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When my Macbook Pro isn’t being used, it usually stays cooped up in my bag, waiting for the time when I’m at Uni, or at a friends house. Sometimes those visits can be few and far between. I’m only in Uni one day a week.

So my thinking was that instead of relegating the Macbook Pro to my bag for the week, why not turn it into a server? After all, my current server is rather noisy and is running linux…

There’s a few things that make the Macbook Pro (or any other similarly configured notebook) suitable for a SOHO server:

• Small Form Factor - Obvious one. It’s a laptop. And a thin one at that. By no means is it an ultra portable, like an Asus EEE or the MacBook Air, but it’s still one of the thinnest notebook computers in its class. Being only an inch thick, it can slide into nice small places, or be kept in a draw.
• Quiet Running, Even Under Load - My current server is an HP Pavilion desktop tower. It’s probably safe to say that it has one of the noisiest cooling fans fitted to its CPU that money can buy. if that wasn’t enough, the server is silent - as long is its not under any load. But as soon as you put it under any kind of load, the fan will start to rev, and then eventually, turn up to full speed, and sometimes I can’t hear my TV over the noise it makes. This isn’t so with the Macbook Pro, its as quiet as a mouse at all times!
• Powerful Enough For Most Requirements - With it’s Core 2 Duo at 2.4 GHz and 2 GB of RAM, the Macbook Pro is already more powerful than my current server, with its P4 D, the faux dual core processor and 1 GB of RAM. The only thing the Macbook Pro lacks is a large direct storage solution. The most effective way to overcome it is to use external drives, which can be costly. Especially if you’ve chosen to use eSATA, which requires you to buy an express card for eSATA connectivity. however, its storage is adequate for small scale use, and firewire drives are inexpensive.
• Has Built In Power Backup - My current server has the option to reboot upon a power failure. This is great, only the system still goes down as soon as the power fails, and data corruption could occur when it happens. Without shelling out for an expensive UPS system, this can’t be prevented. However, notebooks already implement this kind of functionality because it has a battery. As soon as power is lost, the notebook switches to its battery supply. Power failures are no longer a problem. The system can be scripted to shutdown cleanly when it detects power failure which can prevent the data corruption.

To oversee all of this, I’ve given OS X 10.5 Server a go. At first glance, it seems like a very powerful server OS. Not just because of what it can do, but because of how well the tools to control everything are integrated with the OS. A lot of the functionality that OS X 10.5 Server gives you can be achieved using Open Source alternatives (come to think of it, most of the software it uses is Open Source). The Server Admin tool is very robust and acts as a central go-to for everything you need to configure. Much easier than having to delve into the command line and configuration files.

And there you have it. Why shell out for a dedicated server system, or a noisy desktop tower when you can have a decent server up and running using an notebook?