly, so why not use it instead of buying a whole new (old) computer and installing older versions of all the same software on it.

besson3c · Apr 9, 2011, 04:05 AM

Originally Posted by hadocon

Security is not an issue. Sure - there may be some slight insecurities, and I mean slight if any... why would a hacker target you anyways? The most insecure part would be you misconfiguring something, not the OS version itself.

There seems to be this misnomer that security exploits occur when some hacker somewhere is trying to do stuff to you personally - this is far from the truth. Exploits generally are performed by very dumb and brainless automated scripts that just do stuff to random IP addresses. The fact that he is running an old and unsupported OS puts him more at risk, not less. I'm not saying that he shouldn't do this, but I'm simply correcting this reasoning.

besson3c · Apr 9, 2011, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by GopherAlex

Waste of money and electricity. For static HTML development, a Cube will suffice, but so will your local machine. For anything dynamic, it will be slow. It will run simple PHP apps OK, but don't even bother with modern Java webapps. And since it's not receiving software updates anymore, the clock is ticking on compatibility.

Running a web server on your local machine will be faster, easier to configure and maintain. If you would like a more "realistic" web server setup -- seeing as how most web servers don't run Mac OS X -- you could always install Linux in a VM. This would have the advantage of not "polluting" your local machine with extra server-related software.

I agree.

You are going to have a hard time getting recent versions of web infrastructure working on both obsolete hardware and an obsolete OS, it's probably not worth the trouble. Yes, you can use the built-in Apple stuff, and if that fulfills your desire, then okay... I'd figure out what these versions are, what you want to do, etc. If you are counting on using recent versions of phpMyAdmin, for instance, you'll need PHP 5.2 or higher, as well as MySQL 5 or higher.

jmiddel · Apr 9, 2011, 02:34 PM

Apostacy, Is your primary desire for the Cube financial, $75-100 is cheap, or is it esthetic? I know the Cube was controversial, but I found it interesting to look at, though never owned one. If the former, well, then you have not much choice and will have to accept the limitations pointed out by the above posters. If the latter, you can find Intel mac minis for $425 or so. Even if they are older and slower models, they'll run fast circles around the dear old Cube. And you can add 4gigs of RAM, great speed boost. Moreover, the minis are quite cute to gaze at

dimmer · Apr 10, 2011, 12:05 AM

I've always wanted a G4 Cube

Then go get one. They are a beautiful design, very sweet to have around as a desk ornament (something you could never say of a Pentium III beige box, for example) -- sadly, they preceded the retail stores, and it was difficult to see just how sweet they were except in person. The Tyson's Corner store couldn't keep them in stock once people got to see them, but by then the knife had come down.

I agree with others here though: it's not a good choice for a server of any type. Sorry. But if it's important to you as an object of desire go ahead with that: just don't try to labor it into a server type role in the current marketplace. Others have already opined the rational behind that being an irrational choice.

OreoCookie · Apr 10, 2011, 07:07 AM

If you want a cheap, quiet server, I recommend you have a look at a Plug Computer. Prices start at ~$100 as well, they're completely silent and, depending on the model, have a lot more features. There are models with two GBit Ethernet ports, eSATA, SD card slots, they all have WLAN, Bluetooth and (relatively) fast 1+ GHz processors. You can even get an industry grade version with VGA out and space for a 2.5" harddrive for $249.

These machines all run Linux and you can use them for light file serving duties, routing, as a firewall and web server. In terms of cpu speed, they should be faster than a Cube.

seanc · Apr 10, 2011, 02:52 PM

A colleague of mine runs his webserver, mail and I believe DVB-T USB TV card from a single Sheeva plug - works really well for him.